By Michael Collins

What a lovely photo of the two well-heeled leaders of the free world. Previously, it was the American cowboy president and the supposedly left leaning Prime Minister Tony Blair. That buddy act helped drag United States into the worst foreign policy disaster in its history. (Image full size)

This working partnership between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron portends less immediate damage than the Bush-Blair team. Nevertheless, there will be blood

Is there anything other than disaster awaiting the US and Great Britain in Afghanistan?

The response to the murder of sixteen Afghan civilians on March 12th has been disastrous for the United States with retaliatory attacks ongoing. Even before that, March 8 was a Deadly day for the Brits in Afghanistan with six soldiers killed in a bombing of an armored vehicle. General David Allen, in charge of the Afghanistan effort, lamented that this is the type of incident that could threaten the entire effort.

How will the U.S.-British enterprise recover from the latest in a series of insults to the Afghan people?

The people of the U.S. and Great Britain get the message. In a recent poll, 61% of citizens want U.S. troops home immediately. Only 19% oppose that decisive action. In Great Britain, 75% oppose the Afghan war effort.

With negligible public support and tottering economies, how can Obama and Cameron conceive, even for a moment, that withdrawal will last through the 2014 timeline?

What will they do about Syria?

President Assad's Syrian Army is cleaning out rebel strongholds. He is not cooperating with the Obama-Cameron storyline that he surrender his position as head of state. Syria is not giving in on the battle field. And the Syrian army, with mostly Sunni conscripts, is getting the job done.

Can Obama and Cameron pull another Libya - aggressive military action under the cloak of humanitarian aid?

The United Nations General Assembly has the same cast of characters willing to endorse the latest action but Russia and China are blocking action against Syria in the Security Council.

Absent the aid of NATO military forces augmented by Qatari spotters and cash, what can be done? With a far less disciplined army, Gaddafi forces were defeating the Libyan rebels on a routine basis until the humanitarian assault by NATO. Even with outside fighters in place, some from Libya, the Free Syria Army is failing.

Are the two leaders discussing the OTC derivatives market?

The U.S. and Great Britain are the purveyors of a major portion of over the counter (OTC) derivatives. This includes the sovereign debt Credit Default Swaps (CDS) polluting the world economy, particularly southern Europe.

Derivatives are a means of betting on foreign exchange, interest rates, commodities, and debt, corporate and sovereign. The size of the derivative market is $700 trillion (Bank for International Settlements (IBS), November 2011). The amount at risk in this unregulated global gambling scheme is around $20 trillion according to IBS, almost a third of the 2010 $63 trillion Gross World Product. The $1 trillion subprime derivatives market collapsed and nearly crashed the world economy.

What if more there are fissures in the $20 trillion at risk in the OTC derivatives market? A trillion here, a trillion there of losses and pretty soon we're talking about a global meltdown.

Did Obama and Cameron even raise this subject or are they faith based national leaders?

Has Vice President Joe Biden ever read The Quiet American by Graham Greene?

If he did, he's much deeper than anyone has ever expected. Introducing a toast to U.S.-British friendship over the years, Biden said:

"Graham Greene, in The Quiet American, said and wrote, “Friendship is something in the soul. It’s the thing one feels. It’s not a return for something.” I think that is a simple, best definition of the relationship between the United States and Great Britain." Vice President Joseph Biden, Official Lunch for David Cameron, March 14, 2002

Is this some coded message from the vice president, a warning about British treachery? The Quiet American revolves around the conflict between a British journalist and Alden Pyle. The story is set in Vietnam during the French collapse in the 1950s. Quiet American Pyle is a classic whiz kid with sure fire pan to save Vietnam from the red tide. The British journalist has Pyle murdered to resolve a love triangle the two have with a Vietnamese woman.

Is Biden just clueless in D.C. or is this some strange irony meant to warn us about British treachery? Enquiring minds want to know?

Why should more than a very few care about the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain? The real relationship driving the friendship and shared national policy is between the financial elites and national security state fanatics in both countries. That relationship produces something more aptly referred to as a predatory rather than a special relationship.

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