According to Michael Klare, Obama has now launched a “military-first” policy in Asia. Or what any sane person would call it, a LOSE/LOSE policy. During his Nov. 19, 2011 visit to Australia, in Canberra Obama declared:

"After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific region."

Klare paints the realpolitik, large, geo-political picture:

For the first time since the end of World War II, Washington is no longer the dominant economic actor there [Asia-Pacific region]. If the United States is to retain its title as the world's paramount power, it must, this thinking goes, restore its primacy in the region and roll back Chinese influence. In the coming decades, no foreign policy task will, it is claimed, be more important than this.

In line with its new strategy, the administration has undertaken a number of moves intended to bolster US power in Asia, and so put China on the defensive. These include a decision to deploy an initial 250 US Marines - someday to be upped to 2,500 - to an Australian air base in Darwin on that country's north coast, and the adoption on November 18 of "the Manila Declaration", a pledge of closer US military ties with the Philippines.

NUCLEAR GAME ON, FOLKS!!!

You know, it was tough deciding on the title of this blog. For one thing I consider the earnest but addled Quixote character far more innocent than I do Obama. I really wanted to work “Napoleonically-deranged” into the title, but Australia as Sancho was just too appealing.

Napoleonically-deranged? You betcha!

Yes. Those of us not steeped in anti-humanitarian denial recognize the rampant imperialism oozing out of our “amiable in photo ops” present President. It’s not that we are especially psychic or intuitive. We are just awake to what it meant to once have had a constitutional government, what fascism is and, okay, what “Thou Shalt Not Kill” means.

Obama is annointed as the “saner” candidate for president by an ostrich citizenry that denies it has any power or responsibility to select a candidate except for whom the 1-percent-run legacy parties and the craven corporate media (run worldwide by 5 conglomerate chieftains) instruct them to vote.

So America and the Western nations are economically circling the proverbial bowl thanks to the crony capitalism bonding of the pimped out pols, the pimped out educational elites, the banksters and oligarchichal profits over people pimps, and the media puppets/puppeteers. Collectively they betrayed the 99% by always going not for collective welfare but for their own short-term aggrandizement, even if they are destroying the planet for their own children, their children’s children, their further descendants.

“A rising tide will raise all boats”?

Maybe for MLK, RFK, Gandhi, OWS, DFH, Greens, etc. humanists. But what would be the sense of that to the "we’ve got ours and we still want more" power brokers and their authoritarian followers in profoundly post-morality America (as coined by David Brooks).

Have the one-percenters including and especially Obama, who is joined at the hip with them, learned from the destruction they have wrought? Have the majority of those with lives devastated by them even learned? No way.

Obama has ANOTHER idea to avoid a paradigm shift to humanism. To once again spit on the "rising tide raises all boats" answer for global salvation. (And some insaniacs still call Obama a "socialist"? HAH!)

Obama's grandiose "new (one percenter) deal"? His idea to “painlessly” for THE ONE PERCENTERS deal with the mounting economic disaster to the Western-nation portion of the globe that those same one-percenters have brought on is to use the US(Israel)/NATOWarMachine to dominate and intimidate expanding nations whom they don’t have their tentacles into deeply enough, YET. To drive them into the same armed to the teeth military obsessiveness and paranoia as the West. Enough with destroying Middle East proxy pawns. Onto stage 2 of evil hegemony!

Stage 2 is to get massive China and the rest of Asia into the same deranged “fossil energy possession/obsession” game. OIL!!!! To get them to accept into THEIR nation-leading group think, like the West, that OIL is worth its weight in human blood. And to recklessly hammer into Asian group-think that the West wants their OIL and their sources for OIL and are coming for them! Incidentally, that realization by Asian nations would NOT indicate paranoia!

"NUCLEAR GAME ON!" messages our "lesser of two evils" leader.

We all know the West has become more and more indebted for short term continued corporatists' self-serving from massive China.

Now there is the more than a twinkle in proving himself to the soulless corporate daddies in Obama’s eyes. A faux-short-cut of global military domination to side-step minimal leadership and power broker responsibility-taking in terms of cleaning up the chaotic mess the Western casino capitalism power brokers have wrought.

When in a civilization-destroying hole, the decision seems to have been made by the West and the ever-precious “Obama,” and whoever else may take the helm in 2012, JUST KEEP DIGGING!!!! Or put another way, the proverbial if the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer, everything appears a nail. Ever onward, the US, Israel, NATO WarMachine!

Cold war instigation? Continuing and expanding genocide? These are apparently anti-humanity, natural (for power addicts) options for the fabulously wealthy and morally callous as well as that incredibly large portion of the 99-percent that is on-board for ANYTHING as long as it is embraced by the "lesser of two evils" candidate. No matter how evil. No matter how destructive. In this case, soberly and mind-numbingly long- AND short-term destructive.

Michael Klare's analysis below SHOULD sober up all of us!

In addition, Washington could now be sparking the beginnings of a genuine Cold-War-style arms race in Asia, which neither country can, in the long run, afford. All of this is likely to lead to greater tension and a heightened risk of inadvertent escalation arising out of future incidents involving US, Chinese and allied vessels - such as the one that occurred in March 2009 when a flotilla of Chinese naval vessels surrounded a US anti-submarine warfare surveillance ship, the Impeccable, and almost precipitated a shooting incident. As more warships circulate through these waters in an increasingly provocative fashion, the risk that such an incident will result in something far more explosive can only grow.

"Greater reliance on ... the 'dirtiest' of energies will result in increased greenhouse gas emissions and a multitude of other environmental hazards."

Nor will the potential risks and costs of such a military-first policy aimed at China be restricted to Asia. In the drive to promote greater US self-sufficiency in energy output, the Obama administration is giving its approval to production techniques - Arctic drilling, deep-offshore drilling and hydraulic fracturing - that are guaranteed to lead to further Deepwater Horizon-style environmental catastrophe at home.

Greater reliance on Canadian tar sands, the "dirtiest" of energies, will result in increased greenhouse gas emissions and a multitude of other environmental hazards, while deep Atlantic oil production off the Brazilian coast and elsewhere has its own set of grim dangers.

All of this ensures that, environmentally, militarily and economically, we will find ourselves in a more, not less, perilous world. The desire to turn away from disastrous land wars in the Greater Middle East to deal with key issues now simmering in Asia is understandable, but choosing a strategy that puts such an emphasis on military dominance and provocation is bound to provoke a response in kind. It is hardly a prudent path to head down, nor will it, in the long run, advance America's interests at a time when global economic cooperation is crucial. Sacrificing the environment to achieve greater energy independence makes no more sense.

A new Cold War in Asia and a hemispheric energy policy that could endanger the planet: it's a fatal brew that should be reconsidered before the slide toward confrontation and environmental disaster becomes irreversible. You don't have to be a seer to know that this is not the definition of good statesmanship, but of the march of folly.