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USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 02-04-2008
Going Bankrupt: Why the Debt Crisis Is America's Greatest Threat
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 02-05-2008
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...pid=220&page=31
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Conclusions
During the Cold War era Russia was Communist and India non-aligned. British imperialism had ended and given place to Anglo-American neo-colonialism. India as a non-aligned country wanted friendship of all, but was viewed with suspicion by western powers. They struck a pro-Pakistan posture and tacitly encouraged Kashmirâs secession. In North-East India they facilitated Baptist-inspired separatism. Notably, religion was used as an instrument of politics in both arenas to trouble India. Russia, as the prime component of communist Soviet Union, stood by India in all confrontations with Pakistan, was the largest supplier of military hardware and helped India to industrialise, whereas America backed off from a signed agreement to build a single steel plant.
Now the world paradigm has changed. The conflicts are no longer ideology-based but civilisation-based, as per Huntington (1996), and the most important ingredient of a civilisation is its religion. In this era what is the probability that America would retract from fomenting trouble in the North East by reigning in funding from the Baptists? It is pretty much nil, in my opinion. America herself is in the grip of evangelist fervour as Baptists and Episcopalians are gradually merging, and support of the Christianist militants of the north-east will likely gain momentum. America, in this mood, cannot be a reliable strategic partner. In addition America has to appease the Muslim world in all other theaters except in the Arab-Israeli conflict of West Asia. She has conveniently picked Orthodox Christianity as the adversary and has encouraged Islamist separatists in Kosovo and Chechnya, and bombed Serbia to Stone Age, in order to neutralise the effect of the AIK factor. For a long time America had categorised Islamist terrorism in Kashmir as freedom struggle, and only recently has resiled from that stand. When Afghanistanâs and North-West Pakistanâs Taliban militancy becomes somewhat pacified, America will likely revert back to her original Kashmir posture again, to reward (and perhaps stabilise) Pakistan for her cooperation in the Afghan frontier.
Our foreign policy seems ill-advised and short-sighted. We seem to be putting all our eggs in the American basket. We may have limited joint naval exercises with America but should not enter into any military or strategic pact or understanding with her. However, we should join the CSTO, retain our military base and presence in Tajikistan and influence events in Afghanistan. If China can have close economic ties with the USA, hold billions of dollars worth of US treasury bonds and help maintain the world dollar standard on one hand, and cozy up to CSTO on the other, why cannot India continue her traditional friendship with Russia and at the same time have a working relation with the USA? What the government is proposing right now is an extremely close strategic tie-up with America to the detriment of our relation with Russia. In the end it is a question of finesse in conducting foreign policy. We should learn from Pakistan; observe how it acquires nuclear power with the help of China, carries on ambivalently with the Taliban and yet milks her relationship with the USA to the last drop. In contrast, our foreign policy is offending our traditional and reliable friend, Russia by a ham-handed one-sided approach. The government must rethink and change direction. What I have tried to show is that, under the present geo-political circumstances, Orthodox-majority non-Communist and secular Russia is a natural and reliable ally of Hindu-majority non-Communist and secular India. The Orthodox, unlike the Protestant and Catholic, do not have a proselytising mission to convert the rest of the world to their faith, and religion matters in todayâs world.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 02-10-2008
Argen Press, Argentina
World Criminal Networks Concealed as Foreign Policy in US
Radicalization of Americaâs Right
By Gustavo Herren
Translated Fortunato Brown
February 01, 2008
Argentina - Argen Press - Original Article (Spanish)
The US has unilaterally divided the world into 5 regions (including China and Russia) under the guardianship of 5 permanent military commands. This demonstrates the existence of a plan for global domination beyond the fiction of so-called conspiracy theories.
After the end of 2008, there will be 6 regions, since USAFRICOM has been created especially for Africa (Egypt excepted) (1).
Each command constitutes a control center of military operations, with a communications and coordination structure activated and ready for action as soon as a conflict is present, which according to the US President and the Secretary of Defense demand the massive participation of their combat forces in that region.
The so-called âArea of Responsibilityâ of the South Command (USSOUTHCOM), based in Miami, Florida, covers 31 countries in the Caribbean, part of Central America, and all of South America.
In order to reinforce its presence in its waters (oceans, waterfronts and rivers) and to monitor operations, just as the Fifth Fleet does in the Persian Gulf, the US will reactivate the Fourth Naval Fleet (which during World War II covered the Caribbean area and the South Atlantic, and was deactivated in 1949). Now it will have submarines and ships with nuclear and conventional weapons, such as the nuclear USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier or USS George H.W. Bush (which will go into operation in 2009) and in a few years with USS Gerald Ford, the first aircraft carrier with stealth technology invisible to radar, electromagnetic catapults to launch planes, and possibly non conventional cannons of such type. All these are manufactured by one of the largest multinationals of the military industrial complex, Northrop Grumman, one of the principal motors of the US economy and largest employment provider.
It is estimated that the military establishment provides employment and financial support directly or indirectly to at least 60 million voters in the US.
Washington is worried about the looming internal recession, and on the other hand monitors the Venezuelan self-determination (which it considers to be belligerence), the Latin American integration process, the development of Brazil as a potential regional nuclear power, and the possible reactivity spots such as Cuba and Panama.
In the Middle East, Iran has been surrounded by countries invaded by or collaborating with the US, or which it makes sure will not become hostile, such as Turkmenistan (which has the fifth largest gas reserves of any nation in the world), with relations with Russia, the EU and Iran.
The surprise and the lessons learned in Iraq can show that G.W. Bush may not have enough time to carry out and settle a blitzkrieg against Iran, without leaving it in underway during the next administration.
His government is trying to demonstrate that it is attaining advances and a certain âbalanceâ in Iraq.
It may be probable that in order to maintain the growth of the military industrial activity, he will need to disturb the stability of the Caribbean and Latin American region.
According to the Pentagon, there exists a âglobal instability archâ from the Andean region (including Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia), Central America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
But regions cannot be disconnected according to the geopolitics of the US if it is to achieve the global domination.
It is alert to nations that have a capacity to respond in a political-military manner; therefore its strategic objectives are directed to the control of Eurasia, pointing to Russia and the development of China as a capitalist economic power, and in a second front to aspiring regional powers such as India, Pakistan or Iran.
The countries in the regions can be represented as nodes or apexes linked by several covert criminal operations. A complex invisible type of network, like a dark spiderweb.
For Washington, what occurs in the Middle East, for example, not the independence of the Balkans or the Caucasus, nor Central or South America, nor other far-off regions of the world are unrelated.
The plan for global control by the US implies establishing strategic and tactical connections among regions of the world.
Be they destabilizing and war techniques employed in one region and adapted to other (such as psychological and ideological war operations, social and intelligence wars) or illegal arms trafficking triangulated with and drug trafficking. The connections require economic flux among regions. It uses, for example, the sale of arms or of drugs in one to finance destabilizing groups in another.
Back in the 80s, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US sent weapons covertly through Pakistan for resistance, while on the border it encouraged the production of drugs, and with the money collected (via CIA-ISI, Pakistanâs Military Intelligence Services) it financed several Islamic insurgent groups.
In 1986, Reaganâs administration (1981-89) was directly involved in the clandestine sale of weapons to Iran, fueling the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1989), while the funds so obtained were channeled on one side via Pakistanâs ISI to finance the Islamic fundamentalists that operated in Afghanistan; on the other side, the funds were used to illegally finance the insurgent right-wing pro-US militants (Contras) in Nicaragua, who fought the Sandinist leftist government of Daniel Ortega (1979-90), which was forbidden by the US Congress through the Boland Amendment, which launched the Iran-contra case (Irangate).
Initially in about 1980, the Contras received support from the Argentinian government and from the US through the CIA.
With a similar mechanism, but without getting directly involved (having learned from Reaganâs lesson), G.H. Bushâs administration (1989-1983) indirectly supported the clandestine remittance of arms to Croatia and Bosnia in order to encourage secession from the Yugoslavian Federation (who faced Serbia the strongest member of the Federation).
The same policy of illegal arm trafficking continued under B. Clintonâs administration (1993-2001). The clandestine remittance was sent through third countries as Turkey, Hungary, Iran, Syria, Ukraine and Argentina. In the latter, the profitable operation is claimed to have been carried out by Carlos Saul Menem administration, in which arms made by the local Military Manufacturing outfit would have been included, under the guise of secret decrees of sales to Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador, as close friendly relations. However, the US does not reward traitors.
In the region of Baluchistan (Pakistan), the US currently applies patterns similar to those employed in the 90s in Bosnia and Kosovo (regions of former Yugoslavia) where the Intelligence Services, the CIA together with Great Britainâs MI6 and Germanyâs BND, financed and supported ânational liberationâ armies. For the training of the Islamic paramilitary of Kosovoâs Liberation Army (KLA), for example, private enterprises of mercenaries were hired. Part of the financing of the KLA came from the sale of drugs from Pakistan.
The US plan for the Middle East is related to that for Central Asia (fine-tuned to the interests of its associates, Great Britain and Israel). The configuration of the New Middle East and Central Asia does not discard the convenience of promoting a progressive displacement of borders according to the ethnicities and religions that predominate in each region (In some Islamic branches the concept of Nation-State, which is a western invention, does not prevail). To that purpose they resort to covert operations that trigger violence in latent sectarian conflicts in the current countries to stimulate ethnic-religious divisions. The final result is a decentralizing process that weakens the institutions of the central governments, leading to what Washington calls âSoft Secessionâ (2), which does not reach the fragmentation (as was promoted in 1990 through the International Monetary Fund in Yugoslavia), but nevertheless facilitates the change in regime in its favor. These strategies can be seen in Iraq and Pakistan (3),
Iraq-US: âWavesâ
When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, there were contradictions between the two main branches of Islamism, sunni and shiites, but the population was mixed in a tribal coexistence without any violence, as in other regions, such as Syria.
The occupation by the US triggered an internal war process, which could be controlled only in intensity and that continued until the physical separation of sunni and shiites.
By stimulating violence and sectarian slaughter, the development of the process was accelerated, so the âwavesâ of troops sent by G.W. Bush worked to contain the maximum peaks of sectarian violence, while gaining the time needed to complete the final state of ethnic-religious homogenization by zones, which was expected to reduce the sectarian violence.
Besides, in order to diminish the violence toward America, they exploited the fact that the demographic division had diminished the complexity of the system and permitted them to reach locally some sunni sectors of resistance (rivals of the shiites in the Iraqi government), and to negotiate their non-hostility toward the invaders through convenient mutually beneficial agreements, such as by using economic incentives, bribes, and by attracting unstable elements caused by the âexcesses in the sectarian fightsâ.
For this mission, the US applied in 2007 the new plan of counterinsurgency, in whose design participated anthropologists and other mercenary social scientists (4). As stated by the Pentagon, in zones of the Anbar province (central west of Iraq) and in Baghdad (center) it had managed to keep deactivated a significant part of the sunni resistance, about 70 thousand active insurgents, by means of what it calls the âAwakening Movementâ (al Sahwa).
However, from passive insurgents who supported the active ones, estimated at three million (5) and who do not constitute a unified sunni community, had to be influenced.
The US will be able to employ the militia sunni movement âAwakeningâ which it claims to have created, as a power counterweight to the current Iraqi government which does not control all the territory, composed of kurds in the North and shiites in the South (bordering Iran) and about whose loyalty Washington has some reservations.
In the province of Diyalah (in the East of Iraq), in the southern zone of the Baghdad province and in Ninevah (on the North West of Iraq), the resistance has not, however, ceased. In this latter province, the Pentagon is carrying out savage air attacks and massive arrests of suspects, which will end up with the overtake of its capital, Mosul, (Operation Ghost Phoenix; Operation Phantom Phoenix), in the other two provinces offensives have already been effected.
According to the G.W. Bushâs government spokespeople, the âwaves of troops are payingâ, and have contributed to a significant increase of security and stability in Iraq (6). However, other recognized analysts hold different opinion (7) or are even cautious (8).
Iraq-US-Al Qaeda: Iraqi Resistance
A good form of attack is to be able to manipulate the strengths of our enemy to our benefit without his knowing it.
When referring above to the âexcesses of the sectarian fightâ, we observe the notorious infiltration in Iraq after the occupation by US of Al Qaeda militia, mainly of non-Iraqi origin, of the takfirist line (9).
In the beginning, the resistance against the Anglo-American invaders was formed by a very active block of sunni (some of them former Sadam Hussein collaborators) and another block of shiites of lesser reactivity, due to certain agreements and because they constitute a significant part of the Iraq government.
Then, a third enemy of America appeared, Al Qaeda, who initially combated with links to the mainly sunni resistance. Later on, it began to commit bloody excesses and intimidation against civil Iraqis and against shiites and sunnis in the resistance, which actions exacerbated the internal sectarian war. As Admiral G. Smith, spokesman of the Anglo-American occupation forces declared, âAl Qaeda considers Iraq its own caliphate and the center for the propagation of Taliban ideology to the Arab worldâ.
Thus the open rupture and military confrontation between the Iraqi resistance groups and takfirists of Al Qaeda that began in 2005 in the central-west province of Al Anbar where, for example, Al Qaeda militants slaughtered several sunni imans who supposedly had condemned them publicly for not respecting agreements of not assassinating Iraqi policemen who worked in the zones controlled by the resistance.
The excesses of the savage violence by Al Qaeda against civilians and militants of the Iraqi sunny resistance in Anbar and Baghdad brought an adverse reaction and some of its elements were attracted by Americans (by means of financing, convenient benefits, arm supplies and intimidation: the Awakening movement), and they overturned their fighting, confronting Al Qaeda and diminishing their hostility to the invaders, the Americans, who were the beneficiaries.
In this way the Defense Department strategically deviates the attention toward
Al Qaeda instead of toward the Iraqi resistance; it is the central âexternal enemyâ for the coalition and for Iraqis. (10)
Iraq-US-Al Qaeda: Chetchen terrorism
During the second Chechen war (1999-2006) a process similar to the Al Qaeda excesses in Iraq occurred. When the secessionist Chechen guerrillas that employed terrorist tactics against Russians, mainly of the Islamic branch called wahabist (11), they committed savage excesses against civilian Chechen and other combatants who also fought the Russians. This divided the insurgency and many of its militants began to cooperate with their former enemies, the Russian forces, in order to fight their former allies, the wahabists.
The relation between the Chetchenian combatants and the Islamic jihad was established during the resistance to the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 80s.
In 1985, the government of R. Reagan and his vicepresident G.H.W. Bush (1981-89) approved directive NSDD 166 (12), which officially authorized the progressive military assistance and support to the religious instruction to the mujahedins, but according to the former CIA Director and current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates âthe covert assistance by CIA to mujahedins had begun during Jimmy Carterâs government (1977-81) before the soviet invasion (1979).
In the 80âs, the insurgency in Afghanistan against the soviets was implemented from Pakistan. Among others, the religious schools from Madras, the Madrassas, conducted by the Islamic sect wahabi from Saudi Arabia, financed by USAID and CIA provided training, arms and religious training. The Islamic militants (except some higher level members) didnât know that behind the religious motives, the covert objective was to destroy the URSS, and also that they being financed and indirectly supported by the US and by the monarchy and foundations from Saudi Arabia and by other non democratic states in the Gulf. The Pakistani military government supported the paramilitary Islamic operations through its military intelligence service (ISI).
After the collapse of the URSS, the CIA and ISI continued supporting the Islamic militants in Pakistan, who were sent to the Middle East, the South of Asia, the Balkans, Central Asia and the Caucasus to work as catalysts for the fragmentation of the URSS.
Early in the 80âs Osama Bin Laden (a member of a billionaire family) was recruited and trained by the CIA for the jihad in the occupied Afghanistan. But ten years later, the URSS had disappeared as the enemy, and in the Gulf War
(1990-91) when the US built military bases in the âholy landâ o Saudi Arabia and its troops were stationed on the sacred desert of the wahabists, some militant organizations, as Al Qaeda, began to understand that the interest of the US was geostrategic and that of its multinational corporations, above anything else, including the religious aspect, and they turned little by little against the US.
In 1994, the Chechen Shamil Basayev was militarily trained in the CIAâs training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The next year he returned to Chechnya and became one of the principal leaders of the separatist insurgency that tried to obtain independence from the Russian Federation. The links with the line of Taliban-Pakistan, the ISI, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden go back to those days. Contact with Bin Laden was maintained through the commander Al Khattab, a wahabi Saudi mujahedin and important leader in the secessionist guerrilla movement.
In this case, the bloody excesses of the separatist Islamic terrorists against their sufi Islamic peers in their fight against Russia, paradoxically benefited Russia, which managed to break the secessionist movement and re-conquer the territory.
Building the credible terrorist enemy Base
Since its origin in the 18th century, the fundamentalist belief by the power elites in the US of its superior manifest destiny as the worldâs leading Capitalist power moved it, to continue its exceptional status, to large-scale pilferage and the appropriation of primary resources from all over the planet with a temporary exchange value for its economic and social system.
The expected reactions of western countries in the face of exploitation are different from those of Asia. Here, ânon-penetratedâ sectors of
ethnic, religious and nationalist populations exist. Therefore, in order to justify the attack by the US and its associates against the Islamic world, they resorted as a screen to the demographic hypothesis of âclash of civilizationsâ promoted by S. Huntington.
The brutal attack on the World Trade Center (2001) that Washington continues to suspect was perpetrated by the Al Qaeda organization (The Base) and Afghanistanâs Taliban (13) was paradoxically functional for the US, Great Britain and other partners.
In that action appears a credible actor, necessary for the âGlobal War against Terrorismâ promoted by the fundamentalist neocons.
Even if Al Qaeda had committed the 9/11 attacks, it could not make the US collapse (as could have the soviet block), but just the opposite, nor has it the capacity to destroy a whole country, even by using nuclear terrorism.
Just like the other groups classified as terrorists, Al Qaeda does not constitute a world army. The Global War against Terror that the US wants to impose is only a fantasy. There is no situation of âglobal warâ but âarmed conflictsâ that can be either local or international (as the conflict between the US and the Taliban, in Afghanistan), or situations against international crime. A world armed conflict permanent and without end does not exist.
If the most sought after terrorist leader Bin Laden were captured, it would be a hard blow not against terrorism but against the War on Terror.
The US is not interested in stopping the terrorist Islamic fundamentalism, since it is useful for its purposes. On one side because it is not a real threat to its survival as a power, and on the other, because with its excesses and ethnic-religious divisions it serves to dismantle in countries that have Islamic components, genuine social movements that are contrary to US interests.
In the western countries, Washingtonâs propaganda tries to consolidate public opinion in the face of the credible external threat of the Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism so that if the case is present it can justify its military intervention in some countries as humanitarian, democratic and liberating.
Behind the mask of the Global War against Terror, State Terror through the worldwide plans of the US to expand its domination and influence on other countriesâ territories advances.
References:
1) USAFRICOM (United States Africa Command)
2) In Venezuela after the failure of the classic coup, the US applied the concept of the âsoft coupâ. But supporting the âsoft secessionâ of the Zulia region, and in Bolivia the Santa Cruz region are maintained as possibilities.
3) M. Chossudovsky, âThe Destabilization of Pakistanâ, December 30, 2007, Global Research.
4) The Counterinsergency Manual FM 3-24 (US Army Field Manual) or MCWP 3-33-5 (Marine Corps Warfighting Publication) gives an idea about how operations are being conducted.
5) G. Herren, âMathematics of Warâ, 23/7/06, Argenpress.
6) âMeasuring Stability and Security in Iraqâ, Report to Congress. In accordance with the Department of Defense Appropriations.
7) Ivo H. Daalder, âIraq After the Surgeâ, December 28, 2007, Brookins Institution.
8) G. Bruno, âIraq Surgeâs Mixed Messagesâ, January 17, 2008, Council of Foreign Relations.
9) Takfirists, branches of Islam concomitant with the Takfir wal Hijra group (Excommunion of infidels) of extreme fundamentalists (born in the 60âs) who may consider apostates and enemies including other Islamists.
10) J. Garamone, âAl Qaeda Remains Coalitionâs, Iraqâs Biggest Targetâ, Jan. 20, 2008, US Department of Defense.
11) Wahabi, extremist Islamic branch, followers of Muhammad Ibn Abd al Wahhab since late in the 18th century. Currently they concentrate their influence in the Arab Peninsula. They may consider apostates and enemies even other Islamists.
12) NSDD 166: Directive on National Security Decision 166.
13) Condoleezza Rice, â9/11: For the Recordâ, March 22, 2004, Department of State. www.america.gov
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 02-16-2008
A Century Of War
By F. William Engdahl
Review By Stephen Lendman - Part 1
2-11-8
F. William Engdahl is a leading researcher, economist and analyst of the New World Order who's written on issues of energy, politics and economics for over 30 years. He contributes regularly to publications like Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine, Grant's Investor.com, European Banker and Business Banker International. He's also a frequent speaker at geopolitical, economic and energy related international conferences and is a distinguished Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization where he's a regular contributor.
Engdahl wrote two important books. This writer reviewed his latest one in three parts called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." It's the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting animal and vegetable life forms. They aim to control food worldwide, make it all genetically engineered, and use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.
The book is a sequel to Engdahl's first one and subject of this review - "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." It's breathtaking in scope and content, and a shocking and essential history of geopolitics and strategic importance of oil. The book is reviewed in-depth so readers will know the type future Henry Kissinger had in mind in 1970 when he said: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people." Engdahl recounts the story in his two masterful books, both critically essential reading.
The story line in his first one began late in the 19th century when oil's advantage was first realized, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill told Parliament in 1919:
"We must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source, of at least a proportion of the supply (of oil) which we require....and obtain our oil supply, so far as possible, from sources under British control, or British influence."
After defeating Napoleon in 1815, Britain was supreme until America emerged predominant during WW II. Engdahl explains how: through two pillars and one commodity - unchallengeable military power and the dollar as the world's reserve currency combined with the quest to control global oil and other energy resources.
Engdahl calls his book "no ordinary history of oil" because what he recounts is suppressed in the mainstream and what passes for education in America. It settles for mediocrity, ignorance, and a barely literate public by design. As a result, people don't know that US manipulators arranged "the greatest confidence game the world had ever seen" - a "special hegemony" to:
-- print limitless dollar paper certificates to buy every imaginable product;
-- accumulate endless trade deficits;
-- "inflate (the) currency beyond imagination;" -- have the government pay interest on its own money; and
-- create an unprecedented public and private debt to enrich an elite few at the expense of the greater good.
So far it's worked because people haven't caught on, other nations need our markets, fear our might, and countries like China, Japan and petrodollar recyclers remain lenders of last resort. Combined, it let America rule the world, control its energy, and crush all upstart competition. Washington had a good role model, and that's where the story begins.
The Three Pillars of the British Empire
Geopolitical history for the last 100 years was shaped around the quest for what Big Oil acolyte Daniel Yergin called "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power" with two countries at its epicenter - first Britain and now America with its UK junior partner that built its rule on three essential pillars:
-- controlling the seas and setting the terms of trade;
-- dominating world banking and manipulating the world's largest gold supply; and
-- controlling world raw materials with oil the key one at the turn of the century; with these working, it devised an "informal empire" to loot world wealth and maintain a balance of power on the continent.
Britain's "genius" was being able to shift alliances without letting sentiment interfere with its interests. Post-Waterloo, it operated "on an extremely sophisticated marriage between top (London) bankers and financiers, government cabinet ministers," key industrialists and espionage chiefs. By keeping everything secret, it "wielded immense power over credulous and unsuspecting foreign economies." By the late 19th century, however, things began to change, and a new strategy was needed. Key to it was oil geopolitics as a vital naval supremacy ingredient.
The Lines are Drawn: Germany and the Geopolitics of the Great War
The importance of oil and emergence of continental economies (especially in Germany) provided the backdrop to WW I. By the late 19th century, British bankers and political elites were alarmed that German industrial and technological development began surpassing its own that was in decline. Included was a modern German merchant and naval fleet and an ambitious railway project linking Berlin with Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman empire. At stake was British hegemony, and preserving it led to war.
Prior to its outbreak, coal was king, German output was impressive and so was its growth:
-- its steel production increased 1000% in 20 years, leaving Britain far behind by 1900;
-- its state-backed rail infrastructure doubled in track kilometers from 1870 to 1913;
-- with the advent of centralized electric power generation and long-distance transmission, its electrical industry exploded to dominate half the world's trade by 1913;
-- impressive research built the country's chemical industry and made Germany the world leader in analine dye production, pharmaceuticals and chemical fertilizers;
-- German agriculture thrived; it made "astonishing" gains from the introduction of "scientific agriculture chemistry" and produced an 80% grain harvest increase from 1887 to 1914;
-- population growth was dramatic - 75% to 67 million between 1870 and 1914;
-- Germany's merchant fleet rocketed to second place in the world behind Britain and at a pace to overtake it;
-- steel and engineering advances were achieved; and consider another British concern:
-- early in the century, British Dreadnought battleship leadership was surpassed; Germany's super model was superior and that spelled trouble for UK sea power supremacy; by 1910, "dramatic remedies" were needed; Germany's economic emergence had to be confronted, its growing naval strength as well, and for the first time oil was a factor.
A Global Fight for Control of Petroleum Begins
By 1882, British Admiral Lord Fisher saw oil's potential as qualitatively superior to coal. It required one-quarter the tonnage, one-third the engine weight, and expanded a fleet's "radius of action" fourfold. It was first used in 1885 after Gottlieb Daimler developed the internal combustion engine. Another 20 years passed, however, before its importance was realized, and that created a problem. Britain had no oil and needed a supply.
Up to then, its Middle East presence was limited, but that changed after oil was discovered in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (now Iran) in 1908. It secured Britain an "extraordinarily significant exclusive right (to potential) vast untapped petroleum deposits" for the country's newly formed Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC).
Earlier in 1899, German industrialists and bankers got Ottoman approval for a Berlin-Baghdad railway. The aim - to establish strong economic ties to Turkey and develop new markets in the East. Once extended to Kuwait, it would be the fastest, cheapest rail link to the Indian subcontinent, and that spelled trouble for Britain. It would challenge UK supremacy and had to be confronted.
The project was costly and needed help to complete, so Germany turned to Britain. London, for its part however, used "every device known to delay and obstruct progress. The game lasted" until war began in 1914 and after Britain secured an exclusive oil development "lease in perpetuity" in what today is Iraq and Kuwait. Yet competition remained because Germany got the Ottoman emperor to grant its Baghdad Railway Company full rights to all oil and minerals on a parallel 20 kilometers of land on either side of the rail line. By 1912, oil's importance was apparent, and geologists discovered it between Mosul and Baghdad.
WW I stalled efforts for a German-owned oil company, independent of Rockefeller interests. At a time, the US produced over 63% of world supply, Russia's Baku 19% and Mexico 5%. Britain's new APOC was barely a player when First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill convinced the government to buy a majority interest in what today is British Petroleum (BP). "From that point, oil was at the core of British strategic interests," and the game was this - secure its own supplies, deny them to key rivals like Germany, and do it if necessary by war.
That became London's scheme early in the century when Britain, France and Russia allied in a Triple Entente against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian powers. By 1907, it was solidified, effectively encircled Germany, and it laid the foundation for the coming showdown with Kaiser Wilhelm II. From then until 1914, preparations were made for the "final elimination of the German threat." Included was a "series of continuous crises and regional (Balkans) wars (in) the 'soft underbelly' of Central Europe." Three months after the alliance, Austria's heir to the throne was assassinated in Sarajavo, and it "detonated the Great War."
Oil Becomes the Weapon, the Near East the Battleground
WW I was no different from other wars. Imperial, territorial and economic rivalries were at its root. It lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918 and at a time Britain was effectively bankrupt, had big plans along with other combatants, plus a "secret weapon" that later emerged: the special relationship of "His Majesty's Treasury" with The House of Morgan.
The conflict matched the Allied powers of Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Montenegro, Italy, Portugal, Japan and for its last seven months the US against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Ottoman Turkey. The timeline was as follows:
-- on June 28, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated;
-- on July 28, Austria declared war on Serbia;
-- on August 1, Germany declared war on Russia;
-- on August 3, Germany declared war on France and invaded Belgium on August 4; and
-- on August 4, Britain declared war on Germany, and the world was at war. Four years later, its toll was horrific, and four empires were destroyed - Ottoman Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia. Later on, so would Britain's, but in 1914 schemes and intrigue drove the winners to reallocate the spoils, especially where it was thought large oil deposits lay.
Well before 1914, Britain's geostrategy was threefold:
-- create and preserve an unchallengeable global empire;
-- defeat its main rival Germany; and -- secure and control the most strategically important resource - oil that was crucial to winning the war.
At its end, Britain's Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon commented: "The Allies were carried to victory on a flood of oil." Germany ran short and lost because it couldn't mount a decisive offensive in 1918. In 1915, however, Britain gambled and lost. It failed to defeat Turkey in the Battle of Gallipoli, and the stakes involved were high - to secure Russia's rich Baku oil fields at a time they supplied almost a fifth of world production. It was early in the war, Britain ultimately prevailed, and in no small measure by preemptively occupying Baku in August, 1918 to deny Germany its vital resources.
Throughout the war, oil's importance was key and the reason for the Allies' secret 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. It spelled "betrayal and Britain's intent to....control....the undeveloped petroleum reserves of the Arabian Gulf after the war." Britain was devious. While France and Germany clashed along the Western Front, London moved 1.4 million troops to the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean on the pretext of bolstering Russia. After 1918, a million forces remained on what became a "British Lake" by 1919 with access to the region's oil. Its potential was later learned, France was cheated out of its share, Saudi Arabia's value was unknown, and turned out to be a major British blunder that didn't elude America in the 1930s.
Partitioning the Ottoman Empire proceeded post-war and included an "extraordinary new element." Now known as the Balfour Declaration, it was a classified British policy statement supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine at a time Jews comprised 1% of the population. It came on November 2, 1917, a year of conflict remained, and it was the basis for the post-1919 British mandate over Palestine that gave London "strategic possibilities of enormous importance." British elites and its principal think tank (the Royal Institute for International Affairs or Chatham House) supported a "Jewish-dominated Palestine, beholden to England for its survival (and) surrounded by a balkanized group of squabbling Arab states."
The scheme was to link England's colonial possessions from South Africa's gold and diamond mines, north to Egypt and the Suez canal, through Mesopotamia (Iraq and Kuwait), Persia (Iran) and East into India and what today is Pakistan and Bangladesh. Controlling this territory became crucial. It meant dominating the world's most strategically valuable resources before their vast potential was realized.
Combined and Conflicting Goals: The United States Rivals Britain
Britain was the world's major post-WW I power, its territorial winner, and borrowed Wall Street money secured the victory, but with a problem. The country was deeply in debt, mired in depression, and the US now loomed as the world's economic power. In the 1920s, a rivalry ensued pitting America against Britain's three imperial pillars: control of world sea lanes, its banking and finance, and its strategic raw materials. At stake was whether London or Washington would be the world's new capital, with no assured winner at the time. Later, it was very clear that WW II's seeds were planted in a place called Versailles and a 1919 treaty in its name.
Its terms were outrageous and onerous. They made unimaginable demands, and therein lay the problem. In May 1921, Germany got an ultimatum with six days to accept or the industrial Ruhr Valley would be militarily occupied. Even worse, the country lost its colonial possessions and all their raw material resources. In the end, all combatants were losers. Their combined debt overwhelmed world finance and monetary policy from 1919 to the 1929 Wall Street crash. The entire pyramid was built on punitive war debts with Morgan and other major New York banks uncompromising on the terms. They was so burdensome that yearly payments exceeded America's annual 1920s foreign trade. In addition, paying it took precedence over rebuilding and modernizing war-torn European economies.
At the same time, oil's importance grew as Britain exploited the spoils at France and America's expense. In March 1921, Winston Churchill was UK secretary of state for colonial affairs, the British Colonial Office Middle East Department was established, and Mesopotamia was renamed Iraq and became a British colony. Anglo-Persian Oil officials got administrative control, American companies gained no British Middle East concessions, and a fierce battle raged over the region's oil throughout the 1920s. Then it moved to Latin America.
In the 19th century, US Senator Henry Cabot Lodge stated "commerce follows the flag" and by it meant economic progress requires expansion. In 1912, it got Mexico targeted after oil was discovered in Tampico in 1910. Woodrow Wilson sent in troops to seize control from Britain and the UK-connected Mexican Eagle Oil Company that had concessions for half the country's oil at the time. As war in Europe loomed, Britain backed off, and America secured Tampico's enormous potential.
Britain, nonetheless, pressed on, and by the early 1920s controlled "a formidable arsenal of apparently private companies" that, in fact, let His Majesty's government "dominate and ultimately control all" major world oil-containing regions. Four companies were empowered that were also an "integral part of British secret intelligence activities:"
-- Royal Dutch Shell that rivaled Rockefeller's Standard Oil, even in America through California Oil Fields and Oklahoma-based Roxana Petroleum;
-- the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and is now British Petroleum;
-- the little-known d'Arcy Exploitation Company; it was tied to the Foreign Office and British intelligence, and its agents showed up wherever there was oil development potential; and
-- the nominally Canadian company called British Controlled Oilfields (BCO); it was secretly government- owned as were Shell and the others.
In 1912, British companies controlled about 12% of world oil production. By 1925, it was most of it, America noticed, but in 1922, London and Washington united against a common threat and called a truce to their post-Versailles conflict.
The Anglo-Americans Close Ranks
In April 1922, Germany and Russia stunned the West by their bilateral Rapello Treaty. Under it, Russia waived its war reparations claims in return for Germany's industrial technology. The news shocked the continent, especially as it emerged from a British-organized Genoa meeting with other strategic aims in mind.
While secretly financing an anti-Soviet counterrevolution, London approached Russia regarding Baku's oil fields, hoping to arrange lucrative deals for Royal Dutch Shell and other UK oil companies. Rockefeller's Standard Oil also eyed them, but was disadvantaged by Britain's favored position and its own unsavory reputation. Yet it proceeded through Harry Sinclair of Sinclair Petroleum as a perceived independent middleman with no Rockefeller taint.
Moscow was interested because Sinclair had ties to President Harding, and a deal meant US diplomatic recognition and an end to Russia's international isolation post-1917. Sinclair agreed, Harding approved, but events then intervened.
It was scandal in Wyoming in a place called Teapot Dome. It involved political influence and the awarding of no-bid oil leases to Sinclair Oil (then called Mammoth Oil) and a whole lot more with illegal payoffs and no-interest loans as part of the deal. Harding, though not directly involved, was implicated, a year later he was dead ("under strange circumstances"), Coolidge became President, dropped the Baku project, and ended plans to recognize Russia. At the time, it was thought British intelligence was involved, blocked the bid to give UK oil companies an edge, but Germany's deal with Russia intervened.
It was Germany's second option at a time its onerous debt made dealing with Britain preferable. Efforts failed because London was hard-line, stuck to its punitive repayment process, and imposed stiff tariffs to make things worse with Germany already on its knees.
The looting ruined the country's economy and forced the Reichsbank to print enormous amounts of money to survive. Inevitable inflation followed and by 1923 was catastrophic. In January, the mark dropped to 18,000 to the dollar. By July, it was at 353,000, by August 4,620,000, and by November an astonishing 4,200,000,000,000. It was effectively worthless in the greatest ever (before or since) inflation that destroyed the country's savings and made further calamitous events inevitable.
The misery was compounded when Germany lost its assets. Britain took its colonies, and also seized was Alsace-Lorraine and Silesia with its rich mineral and agricultural resources. Gone was 75% of the country's iron ore, 68% of zinc ore, 26% of coal as well as Alsatian textile industries and potash mines. In addition, Germany's entire merchant fleet was taken, a portion of its transport and fishing fleet plus locomotives, railroad cars and trucks - all justified as war debts that were fixed at an impossible to pay 132 billion gold marks at 6% annual interest, and with it an ultimatum. Agree in six days or Allied troops would occupy the Ruhr. Unsurprisingly, the Reichstag approved.
It made dealing with Russia essential as Germany sought practical ways to survive. It proved impossible, France objected to a minor treaty obligation and occupied the Ruhr anyway. In the meantime, inflation soared, German industrial activity was erased, Reichsbank and other German bank assets were seized, and the currency became worthless.
In 1923, a so-called Dawes Plan (named for US banker Charles Dawes) was adopted. It was the Anglo-American banking community's way to reassert fiscal control over Germany, assure reparations were paid, and continue the state-sponsored looting. It continued until 1929 when the debt pyramid collapsed, an ensuing banking crisis followed, capital flowed out of the country, its economy crashed, the world headed into depression, and radical political elements gained prominence.
Reichbank president, Hjalmar Schacht, was a key figure. He resigned his post to organize financial support for the man he and Bank of England governor Montagu Norman wanted as chancellor. From 1926, Schacht secretly backed the radical National Socialist German workers party, the NSDAP Nazis. Britain also favored the "Hitler Project," support for it went right to the top and included figures like Prime Minister Chamberlain and the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII in 1936 until he abdication later in the year).
Throughout the period, Wall Street and Washington were comfortable with the Nazis, and a key government official met Hitler in 1922. He came away saying he "was deeply impressed by his personality and thought it likely he would play an important part in German politics."
By this time, the Anglo-American power struggle was resolved. So, too, the oil wars with the creation of an "enormously powerful Anglo-American oil cartel," later called the "Seven Sisters." British and American companies struck a deal. They ended competition, kept existing market shares, and secretly set prices with governments of both countries arranging a Red Line agreement. From then to now, Big Oil ruled the energy world and devised how to deal with "outsiders."
Later, the consequences from Baron Kurt von Schroeder's January 4, 1932 meeting would have to be faced after he, Heinrich von Papen and Hitler secretly arranged a Nazi takeover. A year later, another meeting followed preparatory to acting. The Weimar government was weak, the scheme was to topple it, and it made Hitler Reichschancellor on January 30, 1933. On August 2, 1934 he seized absolute power as Fuhrer. British interests backed him, Royal Dutch Shell financed him, and the Bank of England "moved with indecent haste to reward" him with a vital line of credit. The rest, as they say, is history, and from it would emerge a new world order.
Oil and the New World Order of Bretton Woods
In 1945, the world had changed. Post-WW I, Britain was preeminent with an empire spanning one-fourth the globe. Thirty years later, it was disintegrating and "in the throes of the largest upheaval of perhaps any empire in history" (although it happened most prominently to Rome, but it took longer). It wasn't from "beneficence" or a matter of principle. It was unavoidable because the war took its toll. It shattered Britain's financial power, its industry was decaying, its housing stock was dilapidated, and its people exhausted. Britain was "utterly dependent on America," so the baton passed to the only major power left standing in a ravaged post-war world.
A "special relationship" between them emerged post-Versailles. Britain led it then, it hoped post-1945 to continue indirectly, and a new element was added - the post-war CIA that worked with Britain in the war as the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). The relationship continued as the two countries have mutual interests and jointly share intelligence, except that Britain now is junior in a US-dominated world.
Post-war, Anglo-American oil interests had enormous power. It was assured by the 1944 Bretton Woods system that was built around three dominant pillars - the IMF, World Bank and managed "free trade" from GATT. Clauses were built into each to ensure Anglo and especially American dominance over monetary and trade issues. Both countries have voting control, and the arrangement created a "gold exchange system." Under it, each member country's currency was pegged to the dollar that, in turn, was set at a fixed $35 an ounce gold price. It suited Big Oil fine as America by then had the bulk of world gold reserves.
They also benefitted from the Marshall Plan as more than 10% of it went for American oil, and five US companies supplied over half of western Europe's supply at a dear price (that was pennies on the dollar compared to today). They profited enormously, nonetheless, as oil became the key commodity fueling world growth that without which would halt.
Partnered with Big Oil and its trade were Wall Street and New York international banks. They profited hugely from its capital inflows, and it ensured their advantage that was built into the Bretton Woods system. They also had cartel power by having consolidated to hold disproportionate control over world finance.
Britain, as well, had its post-war priorities in the wake of its lost empire. Its leadership regrouped around the power and profits of oil and other strategic raw materials with US help. It made Iran a target, Britain humiliated its nationalist elements, occupied the country, and demanded concessions for its government-linked Royal Dutch Shell. Finally in December, 1944, nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadegh introduced a bill to bar foreign country oil negotiations. A bitter fight ensued, by 1948 foreign troops were withdrawn, but the country remained under UK control through its Anglo-Iranian Oil Company at a time Iran's southern region had the world's richest known reserves.
In late 1947, the Iranian government demanded an increase in its oil revenue share (meager at the time) and cited Venezuela where Standard Oil had a 50 - 50 arrangement. London wasn't pleased, talks dragged on, and the strategy was to stall and delay. In late 1949, Mossadegh headed a parliamentary commission, a 50 - 50 split was demanded, Britain refused, and by 1951 Mossadegh was Prime Minister. Around the same time, Iran's parliament nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and paid fair compensation for it. Britain, nonetheless, was outraged and reacted.
Full economic sanctions and an oil embargo followed. In addition, Iranian assets in British banks were frozen, and major Anglo-American oil companies supported London. Iran's economy was devastated. Its oil revenues plummeted from $400 million in 1950 to less than $2 million from July 1951 to August 1953 when Mossadegh was ousted by a CIA-British SIS coup. Shah Reza Pahlevi returned to power, sanctions were lifted, and America and Britain regained their client state until 1979 when the same Anglo-American interests turned on the Shah and deposed him. More on that below.
An Italian company defied the sanctions at the time - Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli (AGIP). Its founder and head was Enrico Mattei, a man to be reckoned with. He sought indigenous energy resources for Italy that Anglo-American oil interests wouldn't co-opt. It was no simple task, yet he got a new law passed that established a central semi-autonomous state energy company called Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI). AGIP became a subsidiary.
As its leader in 1957, he negotiated an unprecedented deal with Iran - 75% of profits to the National Iranian Oil Company and 25% to ENI. Washington, London and Big Oil weren't pleased. If unchecked, this type arrangement would upset their entire world oil order benefitting them at the expense of host countries. Mattei had to be stopped, and the US and Britain pressured the Shah to opt out - to no avail.
Mattei became a major irritant. He challenged Big Oil with low gasoline prices. He also offered deals with former colonies on more favorable terms than the majors, including the prospect of local refineries so supplier countries could be more than just raw material sources.
Finally, in October 1960 he went too far and enraged Washington and London. He negotiated a deal with Moscow they opposed. In 1958, he contracted to buy one million annual tons of Soviet crude. He then signed an exchange agreement for 2.4 million tons for five years but not to be paid in cash. Instead it would be in large-diameter oil pipe that Russia badly needed to construct a huge pipeline network bringing Volga-Urals oil to Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary - 15 million tons annually when completed. The deal helped both sides with Mattei getting Russian oil at below market price and the Soviets getting a pipe works plant completed for them in September, 1962.
A month later, Mattei was dead. His private plane crashed on takeoff killing him and two others on board. To this day, deliberate sabotage was suspected, and why not. Mattei was at the peak of his powers, he'd already signed deals with Iran, Russia, Morocco, Sudan, Tanzania, Ghana, India and Argentina and upset the established order. He also planned to meet President Kennedy who, at the time, was pressing Big Oil to reach accommodation with him. A year later, Kennedy was also dead, and the finger pointed to "US intelligence, through a complex web of organized crime cutouts."
A Sterling Crisis and the Adenauer-De Gaulle Threat
In 1957, western European countries headed by France, West Germany and Italy signed the Treaty of Rome. It established the European Economic Community (EEC) that came into force on January 1, 1959. Germany was recovering from the war, and Charles De Gaulle regained power in France with vigorous restructuring plans - to rebuild the country's infrastructure, expand its devastated industrial and agricultural economy, and restore fiscal stability.
It was already under way in continental Europe, the result of unprecedented EEC trade-driven growth. De Gaulle and Germany's Konrad Adenauer led the effort with the French President exerting a strong independent voice. The two leaders bonded, and the Treaty Between and French Republic and Federal Republic of Germany was concluded on January 22, 1963. It assured close cooperation and coordination of economic and industrial policy. Washington and London were alarmed at the prospect of an independent alliance that included Italy under Aldo Moro.
An Anglo-American alliance was hatched to counter it. It targeted Europe and took the form of pushing the EEC to open to US imports and be firmly part of a Washington-London-dominated NATO. Britain also demanded inclusion in the six nation Common Market. De Gaulle strongly opposed it, but was denied when Atlanticist Ludwig Erhard became Germany's Chancellor in April 1963. He favored admitting Britain and agreed to support London's 19th century "balance of power" strategy against continental Europe. Though formally ratified, the Franco-German accord was lifeless, and the culmination of Adenauer's work was lost - stolen by the America and Britain at the last moment.
Washington supported the EEC but not as an independent alliance. It might have become that in 1957 at a time recession hit America and lasted into the 1960s. It led to debate in the US with the New York Council of Foreign Relations and Rockefeller Brothers Fund drafting options at a time Henry Kissinger emerged. It was also when Big Oil and New York banks (the East Coast establishment) were dominant and viewed the world as their market. They also controlled the media and used it to promote their interests over what was best for the nation and greater good.
Rebuilding US infrastructure, investing in modern factories, improving the national economy and developing a skilled labor force were ignored. Instead, investment flowed abroad for greater returns. Cheating on quality also became fashionable, and productive pride lost out to bottom line priorities to please Wall Street.
It came with a cost, however, and part of it was the state's financial health. As dollars flowed abroad, US gold reserves plunged enough to threaten the Bretton Woods system. The problem was a "fatal flaw" in its design. Its rules established a "gold exchange standard" requiring IMF countries to fix the value of their currencies to the US dollar and indirectly to gold at $35 an ounce.
By the 1960s, European growth outpaced the US, and domestic investment sought to take advantage of double the returns it could get domestically. It was the beginning of the Eurodollar market, and the start of a decade of "ever worsening international monetary crises." By the late 1970s, it became a cancer that "threatened to destroy its entire host - the world monetary system." It also influenced the Johnson administration to believe that a full-scale southeast Asian conflict could stimulate a stagnant economy and show the world who was still boss.
In the 1960s, New York bankers, Big Oil and the defense establishment advocated war and a homeland garrison state to boost profits, but consider the strategy. DOD Secretary Robert McNamara and Pentagon planners obliged. They designed a protracted "no-win war from the outset" to rev up spending and secure the defense component of the economy. Deficits resulted, the dollar inflated, and Washington forced its trading partners to accept war costs in the form of cheapened greenbacks.
It led to European central banks accumulating large Eurodollars reserves they then earned interest on from US treasuries. The net effect was continental bankers funded US deficits the way they do now, along with China and Japan. Engdahl quoted futurist Herman Kahn saying: "We've pulled off the biggest ripoff in history (running) rings around the British empire." Nonetheless, London planned a comeback with "expatriate American dollars." More on that below.
Lyndon Johnson waged war on two fronts, and failed at both. Vietnam cost him his presidency while his War on Poverty and Great Society barely made a difference but amassed huge European-financed deficits. At the same time, industrial and scientific investment declined, financial speculation grew, a service-oriented economy was favored, and America headed down the same "road to ruin" Britain followed earlier.
Few understood that Johnson's domestic policy had little to do with alleviating poverty. It was a corporate scheme to exploit economic decay, curb wage growth and back a 19th century colonial-style looting. Inciting "race war" was part of the plan. Engdahl described it as a domestic Vietnam pitting blacks against whites, unemployed against employed, and high wage earners against lower paid ones in a "new Great Society, while Wall Street bankers benefited from slashed union wages and cuts in infrastructure investment." They, in turn, recycled their profits into cheap Asian and South American labor markets for still greater profits. It's the same scheme writ large today.
By 1967, trouble was evident. The Bretton Woods system was threatened as US external debt soared and the nation's gold reserves plummeted to one-third their liability. At the same time, Britain's economy was "a rotting mess and getting worse." Faith in the pound sterling was eroding because the UK, like America, neglected its industrial base, amassed large trade deficits, and was a net currency exporter. Something had to give, and it was the pound.
At this time, De Gaulle withdrew from the gold pool, and "the entire Bretton Woods edifice (shook) at its weakest link, the pound sterling." The crisis highlighted the core vulnerability of the international monetary system, the US dollar. Things came to a head on November 18, 1967. Britain devalued the pound by 14% for the first time since 1949. It abated the sterling crisis, but the dollar one was just beginning as international holders of the currency demanded gold in exchange.
Crisis built in 1968, and Business Week magazine devoted an astonishing nine articles and feature editorial to it in its March 23 issue headlined "Gold crisis jolts the West" on its front cover. A publisher's memo also addressed it and quoted Virgil's Aeneid, Book III: "Oh cursed lust for gold, to what dost thou not drive the hearts of men!" It affected Charles De Gaulle as well. His independence made him a target for removal that succeeded. It got him voted out of office a year later. For Washington and London, however, it was a Pyrrhic victory.
"A Century of War" will continue in Part II of this review to complete the story to the present era under George Bush.
Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
A Century Of War
By F. William Engdahl
Review By Stephen Lendman - Part 2
2-14-8
Part II continues the story of "A Century in War" in Part I. It's breathtaking in scope and content, and a shocking and essential history of geopolitics and the strategic importance of oil. Part I covered events from the late 19th century through the end of the 1960s. Part II completes the story to the present era under George Bush.
Running the World Economy in Reverse: Who Made the 1970s Oil Shocks?
In 1969, the US was in recession, interest rates were cut, dollars flowed abroad, and the money supply expanded. In addition, in May 1971, America recorded its first monthly trade deficit that triggered a panic US dollar sell-off.
Things were desperate, gold reserves were one-quarter of official liabilities, and Nixon shocked the world on August 15. He unilaterally imposed a 90 day wage and price freeze, a 10% import surcharge, and most importantly closed the gold window, suspended dollar convertibility into the metal, and shredded the Bretton Woods core provision. He also devalued the dollar by 8%, far less than what US allies wanted.
By this action, Nixon "pulled the plug on the world economy" and set off a series of events that shook it. Further deterioration followed with massive capital flight to Europe and Japan. It forced Nixon to act again on February 12, 1973. He announced a further 10% devaluation, major world currencies began a process called a "managed float," and world instability was the worst seen since the 1930s.
Unknown was the reason behind the August, 1971 strategy. It was to buy time before initiating a bold new monetary "paradigm shift" - to revive a strong dollar and US world power with it. In May 1973, the scheme was hatched - to initiate a "colossal assault" on world industrial growth through a 400% increase in oil prices. In addition, the resulting petrodollar flood had to be managed. A global oil embargo was the scheme to rocket up its price and create an equally great demand for dollars.
Kissinger's Yom Kippur war began it when Egypt and Syria invaded Israel on October 6, 1973. It wasn't by accident as Washington and London carefully orchestrated the conflict while Kissinger controlled Israel's response. An oil embargo followed, OPEC prices skyrocketed 400% overnight, panic ensued, Arab oil producers were scapegoated, and the key part of the scheme took shape. It was for much of the windfall oil revenue (mainly Saudi, the world's largest producer) to be recycled into US investments.
Following a Tehran January 1, 1974 meeting, a second price increase doubled the price of oil for even more recycling. The net effect - the worst American and European economic crisis since the 1930s with bankruptcies, unemployment, and in the US, a bonus of stagflation. The fallout was horrific. It brought down most European governments but its effects on developing states were devastating. Nixon as well got caught in the "Watergate affair" that benefitted Henry Kissinger hugely. He became de facto president throughout the period while his boss battled to survive and lost. For Big Oil and major US and London banks, it was even sweeter. They profited handsomely.
Other issues were at stake as well, one of which was potentially cheaper nuclear electricity as an alternative energy source. By the early 1970s, it was viewed favorably, and European governments favored building 160 to 200 nuclear plants by 1985. For the first time, America's nuclear export market was threatened as well as Big Oil's overall energy dominance. It got Anglo-American think tanks and journals to launch an "awesome propaganda offensive" to ensure the oil shock strategy's success. The scheme was an "Anglo-American ecology agenda" (strongly anti-nuclear) that became "one of the most successful frauds in history." (origin of NPA)
A second Malthusian plot was also hatched through a classified Kissinger April 1974 memo. It was a secret project called National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) that called for drastic global population reduction. It reasoned that many developing nations are resource rich and vital to US growth. If Third World populations grow too fast, their domestic demand will as well, and that will pressure price rises for their goods. Curbing population growth was the counter strategy. It's also self-defeating along with horrific fallout for targeted countries.
Europe, Japan and a Response to the Oil Shock
By late 1975, industrial countries began recovering but not developing ones. The oil shock was crushing and prevented their ability to finance industrial and agricultural growth and the hopes of their people for a better life. Perversely, it was also at a time the worst global drought in decades hit Africa, South America and parts of Asia especially hard. The fourfold increase in oil prices exacerbated conditions and increased developing states' current account deficits sevenfold by 1976. They halted internal development to preserve revenue for debt service and to buy oil. Conditions also let foreign banks and later the IMF provide loans that became an onerous debt bondage cycle.
At the same time in 1974, 70% of surplus OPEC revenues were recycled abroad into equities, bonds, real estate and other investments as part of an exclusive OPEC decision to accept only US dollars for oil. It forced world nations to buy enormous amounts of dollars and do it when the currency was weak. This effectively replaced the gold standard with a "highly unstable (petrodollar) exchange system." Washington and New York banks planned to control it and thus benefit from artificially inflated oil prices.
The scheme transformed the world economy and began an unprecedented transfer of wealth to an elite minority. Engdahl called it "a perverse variation on the old mafia 'protection racket' game." Third World agricultural and industrial development suffered so a select few could prosper. It sent shock waves through the developing world and got a Colombo, Sri Lanka gathering to confront it.
Officials from 85 Non-Aligned Nations met in the Sri Lankan capital in August, 1976 and produced a document unlike any others by developing states post-war. Its theme was "A fair and just economic development, and its contents stated that "economic problems have become the most difficult aspect of international relations (and) developing countries have become the victim(s) of this worldwide crisis." Steps were proposed to address it, and they called for a "fundamental reorganization of the international trade system to improve" its terms. They also wanted the international monetary system overhauled and the "explosive issue" of foreign debt raised for the first time.
The proposal was then presented at the annual UN General Assembly meeting in New York. It was a "political bombshell," and financial markets reacted sending bank shares and the dollar lower. The fear was a potential alliance between key oil producing states and continental Europe and Japan. If in place, it could challenge Anglo-American dominance, had to be confronted, and Henry Kissinger got the job with "the full power and force of the US government." He warned EEC foreign ministers and disrupted any efforts they were considering to ally with OPEC and the non-aligned group.
Coordinating with Britain, he also forced key non-aligned nation strategists out of office within months of their declaration. The threat was thwarted and leading New York and London banks took full advantage. They turned on the spigot and increased lending to developing nations under draconian IMF terms.
Down but not out, North-South cooperation resurfaced in new ways. In late 1975, Brazil contracted with Germany to build a nuclear power plant complex. A similar deal was made with France for an experimental fast breeder reactor. Mexico as well decided to go nuclear for part of its electricity to conserve oil and so did Pakistan and Iran. The Shah's oil revenues were substantial, and his idea was "to realize an old dream" - to create a modern energy infrastructure, built around nuclear power generation, that would transform the entire Middle East's power needs. In 1978, Iran had the world's fourth largest nuclear program, the largest among developing states, and the plan was for 20 new reactors by 1995.
The idea was simple - to diversify from Iran's dependence on oil and weaken Washington and London's pressure to recycle petrodollars. Also involved was investing in leading European companies to ally with the continent. Washington was alarmed and tried to block the plan but failed. Nonetheless, the Carter administration continued Kissinger's strategy behind a phony "human rights" mask. In reality, the game was unchanged - limit Third World growth and maintain dollar hegemony. It failed miserably but threats to dollar dominance were stalled for a time.
They resurfaced in June, 1978 on the initiative of France and Germany. Responding to policy disagreements and a fluctuating dollar, they took steps to create a European currency zone and proposed Phase I of the European Monetary System (EMS) under which central banks of EEC countries agreed to stabilize their currencies relative to each other. EMS became operational in 1979 with notable positive results. This worried Washington and London as a threat to petrodollar supremacy, Britain refused to be an EMS partner, and Carter was unable to dissuade Germany from pursuing a nuclear option. The situation required drastic action.
It began in November 1978 with a White House Iran task force that recommended Washington end support for the Shah and replace him with Ayatollah Khomeini, then living in France. It would be by the same type coup that overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 along with broader aims that again are in play in the region.
Key then (and now) was to balkanize the Middle East along tribal and religious lines - a simple divide and conquer strategy that worked in the 1990s Balkan wars. The aim was to create an "Arc of Crisis" that would spread to Central Asia and the Soviet Union. Another 1978 event highlighted the urgency. At the time, the Shah was negotiating a 25-year oil agreement with British Petroleum (BP), but talks broke down in October. BP demanded exclusive rights to future Iranian output but refused to guarantee oil purchases. The Shah balked and was on the verge of independently seeking new buyers with eager ones lined up in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere.
Washington and London were alarmed and acted. They implemented destabilization plans, starting with cutting Iranian oil purchases. Economic pressures followed, and trained US and UK agitators exacerbated them by fanning religious discontent and overall turmoil. Oil strikes as well were used. They crippled production and made things worse. American security advisors recommended Iran's Savak secret police use repressive tactics to maximize antipathy to the Shah. The Carter administration cynically protested human rights abuses, and BBC correspondents exaggerated anti-Shah protests to rev up hysteria against him. At the same time, it gave Khomeini an open platform to speak and prevented the Shah from replying.
Things came to a head in January, 1979 when he fled the country, and Khomeini returned to Tehran and proclaimed a theocratic state. Chaos was unleashed, and by May the new regime cancelled plans for further nuclear reactor development. At the same time, Iran's oil exports were cut off, and the Saudis inexplicably cut their own in January. Spot prices skyrocketed, and a second oil shock ensued that was as deviously conceived as the first one. Then it got worse. In October, newly appointed Fed Chairman Paul Volker unleashed a new scheme that turned calamity into catastrophe by design.
It was a radical new monetary policy on the pretext of "squeezing inflation out of the system." In fact, it was made-in-Washington fraud to preserve dollar hegemony, make it the world's most sought currency, and crush industrial growth to let political and financial power prop up dollar strength. Volker succeeded by raising interest rates from 10% to 16% and finally 20% in weeks. World policy makers were stunned, economies plunged into the deepest recession since the 1930s, and the dollar began an extraordinary five year ascent.
The combined effect of oil and Volker shocks took "the bloom off the nuclear rose" and ended its threat to Anglo-American oil supremacy. And if more was needed it came on March 28, 1979 in the middle of Pennsylvania at a place called Three Mile Island. Conveniently, at the same time The China Syndrome was released that fictionalized the ongoing event. The combined effect was public hysteria, and later investigation revealed critical valves had illegally been closed. In addition, FEMA controlled all news to create panic. The scheme worked, and Anglo-American supremacy was reasserted over the industrial and financial world. Nothing is stable forever, however, and within a decade new rumblings would be felt.
Imposing the New World Order
The combined effects of two oil shocks and resulting inflation created a new US "landed aristocracy" while the vast majority of Americans saw their living standards sink. It was the same type scheme Margaret Thatcher imposed on Britain when she declared "there is no alternative." Preaching free market hokum, she claimed deficit spending was the culprit, not two oil shocks causing 18% UK inflation. Her remedy - kill the patient to save it by cutting the money supply and government spending while sharply hiking interest rates to 17% in weeks, thereby causing depression she called the "Thatcher revolution." Engdahl had another view saying: "Never in modern history had an industrialized nation undergone such (a counterproductive) shock" in so short a time, except in wartime emergency. Thatcher crushed the economy by design the way Volker did in America.
At the time, Britain's problem wasn't government ownership. It was lack of investment in public infrastructure, in educating a skilled work force, and in enough scientific research and development. Government isn't the problem. Misguided policy is, and Thatcher and Volker excelled at it with one mutual aim - benefit their banks and Big Oil interests by cutting taxes and spending, reducing social services, privatizing and deregulating business, and breaking the back of organized labor in their brave new world order.
President Carter knew nothing about finance and economics and was duped into signing an "extraordinary piece of legislation" - the Depository Institutions Deregulation Monetary Control Act of 1980. It let the Fed impose reserve requirements on banks and be able to choke off credit to them. It also phased out interest rate ceilings banks could charge customers. Reagan continued the policies and was bamboozled by Chicago School ideologues like Milton Friedman. Engdahl called his radical monetarism "one of the most cruel economic frauds ever perpetrated." It was that and more because of all the human wreckage it caused.
It led to the Third World debt crisis and its horrific fallout. It willfully immiserated millions of people, and events came to a head in the summer of 1982 with debtor states struggling to repay. Their burden was too onerous, and Reagan and Thatcher planned an example of what happens when nonpayment is an option. The Malvinas (or Falkland) archipelago was the targeted choice. It's off Argentina's coast but was hardly a reason for war. The issue wasn't Argentina's sovereignty. It was to enforce the principle that Third World debts must be paid by a "new form of 19th century gunboat diplomacy." Two-thirds of Britain's fleet was dispatched, a shooting war ensued, and Argentina became a test case.
Reagan backed Thatcher, and it soured relations with Latin American states like Mexico that also became a target. President Jose Lopez Portillo favored a modernization and industrialization policy and planned to use his oil revenue to implement it. The prospect of a strong Mexico was intolerable, Washington had other ideas, and a scheme was hatched to sabotage the plan by demanding rigid repayment of Mexican debt at exorbitant rates.
It began with an orchestrated run on the peso in the fall of 1981. Claims of an impending devaluation followed, and stories were planted of impending capital flight. An unavoidable austerity program followed, and the Portillo government cracked under pressure. It devalued the peso 30%, Mexican industry was devastated, many businesses were bankrupted, industrial production was cut and so were living standards for the majority of the people under conditions of orchestrated chaos.
Mexico effectively became insolvent at a time the US was in deep recession. Nonetheless, the Reagan administration hatched a plan to solve the debt crisis and save New York banks. Ignoring the root cause of the crisis, Secretary of State George Schultz offered IMF medicine combined with stimulating US consumer purchases as a way to increase Third World exports.
It would be "the most costly recovery in world history (and what followed) was almost beyond belief." Lopez Portillo failed to rally Latin American support, and his term expired two months later. US officials then blackmailed Brazil and Argentina to back down, and debtor countries had to accept IMF terms that became "the most concerted organized looting operation in modern history," far exceeding the worst of Versailles.
New York and London banks profited hugely the way they do today. First, they "socialize(d) their debt crisis" by getting unprecedented international repayment support. Working through governments and the IMF, they spun off their debt to taxpayers, privatized gains for themselves, and pummeled debtor countries by structural adjustment looting.
That was Step One. Next came Step Two - restructuring debtor nations' repayment schedules that included onerous interest on top of oppressive principal. It caused mounting debt no matter how much was paid in an unending looting daisy chain still in play today and bigger than ever.
Back in the 1980s, here are the numbers. Between 1980 and 1986, 109 debtor countries were charged $326 billion in interest. They paid an additional $332 billion in principal for a total of $658 billion on original debt of $430 billion. In spite of it, in 1986 they still owed $882 billion, an impossible debt trap, and Engdahl attributed it to "the wonders of compound interest and floating rates" with a little gunboat diplomacy thrown in. Only one way out was possible - surrender economic sovereignty and valued raw materials, or else. Capital flight in the tens of billions followed, and it became a profit-making bonanza for major US banks.
In the 1980s, Americans also suffered. Reaganomics victimized them by structuring big gains for banks, oil and defense giants while ignoring the greater good and long-term economic health. The plan was nonsensical and built around the largest post-war tax cut until the combined three George Bush ones (with another coming) may have topped it. They did in nominal dollars, but Reagan's was much bigger as a percent of GDP in an economy half today's size.
Reagan and Bush had the same scheme in mind. Some call it "supply-side economics," others a "voodoo" variety on the idea that tax cuts release "stifled creative energies," stimulate higher economic growth and produce greater government revenue. The Reagan one signaled "anything goes." Besides generous benefits for the rich and business, it encouraged speculative real estate investment, especially for commercial ventures. It also removed restrictions on corporate takeovers.
A year later, interest rates headed down, stock and bond prices shot up, a speculative bonanza was unleashed, and here's the bottom line. Reaganomics failed to encourage productive investment, except for selected defense contractors. Money instead poured into equities and debt instruments, high-risk real estate, junk bond-financed leveraged buyouts, and tax-sheltered oil well and other development.
At the same time, infrastructure needs were ignored, organized labor was targeted, government became the problem, and deregulation the solution to get it off our backs. Throughout the 1980s and since: organized labor ranks declined, high-paying manufacturing jobs were lost, working American living standards declined, and an astonishing generational shift began - the annual wealth transfer of over $1 trillion from 90 million working class households to for-profit corporations and the richest 1% of the population to create an unprecedented wealth disparity. It continues unabated and is destroying the bedrock middle class without which democracy can't survive and is already on life support and sinking.
Simultaneously, by the mid-1980s, the US went from being the world's largest creditor to a net debtor nation for the first time since 1914. Budget deficits as well skyrocketed along with the national debt, and the true economic condition was revealed. "It was sick." Today, it's much sicker and depends on "the kindness of strangers" the way it did in the roaring twenties until the 1929 market crash smashed it.
At the end of the 1980s, a lesser version of it occurred from the savings and loan industry (S & Ls) collapse. During the decade, almost $1 trillion went into speculative real estate, and for the first time banks were allowed to participate. S & Ls took full advantage in an anything goes, deregulated environment. The 1982 Garn-St. Germain Act let them invest in anything they wished with government-backed $100,000 per account insurance. It allowed reckless speculation, massive fraud, and was an ideal way for organized crime and CIA to launder billions in drugs-related funds.
The 1980s ended the Reagan era when George HW Bush became President in 1989. It coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November and breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Around the same time, it was decided to target the Middle East and its vast oil reserves to counter the fear of a united Germany and economically expanding continental Europe that could threaten US dominance. Saddam would be the victim and an easy target after being weakened by the 1980 - 1988 Iran-Iraq war and a $65 billion debt to foreign creditors.
The scheme was to lure him into a trap (with Kuwait as bait) to provide a pretext for US military intervention. The rest is history:
-- Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990;
-- four days later Operation Desert Shield was launched; harsh economic sanctions were imposed and a large US troop deployment began;
-- Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991 and ended six weeks later on February 28;
-- Next came 12 years of the most comprehensive genocidal sanctions ever imposed on a country that included a crippling embargo; hundreds of thousands died and millions suffered;
-- Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched on March 19, 2003 and is still ongoing nearly five years later; the "cradle of civilization" was erased, a free market paradise created, and the death, human misery and displacement toll is incalculable for an impossible to win guerilla war.
From the Evil Empire to the Axis of Evil
In his 1991 State of the Union address, GHW Bush proclaimed a New World Order, quickly dropped the term but pursued the policy. The younger Bush does as well with focus shifted from the "Evil Empire" to the "Axis of Evil." It was a vague construct that conveniently encompassed the Eurasian continent and its oil riches. To ensure US dominance, they had to be controlled, especially against key Japanese, European Union (EU) and emerging Chinese rivals.
A threefold scheme was hatched to do it:
-- target Russia, eastern Europe and all parts of the world to ensure IMF rules and US dollar hegemony are maintained;
-- control every country with significant energy or other vital raw material resources; and
-- maintain unchallengeable military supremacy to deter opposition to US-imposed rules.
The catch word was "globalization." It denies global justice, globalizes US dominance, and consolidates it by political, economic and military enforcement. At the start of the 1990s, however, Japan had become the world's economic and banking leader and had to be confronted. A reckless speculation decade left American banks in deep crisis. Japan operated differently, prospered and challenged US supremacy. Its influence was recognized and had to be undercut.
Treasury Secretary James Baker laid the trap through the 1985 Plaza accord and the Baker-Miyazawa month later agreement. He got Tokyo to exercise monetary and fiscal measures to expand domestic demand and reduce Japan's external surplus. At the same time, the Bank of Japan cut interest rates to 2.5% in 1987 and held that level until
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 02-18-2008
But, you say, India is not Saudi Arabia or China. India is a democracy. Indians speak English; they eat pizza and wear jeans. Once we get past these superficialities, however, we find that India is not a country we would readily pick as our strategic business partner.
Although India has been coddling up to the West in recent years, Indians have long been inimical to Western ideas, technology, liberal principles and modernity. Allying itself with the Soviet Union, India labeled itself the leader of the so-called nonaligned movement, and habitually hectored the US at the United Nations.
India continues to tolerate large-scale piracy of intellectual property, from books to movies to high technology products.
India is praised for its English-style laws, but the Indian government blatantly reneged on its contract with the largest power plant built by American investors. The Indian government has failed to distribute equitably among its own citizens the large extortive penalty collected from Union Carbide for the Bhopal accident. In the 1970s, India drove IBM and Coke out of the country for refusing to pay political ransom.
If you dismiss all this as irrelevant baggage from India's past, the current Indian government shows no clear principles either. The leading party in India's governing NDA coalition is the Bharatiya Janata Party, which rose to power by blatantly exploiting and advocating virulent and fanatical Hindu-first sentiments. The people of India are poised to give this party a larger mandate at national elections scheduled this month.
Having started a non-winnable nuclear-race in the sub-continent with Pakistan, India continues to refuse to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Indian politicians are trying shake down Coke and Pepsi through 'investigations' of contamination in beverages marketed by these American corporations in India.
Just last year, when the US sought international support for action against Saddam Hussein, India went AWOL, hiding behind domestic politics. The Indian parliament went so far as to pass a resolution condemning the US-led action in Iraq. Even after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Indian government would not offer even token support to the Coalition's peace-keeping efforts in Iraq. India is much more closely aligned with the French and the Germans than you'd guess.
This is the India that we are outsourcing our guts, lungs and brains to.
Whether we are buying oil or software, the principle remains the same. We must make sure our suppliers' interests are closely aligned with ours. Let's not kid ourselves. If we went looking for business partners, India would not be the ideal choice.
As critical functions of the American economy are outsourced to this antagonistic nation, Americans will grit their teeth, and bear the costs and consequences of keeping global markets free. But, as citizens of the only nation championing democracy and free markets, should Americans just shut their mouths and march to the unemployment office? I think not.
We must make vigorous investment in our own educational system and keep our borders open to immigrants to restore critical skills and capabilities. Meanwhile, we can do more. We could demand that our government ask India to change and reform its ways.
First, we should demand that India must send a meaningful contingent of troops to help the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan, meaningful in size and commensurate with the global power Indians think India is becoming.
Second, the US government should demand that the Indian government must source preferentially from American contractors and manufacturers for the ambitious infrastructure building effort under way in India. India's roads, ports, power and water facilities are woefully underdeveloped. American technology and know-how can help speed India's development process while strengthening the commercial ties between the two countries.
Third, the US must demand that the Indian government level the playing field between American and Indian technology firms. This means India must phase out its tax subsidies to the IT industry and agree to subjecting Indian firms to the same consumer protection laws and other legal liabilities governing American firms in like businesses.
Finally, the US must demand that the Indian government will sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty if Pakistan agrees to sign the treaty, paving the way for a more peaceful subcontinent.
A peaceful Indian subcontinent, aligned closely with American interests, is vital if we are going to rely increasingly on Indians providing services to the American economy.
http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/apr/01guest1.htm
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 02-19-2008
<b>Economic recession in USA is simply a hoax</b>
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 02-21-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Great Global Power Shift: It's Already Here</b>
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Americans of all races behave as if the United States is the center of the world. This is quite dangerous, not just to the 95 percent of the world's people who do not live in the United States, but to the U.S. population, as well. The planetary financial pyramid atop which the U.S. has perched its over-fat and undeserving butt for over 60 years, is in a state of transformation. The countries that actually produce things - oil, gas, manufactured goods, minerals, and most of the planet's agricultural commodities - can no longer support the dead weight of artificial and pretentious U.S. claims to supremacy.
Most of us are somewhat familiar with the dollar's problems, its ever-falling value. But the global system, itself, is hopelessly out of balance, and has outlived its usefulness. The grand schemes and dreams of corporate globalism, centered in the U.S., haven't worked out as the American ruling elite expected.
Corporate globalism was supposed to open up vast new markets to U.S. companies and money-masters, and to hopelessly entangle foreign governments and elites in a system controlled by U.S. financial institutions and their servant organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The United States wouldn't have to manufacture anything anymore, but would remain top dog by "servicing" the world economy - at a premium, of course. That's why all those office skyscrapers have replaced factories in American cities.
If anybody in the rest of the world didn't like this arrangement, the U.S. military was available to Shock and Awe them into submission. That's why the United States spends more money on weapons than all of the rest of the planet, combined.
The dollar was a weapon, too. Since it was the only world reserve currency, the dollar could be used as a club to beat down resistance among nations that wanted to cut a better deal for themselves in the world market.
But for a host of reasons too numerous to explain in a brief commentary, the American elite can no longer impose its will on the planet, not by financial intimidation and - as is now clear to all but the insane - not by force of arms. The era of U.S. domination is coming to a close, whether the American people know it or not. The United States enters the final stages of decline with its manufacturing sector in shambles and, for the first time, the service sector shrinking. Multi-billionaire George Soros says flatly that the balance of world power must shift to the countries that actually produce things.
<b>But it's worse than that. The U.S. and European financial order is paralyzed, having created phony money in the form of hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives and other paper instruments that they can't sell to anybody - not even each other. That's the real definition of a "paper tiger" - and the world knows it. </b>The U.S. subprime crisis is only a symptom of a much larger, global sea change.
What will Obama, or Clinton, or McCain do about it? They don't have a clue. And the American people understand the real world less than citizens of any other industrialized nation. Which means, as the crisis deepens, we won't know what hit us, here in what we thought was the center of the world.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Soros: market turmoil sign of shifting influence</b>
London (dpa) - The current turmoil on world markets indicates a "significant shift of power and influence" from the US to emerging economic giants such as China and India, international financier George Soros said Wednesday.
Soros, in a BBC interview at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, said it would be "very difficult to avoid recessions" in the US and in Britain.
However, backing the major US Federal Reserve interest rate cut, Soros said: "You have to rescue markets otherwise you would go into a depression, as you did in the 1930s."
I'm not looking for a worldwide recession. I'm looking for a significant shift of power and influence away from the US in particular and a shift in favour of the developing world, particularly China."
Soros, who made 1 billion US dollars betting on the devaluation of the British pound in 1992, said he expected a recession on both sides of the Atlantic.
"I think credit expansion can't go any further than it has done, when you could effectively borrow 100 per cent with no money down on a house whose value has been inflated by the willingness of the banks to lend so much credit," he said.
Since the 1980s, instead of of imposing regulations and restrictions, markets had been left to their own devices, Soros said.
"The authorities came to rely on the markets to right themselves. They ought to have known better, because they have in the past come to the rescue, so they ought to have known that the markets don't necessarily right themselves."
Jan 23, 2008<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 02-21-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Americanistic Personality Disorder (type 1776.0)Â Â Â Â
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
by Jason Miller
Mr. Miller has studied the American personality, and the prognosis does not look good. Miller identifies nine characteristics of what he calls Americanistic Personality Disorder (type 1776.0), "a dangerous perversion of character" that may become pathological. Practitioners of "deeply conservative Christianity" and residents of the South and certain other states are especially susceptible to the disorder, which presents itself in displays of racism, flag-waving, nationalistic, and militaristic fervor." There's no point in quarantining the afflicted since, according to the author, they make up about 35 percent of the U.S. population.
<i>This article originally appeared in Cyrano's Journal. </i>
The essential features of Americanistic Personality Disorder include pervasive patterns of extreme self-absorption, profound and long-term lapses in empathy, a deep disregard for the well-being of others, a powerful aversion to intellectual honesty and reality, and a grossly exaggerated sense of the importance of one's self and one's nation. These patterns emerge in infancy, manifest themselves in nearly all contexts, and often become pathological.
These patterns have also been characterized as sociopathic, or colloquially as the "Ugly American Syndrome." Note that the latter terminology carries too benign a connotation to accurately describe an individual afflicted with such a dangerous perversion of character.
For this diagnosis to be given, the individual must be deeply immersed in the flag-waving, nationalistic, and militaristic fervor derived primarily from the nearly perpetual barrage of reality warping emanations of the "mainstream media," most commonly through the medium of television. Typically indoctrinated from birth to believe that they are morally superior, exceptional human beings, these individuals suffer from severe egocentrism, a condition further engendered by the prevalence of the acutely toxic dominant paradigm known as capitalism.
Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder are generally covertly racist, xenophobic, and openly species-istic. They readily participate in the execution of heinous crimes against human and non-human animals, even if their complicity is banal and limited. As long as they are comfortable, safe, and enjoying the relative affluence and convenience afforded by their nation's economic extortion, cultural genocide, rape of other species and the environment, and imperial conquests, such individuals display an apathetic disregard for the well-being of other human beings, sentient creatures, and the environment.
Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder tend to exhibit unabated greed and an insatiable desire for material goods. Fueled by a compulsion to shop and acquire excessive amounts of material goods, a condition sometimes referred to as consumerism, they have no regard for the misery and destruction caused by their pathological need for "more stuff." When confronted with the finitude and fragility of the Earth, they frequently react with level one ego defenses by denying that their behavior is a part of the problem or by distorting reality by asserting that concerns about Climate Change, resource depletion, and irreversible damage to the environment are over-blown. Their deeply entrenched sense of entitlement renders excessive consumption a nearly immutable aspect of their behavior.
Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder are virtually devoid of empathy or compassion. They view life as a game played by "law of the jungle" rules and co-exist with others in a chronic state of hyper-competitiveness, seeking only to advance their careers and "keep up with the Joneses." Their desire to win, get ahead and "protect what is theirs" has been so deeply etched into their psyches that their capacity to empathize and experience true concern for the well-being of others is severely stunted or extinguished. The pursuit of property, profit, and power rules their malformed psyches, nearly eliminating their capacity for humane behavior.
Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder almost always rely on extortion or violence to get their needs met and to resolve conflict. Believing in their inherent superiority, they eschew laws or rules except when they can utilize them for personal gain or when they fear punishment. Given a choice between a just resolution to a situation and the opportunity to humiliate, subdue, or subjugate the other party, they will choose the latter with a high degree of frequency. They have an amazing capacity to justify their unethical or criminal behavior using false pretexts such as self defense, good intentions, ignorance of the consequences of their actions, or asserting that they were merely carrying out orders.
Individuals with Americanistic Personality Disorder tend to manifest traits indicative of two of Erich Fromm's personality orientations. They thrive on adding to their possessions, and appreciate their acquisitions more when they attain them through coercion, theft, or manipulation, thus showing strains of Fromm's exploitative type. They also exist at a very superficial level, offering the world the "friendly face" of the marketing personality that Bernays and Madison Avenue have taught them is the most effective way of advancing their selfish agenda. Opportunism, careerism, and narcissism poison nearly all of their interactions and relationships.
Specific Culture Features
Americanistic Personality Disorder appears to prevail in a very high percentage of those in the upper strata of the socioeconomic order in the United States (and to persist tenaciously because these individuals have little motivation to alter their pathological behavior as they are largely immune from the consequences of their actions). While it is epidemic amongst the opulent, this characterological deficiency does not recognize socioeconomic boundaries. Various segments of the middle, working and impoverished classes comprise a notable percentage of those exhibiting this condition, including those practicing deeply conservative Christianity, many residents of reactionary states such as those in the south, Kansas, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, and many members of the Republican Party.
Prevalence
The overall prevalence of Americanistic Personality Disorder was recently measured at approximately 35% of the overall population in the United States.
Diagnostic Criteria for 1776.0 Americanistic Personality Disorder:
A pervasive pattern of greed, selfishness, and lack of empathy, beginning the moment he or she begins to intellectualize and presented in nearly all contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. lacks empathy due to an excessive degree of self-absorption 2. believes that he or she is exceptional and morally superior
3. frequently engages in exploitative behaviors
4. requires frequent acquisition of goods he or she doesn't need
5. usually resorts to some form of overt or covert violence, coercion, or extortion to resolve conflicts
6. perceives others as obstacles to his or her "success"
7. disregards laws and rules except as a means to achieve his or her agenda
8. demonstrates deep hypocrisy by projecting a righteous, benevolent image while committing reprehensible acts
9. refuses to accept the consequences of his or her actions
<i>Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He is Cyrano's Journal Online's associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paine's Corner within ..</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 02-21-2008
"The men who rule in Washington believe the U.S. is destined to be the globe's last - and only - empire." link
Revolt Against the Europeans
The Heart of Whiteness: Racism, Wealth and IQ
The Origin of Violence in Virginia: A Brief History
White Manâs Wars, Past and Present
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 02-22-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Jan 29 2008, 11:40 AM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Jan 29 2008, 11:40 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
<b>Waving Goodbye to Hegemony - Parag Khanna
</b><img src='http://sajablogs.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/27/parag_khanna150x220.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
..
<b>The Non-American World</b>
Karl Marx and Max Weber both chastised Far Eastern cultures for being despotic, agrarian and feudal, lacking the ingredients for organizational success. Oswald <b>Spengler saw it differently, arguing that mankind both lives and thinks in unique cultural systems, with Western ideals neither transferable nor relevant. Today the Asian landscape still features ancient civilizations </b>but also by far the most people and, by certain measures, the most money of any region in the world. With or without America, Asia is shaping the worldâs destiny â and exposing the flaws of the grand narrative of Western civilization in the process.
[right][snapback]77772[/snapback][/right]
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Spengler alongside marx was discussed on this very forum in the sanskrit thread.
USA And The Future Of The World - dhu - 02-22-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.atimes.com/atimes/front_page/ED08Aa01.html
For today's Europeans, there is no consolation, neither the old pagan continuity of national culture, nor the Christian continuity into the hereafter. The French know that Victor Hugo, Gauloise cigarettes, Chateau Lafitte and Impressionist painters one day will become a matter of antiquarian curiosity. The Germans know that no one but bored schoolboys will read Goethe two centuries hence, like Pindar. They have no ambition but to die quietly, no concerns except for those amusements which might reduce boredom and anxiety en route to the grave. They have no passions except hatred born of envy. They hate America, a new kind of universality that succeeded where the old Christian empire failed. They hate Israel, which makes the Jewish people appear all the more eternal in stark contrast to Europe's morbid temporality. They will pass out of history unmourned even by themselves.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - Naresh - 02-24-2008
[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>India, US natural partners : Obama</span></b>[/center]
WASHINGTON: Vowing to strengthen ties with the "natural partner" India, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has noted that the hardworking Indian-American professionals are adding to the "richness" of the US society and invited the community to join him in "renewing the strength" of this country.
"The worldâs oldest democracy and the worldâs largest democracy are natural partners, sharing important interests and fundamental democratic values," Obama said in a yet to be published article in a newspaper, excerpts of which were given in a write-up on Friday.
The Illinois Democrat, who is giving his party rival for presidential nomination Hillary Clinton a run for her money and hopes, recognised the major contributions of Indian-American community to the US economy as well as the fabric of the American society.
"Already, in communities across this country, Indian Americans are lifting up our economy and creating jobs," he said and pointed out that "leading entrepreneurs, innovators, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and hardworking professionals are adding to the richness and success of the American society."
Obama also wrote that he sees Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration and has a portrait of the apostle of peace in his office to remind him that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
"In my life, I have always looked to Mahatma Gandhi as an inspiration, because he embodies the kind of transformational change that can be made when ordinary people come together to do extraordinary things," he wrote.
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 02-27-2008
<b>More in U.S. jump to new faiths, poll finds</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->According to the study, 78.4% of Americans are Christians, about 5% belong to other faith traditions and 16.1% are unaffiliated with any religion.
Secular unaffiliated Americans account for 6.3% of the population; religious unaffiliated, 5.8%; atheists, 1.6%; and agnostics, 2.4%.
At 1.7% of the population, Jews make up the next-largest religious group. Buddhists are 0.7% of the population; Muslims 0.6%; and <b>Hindus and New Age followers, both 0.4%</b>.
The study noted that Protestantism is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, encompassing hundreds of denominations loosely grouped around three "fairly distinct" religious traditions -- evangelical Protestant churches (26.3%), mainline Protestants (18.1%) and historically black Protestant churches (6.9%).
Evangelicals make up the nation's single-largest religious tradition, followed by Catholics, who comprise nearly one-fourth of Americans.
But Catholics also lost more adherents, with one in three adults who were raised as Catholics no longer in the church, the study said. Roughly 10% of Americans are former Catholics. "These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not for the offsetting impact of immigration," the study said.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
USA And The Future Of The World - shamu - 02-27-2008
I received a survey call from Pew something (forum or research - I don't remember exactly) few months back and asked about my religion, ethnicity, if I am happy with my life etc.
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 02-27-2008
Is there some concrete written material that one can use to connect the dots to prove that Unkil wants to knowingly keep India down?
USA And The Future Of The World - Husky - 02-27-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-Swamy G+Feb 27 2008, 12:46 AM-->QUOTE(Swamy G @ Feb 27 2008, 12:46 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Is there some concrete written material that one can use to connect the dots to prove that Unkil wants to knowingly keep India down?
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<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->How about something like this:
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Caste_System.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Till recently, American foreign policy agencies made no secret of their designs on India's unity. When she was US ambassador to the UN, Mrs. Jean Kirkpatrick once said that "the break-up of India is one of the goals of the American foreign policy." Patrick Moynihan, who had held the same job, said more recently, "After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the artificial state India is also bound to break up."
<b>- Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar - By Koenraad Elst</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The fact that CNN and Times (as documented at iVarta and by Sandhya Jain, respectively) have regularly showed Kashmir as separate from India might be another 'clue'.
But I can't imagine that the US government will foolishly keep advertising their intentions in public anymore. They are funding enough subversive activities in India for even the most naive to start adding two and two together (I didn't mean you with this, by the way, it was a self-reference - reference to historical self, I mean). India-US bye bye.
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 02-27-2008
Thanks, but that link does not work.
I like to show some friends how Unkil likes his "checks and balances". But I need little dots that I at least can connect. Else, it is just going to sound paranoid and jingo.
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 02-27-2008
The www.atributetohinduism.com website is now named as www.hinduwisdom.info
The link refered to in Husky's post is now,
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Caste_System.htm
USA And The Future Of The World - Guest - 02-27-2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I received a survey call from Pew something (forum or research - I don't remember exactly) few months back and asked about my religion, ethnicity, if I am happy with my life etc. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They called me on 21 Sept 07, according to called ID. But I refused to participate in survey.
USA And The Future Of The World - acharya - 02-28-2008
<b>Reports of America's decline ignore history</b>
Dan Gardner, Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, February 28, 2008
dgardnerthecitizen.canwest.com