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 Putsch is playing games with world peace, one day saying that the United States must take any and all actions necessary to depose the dread Saddam Hussein, and the next batting his eyes and insisting that he wouldn’t dream of a unilateral attack without consulting with allies, many of whom are convinced that America has fallen gibbering, hissing and spitting, to a lawless junta and thus are not impressed with Putsch’s blandishments.

 The rest of the world is regarding America in much the way a neighborhood might regard a large, powerful, but until now unaggressive dog who has just suddenly begun foaming at the mouth for no discernable reason..

 Most of our allies, of course, are diving for cover.  This particular dog has 7,500 nuclear weapons and the most powerful military in the history of the word.  It’s really something that everyone would just as soon not have in their neighborhood.  People are exchanging glances and wondering just what is going to stop this animal.

 Vladimir Putin, George’s old soul-mate, into whose eyes George gazed so earnestly, finding a simpatico soul, suddenly dumped the main provision of the START II treaty this week, announcing that instead of scrapping 144 MIRVs by 2007, as was originally planned, Russia would refurbish them instead, planning on keeping them active through at least 2014.

 These are intercontinental ballistic missiles, each capable of delivering 10 warheads of up to 1 megaton each to the other side of the globe.

 Putin hasn’t suddenly decided he needs these deadly little toys because he might need to discipline Chechnya, or because he’s worried about Israel or Brazil.  He’s worried about America.

 Last week, Russia announced a trade deal with Iraq that would be for about $40 billion US a year.  The US administration waved that aside, deeming it unimportant and irrelevant.  That probably had something to do with Putin’s decision.  To the US, where an energy company can steal $40 billion in a week, it probably isn’t that big a deal, but to the Russians, still trying to recover from the gang raping they received at the hands of unrestricted capitalists in the nineties, it’s a significant amount of their GNP.

 It’s interesting that Russia would ink a deal like that with Iraq at a time when Putsch is doing all that saber-rattling against Saddam.  There’s a message in that, too.

 Restoring the nuclear horror of the cold war is a small price to pay in fighting terror, don’t you think?

 Putsch also decided to lean hard on the Saudis.  If he had done this in the wake of 9/11, I would have applauded it heartily, since I believe that if there is any one nation that was responsible for the attacks on 9/11, it was them.

 Instead, he attacked Afghanistan, simultaneously pretending he was doing something to respond to the attacks while working to create a puppet regime in a strategically important area.  To this end he murdered thousands of innocent people and made a sick joke of all the “America stands tall” crap he was spouting in the aftermath.

 But now, for whatever reason, he is leaning on Saudi Arabia.  Better late than never, and if he alienated the rest of the world between then and now, that’s the world’s problem.

 But Saudi Arabia has its own weapons.  Financial.  It started with a boycott of all American products in Saudi Arabia.  Even with the voracious appetite for all things material that the corrupt and contemptible royals of the House of Saud have, it’s unlikely that anyone in America would notice the boycott, not even Coca-Cola.  (In one of those bizarre events that could only occur in a religiously insane theocracy, the hot new beverage there is something called “Zamzam Cola”, a carbonated beverage made from the holy waters of the well of Zamzam on the outskirts of Mecca.  A rumor is spreading that drinking the stuff will give you everlasting life.  Blessed are those who belch, for they shall have 72 houris to Clinton.  Pope John Paul II, are you paying attention? Cola made from holy water sells like a sumbitch.  If the RC gets on the stick right now, they can avoid being just another 2,000 year wonder and make some serious money.)

 So the great boycott of the great Satan didn’t work out, and probably just created a black market in Levis for the women to wear under their chadours.

 So the next thing the Saudis are doing is pulling out of all their investments in America.

 That presents a problem.  They already pulled out, over the past couple of days, some $200 billion dollars.  They have another $600 billion invested here, and apparently aim to yank the carpet out from under that, too.

 That’s a big enough chunk of money that it could actually do our economy some damage, and despite all the shrill cheerleading from the Republicans, the economy has been kind of flopping around like a wounded turkey, and the outlook remains – to use a favorite Wall Street idiom – “unsettled.”

 “Unsettled” means we are screwed sideways.

 So it’s a hit that we couldn’t really afford, and I can’t make head or tails of what Putsch hopes to accomplish.  I mean, if Putsch was honest and cared about Americans rather than his corporate buddies, then picking a fight with Saudi Arabia makes sense.  After all, they are the main financiers of the terrorism in the middle east and doubtlessly played a big role in the WTC attacks.

 But this doesn’t make sense.  Even with the hold Israel has on the American right, it doesn’t make sense, because Israel understands as well as Putsch does that America is too dependent on Saudi Arabian oil to put up any sort of bellicose front.

 Making the House of Saud – already shaky in that benighted land – fall would be a tremendous mistake.  The replacement would be the mullahs, or worse, al Qaida.  There’s nothing in that scenario that benefits America, financially or any other way.

 But we have the Russians rearming and deliberately setting up alliances with Putsch’s enemy.  We have the Saudis apparently declaring economic warfare on us.  And of course, all our other allies are backing away from us as fast as they can.

 That Putsch wants a war doesn’t seem to be in much doubt.  What is puzzling, though, is why he would want one that he is unlikely to win.

-- Julius Caesar on Patriotism