They're not just bankrupt economists; they're not the best emissaries for us abroad either.

It is not just economics where the capitalist class have forfeited their right to rule, or better still, where the bankruptcy of their rule is evident, but look at foreign policy.

I was reading today that the US is now supplying weapons to tribal leaders in Afghanistan so they can defend their villages against the Taliban. This sounds innocent enough unless you know some history.

The US funneled billions of dollars to the Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan in order to help them overthrow the Babrak Kamal government that was a pro-Soviet secular regime. From what I understand there were 400 factories in Kabul prior to the overthrow of the Kamal regime that ended with him catsrated and hung up on a lampost for public display. For US workers, we should have supported this regime that the likes of Bin Laden despised and offered an alternative to the Stalinist dictatorship. In the days of the cold war there were only two choices, the US or the Soviets.

The Islamists took power thanks to US taxpayer's money and we all know what the Taliban did when they were at the helm. Up until 1999, the entire Taliban leadership were in the pay of the US government. Even the puppet regime the US has installed in Afghanistan is critical if this latest US move to arm a new batch of tribal chiefs.

Then there's Iran. The US overthrew the secular democratic of Mossadegh in 1953 and installed the murderous Shah. The shah banned all dissent and made Iran his private bank just like Leopold of Belgium did with The Congo. In both cases, the US overthrew the opposition to these dictatorships and installed dictators of its own, Mobutu was The Congo's Shah and he killed some two million people.

Opposition in Iran went in to the Mosque's and the resistance politicized the Mullah's and the Mullah's, with the vacuum of leadership in the working class, much of which perished in the Shah's jails with the help of US intelligence, rose to power. Israel, another US stooge in the region, also funded Hamas, the elected government of Gaza that it is now trying to destroy. In each of these cases, (not Israel) nationalist, secular regimes were overthrown by the US in favor of murderous dictators who were willing to protect the interests of the oil giants and US capitalism in the region.

Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski couldn't have put it any plainer that in an interview with a Paris newspaper. He was asked if he regretted supporting Islamic fundamentalism and giving arms and advice to terrorists and he responded:

"What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war"

Oh how they miss the security and stability of the bi-polar world. Muslim opposition and the growth of Islamic terrorist groups has caused much more damage to profit taking that the Soviet Empire as they call it.

And the guys that caused all this mess are still in charge.