AMERICA
IS GOING to WW3 after OIL WAR IN NEAR-EAST
[[ Please read the original Art of M Hudson in the source above. His Art title has been abbreviate and here I
added notes in brackets: I did it for speech purposes. Hugo
Adan ]]
The
mainstream media are carefully sidestepping the method behind America’s seeming
madness in assassinating Islamic Revolutionary Guard general Qassim Suleimani
to start the New Year. The logic behind the assassination this
was a long-standing application of U.S. global policy, not just a personality
quirk of Donald Trump’s impulsive action. His assassination of Iranian
military leader Suleimani was indeed a unilateral act of war in violation of
international law, but it was a logical step in a long-standing U.S. strategy.
It was explicitly authorized by the Senate in the funding bill for the Pentagon
that it passed last year. [ -1-]
The assassination
was intended to escalate America’s presence in Iraq to keep control the region’s oil
reserves, and to back Saudi
Arabia’s Wahabi troops (Isis, Al Quaeda in Iraq, Al Nusra and other
divisions of what are actually America’s foreign legion) to support U.S. control of Near
Eastern oil as a buttress to the U.S. dollar. That remains the key to [-2-] understanding
this policy, and why it is in the process of escalating, not dying down.
[[ The issue war
deals with 1st
oil companies monopolies and
expansion; 2nd, with US military
spending; and 3rd with Senate’s removal of the amendment to the 2019
National Defense Authorization Act that Bernie Sanders, Tom Udall and Ro Khanna
inserted in the House of Representatives version, explicitly not authorizing
the Pentagon to wage war against Iran or assassinate its officials..
[ -3- ] ]]
The
media and public discussion have diverted attention from this strategy by
floundering speculation that President Trump did it, except to counter the
(non-)threat of impeachment with a wag-the-dog attack, or to back Israeli
lebensraum drives, or simply to surrender the White House to neocon hate-Iran
syndrome. [-4- cover T-impeach & ISR bellicosity
on Iran]
The actual
context for the neocon’s action was to assure balance of payments, and the
role of oil and energy as a long-term lever of American diplomacy. [-5-]
THE BALANCE OF PAYMENTS DIMENSION
The major deficit
in the U.S. balance of payments has long been military spending abroad. The entire
payments deficit, beginning with the Korean War in 1950-51 and extending
through the Vietnam War of the 1960s, was responsible for forcing the dollar
off gold in 1971. The problem facing America’s military strategists was how
to continue supporting the 800 U.S. military bases around the world and
allied troop support without losing America’s financial leverage.[-5a-]
The solution
turned out to be to replace gold with U.S. Treasury securities
(IOUs) as the basis of foreign central bank reserves. After 1971, foreign central banks had
little option for what to do with their continuing dollar inflows except to
recycle them to the U.S. economy by buying U.S. Treasury securities. The
effect of U.S. foreign military spending thus did not undercut the dollar’s
exchange rate, and did not even force the Treasury and Federal Reserve to raise
interest rates to attract foreign exchange to offset (compensar) the dollar
outflows on military account. In fact, U.S. foreign
milit spend helped finance d domestic U.S. federal budget deficit. [-5b-]
Saudi Arabia and other Near Eastern OPEC countries quickly became a buttress (support) of
the dollar. After these countries quadrupled the price
of oil (in retaliation for the United States quadrupling the price of
its grain exports, a mainstay of the U.S. trade balance), U.S. banks were swamped with an inflow of much foreign
deposits – which were lent out to Third World countries in an
explosion of bad loans that blew up in 1972 with
Mexico’s insolvency, and destroyed Third World government credit
for a decade, forcing it into dependence on the United States via the IMF
and World Bank).-5c- US fue inundad con fake USD lend to 3rd world.[-5c-]
To top matters,
of course, what Saudi Arabia does not save in
dollarized assets with its oil-export earnings
is spent on buying hundreds of billion of dollars of
U.S. arms exports. This locks them into dependence on U.S. supply o
replacement parts and repairs, and enables the United States to turn off
Saudi military hardware at any point of time, in the event that the Saudis
may try to act independently of U.S. foreign policy.
So maintaining
the dollar as the world’s reserve currency became a mainstay of U.S. military
spending. Foreign
countries to not have to pay the Pentagon directly for this spending. They
simply finance the U.S. Treasury and U.S. banking system. [-6-]
Fear of
this development was a major reason why the United States moved against Libya, whose foreign
reserves were held in gold, not dollars, an which was urging other
African countries to follow suit in order to free themselves from “Dollar
Diplomacy.” Hillary and Obama invaded, grabbed their gold supplies (we still
have no idea who ended up with these billions of dollars worth of gold) and
destroyed Libya’s government, its public education system, its public infrastructure
and other non-neoliberal policies. [-7- Hillary &
OB stolen Libian gold]
The
great threat to this is dedollarization as China, Russia and other countries
seek to avoid recycling dollars. Without the dollar’s function as the vehicle for world saving – in
effect, without the Pentagon’s role in creating the Treasury debt that is
the vehicle for world central bank reserves – the U.S. would find itself
constrained militarily and hence diplomatically constrained, as it was under
the gold exchange standard. [-8- Penta forced d recycle
USD]
That
is the same strategy that the U.S. has followed in Syria and Iraq. Iran was threatening this dollarization
strategy and its (apoyo) buttress in U.S. oil diplomacy. [-9- ] Oil +USD diplomacy threatened by
Syria + Iran. [That is why US war on them ]
The oil industry as buttress of the U.S.
balance of payments and foreign diplomacy
US trade balance
is buttressed by oil and farm surpluses. Oil is the
key, because it is imported by U.S. companies at almost no balance-of-payments
cost (the payments
end up in the oil industry’s head offices here as profits and payments to
management. El Us no produce oil pero se encarga de vender el oil Saudi, Afr ++),
while profits on U.S. oil company sales to other
countries are remitted to the United States (via offshore
tax-avoidance centers, mainly Liberia and Panama for many years). And as
noted above, OPEC countries have been told to keep their official reserves
in the form of U.S. securities (stocks and bonds as well as Treasury IOUs,
but not direct purchase of U.S. companies being deemed economically important).
Financially, OPEC countries are client slates of the
Dollar Area. [-10-]
America’s attempt
to maintain this buttress explains U.S. opposition to
any foreign government steps to reverse global warming and the extreme weather caused by the world’s U.S.-sponsored
dependence on oil. Any such moves by Europe and other countries would
reduce dependence on U.S. oil sales, and hence on U.S. ability to control the
global oil spigot as a means of control and coercion, are viewed as hostile
acts. [-11- oil cause global warming]
Oil also explains U.S.
opposition to Russian oil exports via Nordstream. U.S. strategists want to treat energy as a U.S.
national monopoly. Other countries can benefit in the way that Saudi Arabia
has done – by sending their surpluses to the U.S. economy – but not to support
their own economic growth and diplomacy. Control of
oil thus implies support for continued global warming as an inherent
part of U.S. strategy. [-12- US Bomb Ukr plane: TitxTat to defy US power
& monopoly ]
HOW A “DEMOCRATIC” NATION CAN WAGE
INTERNAT WAR AND TERRORISM
The Vietnam War
showed that modern democracies cannot put armies for any major military
conflict, because this would require a draft of its citizens. That would
lead any government attempting such a draft to be voted out of power. And
without troops, it is not possible to invade a country to take it over.
The corollary of
this perception is that democracies have only two
choices when it comes to military strategy: They can only wage airpower,
bombing opponents; or they can create a foreign legion, that is, hire mercenaries or back foreign governments that
provide this military service.
Here
once again Saudi Arabia plays a critical role, through its control of Wahabi
Sunnis turned into terrorist jihadis willing to sabotage, bomb, assassinate,
blow up and otherwise fight any target designated as an enemy of “Islam,” the
euphemism for Saudi Arabia acting as U.S. client state. (Religion really is not the key; I know of no ISIS or
similar Wahabi attack on Israeli targets.)
The United States needs the
Saudis to supply or finance Wahabi crazies. So in addition to playing a key
role in the U.S. balance of payments by recycling its oil-export earnings are
into U.S. stocks, bonds and other investments, Saudi
Arabia provides manpower by supporting the Wahabi members of America’s foreign
legion, ISIS and Al-Nusra/Al-Qaeda. Terrorism has become the
“democratic” mode of today U.S. military policy. [-13-
Saudi=terror]
What makes
America’s oil war in the Near East “democratic” is that this is the only kind
of war a democracy can fight – an air war, followed by
a vicious terrorist army that makes up for the fact that no democracy
can field its own army in today’s world. The corollary is that, terrorism has become the “democratic” mode of warfare.
From the U.S.
vantage point, what is a “democracy”? In
today’s Orwellian vocabulary, it means any
country supporting U.S. foreign policy. Bolivia and Honduras have become
“democracies” since their coups, along with Brazil. Chile under Pinochet was a
Chicago-style free market democracy. So was Iran under the Shah, and Russia
under Yeltsin – but not since it elected Vladimir Putin president, any more
than is China under President Xi.
The
antonym to “democracy” is “terrorist.” That simply means a nation willing to fight
to become independent from U.S. neoliberal democracy. It does not
include America’s proxy armies.
IRAN’S ROLE AS U.S. NEMESIS [Castigo] [-14-]
What stands in
the way of U.S. dollarization, oil and military strategy? Obviously, Russia
and China have been targeted as long-term strategic enemies for seeking
their own independent economic policies and diplomacy. But next to them, Iran has been in America’s gun sights for nearly seventy
years.
America’s hatred
of Iran starts with its attempt to control its own oil production, exports and earnings.
It goes back to 1953, when Mossadegh was
overthrown because he wanted domestic sovereignty over Anglo-Persian oil. The CIA-MI6 coup replaced him with the pliant Shah, who
imposed a police state to prevent Iranian independence from U.S. policy. The
only physical places free from the police were the mosques. That made the
Islamic Republic the path of least resistance to overthrowing the Shah and
re-asserting Iranian sovereignty.
The United States came to terms with OPEC oil independence by
1974, but the antagonism toward Iran extends to demographic and
religious considerations. Iranian support its
Shi’ite population and those of Iraq and other countries – emphasizing support for the poor and for quasi-socialist
policies instead of neoliberalism – has made it the main religious
rival to Saudi Arabia’s Sunni sectarianism and its role as America’s
Wahabi foreign legion.
America opposed General Suleimani above all because he was fighting against
ISIS and other U.S.-backed terrorists in their attempt to break up Syria
and replace Assad’s regime with a set of U.S.-compliant local leaders – the old
British “divide and conquer” ploy. On occasion, Suleimani
had cooperated with U.S. troops in fighting ISIS groups that got “out of line” meaning
the U.S. party line. But every indication is that he
was in Iraq to work with that government seeking
to regain control of the oil fields that President Trump has bragged so
loudly about grabbing.
Already in early 2018, President Trump asked Iraq to reimburse America for the
cost of “saving its democracy” by bombing the remainder of Saddam’s
economy. The reimbursement was to take the form of
Iraqi Oil. More recently, in 2019, President Trump asked, why not
simply grab Iraqi oil. The giant oil field has become the prize of the
Bush-Cheney post 9-11 Oil War. “‘It was a very run-of-the-mill, low-key,
meeting in general,” a source who was in the room told Axios.’ And then right
at the end, Trump says something to the effect of, he gets a little smirk on
his face and he says, ‘So what are we going to do about the oil?’”
Trump’s
idea that America should “get something” out of its military expenditure in
destroying the Iraqi and Syrian economies simply reflects U.S. policy.
In late October, 2019, The New York Times reported
that: “In recent days, Mr. Trump has settled on Syria’s
oil reserves as a new rationale for appearing to reverse course and
deploy hundreds of additional troops to the war-ravaged country. He has
declared that the USA has “secured” oil fields in the country’s chaotic
northeast and suggested that the seizure of the country’s main natural resource
justifies America further extending its military presence there. ‘We have taken
it and secured it,’ Mr. Trump said of Syria’s oil during remarks at the White
House on Sunday, after announcing the killing of the Islamic State leader, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi.” A CIA official reminded the journalist that taking Iraq’s oil was a Trump campaign pledge.
That explains the
invasion of Iraq for oil in 2003, and again this year, as President Trump has said: “Why don’t we simply take their
oil?” It also explains the Obama-Hillary attack on Libya
– not only for its oil, but for its investing its foreign reserves in gold
instead of recycling its oil surplus revenue to the U.S. Treasury – and
of course, for promoting a secular socialist state. [-15-
vs: “Why don’t we simply take their Gold?” From Obama-Hillary What’s
worse ]
It
explains why U.S. neocons feared Suleimani’s plan to help Iraq assert control
of its oil and withstand the terrorist attacks supported by U.S. and Saudi’s on
Iraq. That is what made his assassination an immediate drive.
American
politicians have discredited themselves by starting off their condemnation of
Trump by saying, as Elizabeth Warren did, how “bad” a person Suleimani was, how he
had killed U.S. troops by masterminding the Iraqi defense of roadside bombing
and other policies trying to repel the U.S. invasion to grab its oil. She was simply parroting the U.S. media’s depiction of
Suleimani as a monster, diverting attention from the policy issue that
explains why he was assassinated now.
THE COUNTER STRATEGY TO US
OIL AND DOLLAR + GLOBAL-WARMING DIPLOMACY
This strategy will continue, until foreign countries reject it. If Europe and other regions fail to do so, they
will suffer the consequences of this U.S. strategy in the form of a rising
U.S.-sponsored war via terrorism, the flow of refugees, and accelerated global
warming and extreme weather.
Russia,
China and its allies already have been leading the way to dedollarization as a
means to contain the balance-of-payments buttress of U.S. global military
policy. But everyone now is speculating over what Iran’s response should be.
The
message is that the assassination of General Soleimani was to protect us. As Donald Trump
and various military spokesmen have said, he had killed Americans – and now they must be planning an enormous attack that will injure and
kill many more innocent Americans. That stance has become America’s
posture in the world: US is weak and threatened, and is requiring a strong
defense – in front of a strong offense.WW3 Argts [-16-]
But
what is Iran’s actual interest? IF it is indeed to undercut U.S.
dollar and oil strategy, the first policy must be to
get U.S. military forces out of the Near East, including
U.S. occupation of its oil fields. It turns out that President Trump’s
rash act has acted as a catalyst, bringing about just the opposite of what he
wanted. On January 5 the Iraqi parliament met to insist that the United
States must leave. General Suleimani was an invited guest, not an Iranian
invader. It is U.S. troops that are in Iraq in violation of international law.
If they leave, Trump and the neocons lose control of
oil – and also of their ability to interfere with
Iranian-Iraqi-Syrian-Lebanese mutual defense.
Beyond
Iraq looms Saudi Arabia. It has become the Great Satan, the supporter of Wahabi extremism,
the terrorist legion of U.S. mercenary armies fighting to maintain control
of Near Eastern oil and foreign exchange reserves, the cause of the great
exodus of refugees to Turkey, Europe and wherever else it can flee from the
arms and money provided by the U.S. backers of Isis, Al Qaeda in Iraq and their
allied Saudi Wahabi legions. [-17- Saudis: the Great Satan ]
The
logical ideal, in principle, would be to destroy Saudi power. That power lies
in its oil fields. They already have fallen under attack by modest
Yemeni bombs. If U.S. neocons seriously threaten Iran, its response would be
the wholesale bombing and destruction of Saudi oil fields, along with those of
Kuwait and allied Near Eastern oil sheikhdoms. It
would end the Saudi support for Wahabi terrorists, as well as for the U.S.
dollar.
Such an act no doubt would be coordinated with a
call for the Palestinian and other foreign workers in Saudi Arabia to rise up
and drive out the monarchy and its thousands of family retainers.
Beyond Saudi Arabia, Iran and other advocates of a multilateral
diplomatic break with U.S. neoliberal and neocon unilateralism should bring pressure on Europe to withdraw from NATO, inasmuch
as that organization functions mainly as a U.S.-centric military tool of
American dollar and oil diplomacy and hence opposing the climate change and
military confrontation policies that threaten to make Europe part of the U.S.
maelstrom. [-18-]
Finally,
what can U.S. anti-war opponents do to resist the neocon attempt to destroy any
part of the world that resists U.S. neoliberal autocracy? This has been the most disappointing response over
the weekend. They are using child tools & wrong Argts. It has not been
helpful for Warren, Buttigieg and others to accuse Trump of acting rashly
without thinking through the consequences of his actions. That approach hide
& shies away from recognizing that trump’s action did indeed have a war-rationale
supported by US congress—
[[ SO: dems have to draw a line in
the sand, and either say: YES, America WILL go to
war, will fight Iran, will do anything at all to defend its control of Near
Eastern oil and to dictate OPEC central bank policy, to defend its ISIS
legions as if any opposition to this policy is
an attack on the United States itself. = Fascism
OR say NO: we
are not in favor of imperial terrorism and much less in favor of sacrificing the
life of our soldiers in this inhumane adventure that lead to WW3 ]]. [-19-]
I can understand the emotional response or yet new calls for impeachment
of Donald Trump. But that is an obvious non-starter, partly because it has been
so obviously a partisan move by the Democratic Party. More
important is the false and self-serving accusation that President Trump has
overstepped his constitutional limit by committing an act of war against Iran
by assassinating Soleimani.
Congress endorsed Trump’s assassination and is
fully as guilty as he is for having approved the Pentagon’s budget with the Senate’s
removal of the amendment to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that
Bernie Sanders, Tom Udall and Ro Khanna inserted an amendment in the House of
Representatives version, explicitly not authorizing the Pentagon to wage war
against Iran or assassinate its officials.
When this budget was sent to the Senate, the White House and Pentagon
(a.k.a. the military-industrial complex and neoconservatives) removed that
constraint. That was a red flag announcing that the Pentagon and White House
did indeed intend to wage war against Iran and/or assassinate its officials. Congress
lacked the courage to argue this point at the forefront of public discussion.
[-20-] [[ We must be consistent with PEACE &
the commitments we signed in 2019 ]]
Behind
all this is the Saudi-inspired 9/11 act taking away Congress’s sole power to
wage war – its 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force,
pulled out of the drawer ostensibly against Al Qaeda but actually the first
step in America’s long support of the very group that was responsible for 9/11,
the Saudi airplane hijackers.
The
question is, how to get the world’s politicians – U.S., European and Asians –
to see how America’s all-or-nothing policy is threatening new waves of war,
refugees, disruption of the oil trade in the Strait of Hormuz, and ultimately
global warming and neoliberal dollarization imposed on all countries. It is a sign of how little power exists in the United Nations that no
countries are calling for a new Nurenberg-style war crimes trial, no threat
to withdraw from NATO or even to avoid holding reserves in the form of
money lent to the U.S. Treasury to fund America’s military budget. [-20 a-] [We
need a new Nurenberg trial]
….
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