so we were at old hunza inn sometime last week having breakfast and watching al jazeera's coverage of obama's speech at cairo university on a range of issues pertaining to the muslim world and america's intentions vis-a-vis said issues. leaving the the surrealness of the situation aside, it was an interesting speech.

of particular interest was obama's announcement of the US intention to pour resources and a lot of money into muslim countries. my recollection of the speech is fuzzy but he seemed to suggest a comprehensive investment/loan package. education, infrastructure, healthcare are a but a few of the sectors that will receive the benefits of supposed US generosity.

i do not remember much of the history i studied in my jc days but this seemed like a rehash of the Marshall Plan. go wiki it if you need to. Obama himself declared that he was "a student of history" and i'm sure he, if not anyone else in his administration, recognised the parallels. so now, as at the start of the cold war, the USA has set itself against what it proclaims is a threat to human rights, international security, democracy and the good way of things. because money is a universal language, the usa seems to be again using it as the centrepiece of a strategy similar to the one used 50 odd years ago to combat its great enemy.

does the us need a perpetual enemy? it does keep the military occupiedl; idle armed forces start infighting which leads to military coups because generals need to find something to fight. if the ruling party is all there is so be it and they'll get revolutionary credit for it too. war is their raison d'etre after all. military spending makes some people rich. the normal people get to see their boys in action though i'm sure that the actual boys in question and their relations are less enamoured with the idea.

and so what happens after all the money goes to the powers that be in the recepient countries? how will it be spent? who will spend it? will the bucketloads of moolah bind the recepient countries economically to the usa forevermore, giving the usa a fortress of influence in the middle east.

it's still early in the morning and i've not had breakfast and i'm getting lazy so i'll stop the discussion here.