These extraordinary timesunprecedented in modern historyare marked by a worldwide depression and regional wars involving all the major imperial powers. This book exposes the roots of the crisis in the unsustainability of the United States military-driven empire building based on a volatile speculative economy, and influenced by Zionist policy makers committed to the colonialist state of Israel. It offers a critical study of the collapse of the empire and a profound indictment of the respectable and prestigious personalities either responsible for the debacle, or for its continuance, such as: Bernard Madoff, the mega-Wall Street swindler and former President of the powerful NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations), who is emblematic of the rise and decay of the US financial empire. President Barack Obama, who promised peace and change, whose election was symptomatic of profound popular disenchantment with endless military-Zionist driven empire building, and who upon election has escalated the war in Afghanistan and carried on with massive bailouts for Wall Street. Petras provides clear insight into how the ramifications of the world depression and regional wars that originated in Washington and on Wall Street are extending throughout the world, provoking popular challenges especially in Latin America, while reinforcing the belligerency and increasingly fascistic nature of the state of Israel. He demonstrates how unending wars and a deepening capitalist depression have demolished the ideology of free market neo-liberalism and forced to the forefront the need for structural changes. He points out how the collapse of the capitalist free market and the need for large-scale, long-term interventions by the state have once again raised the question