Dandan:

On the dollar and Iraq.

Basically a “Reserve Currency” is the dominant currency that commoditites are traded in on the global market. The country who enjoys having the reserve currency has a lot of leverage in trade and can receive loans/commodities at cheaper rates. Those who control the commodities, such as oil which is the dominant commodity, can help ensure that the commodity is traded in their currency either by direct control, influence or through a proxy government, like the one we set up in Iraq. Because of this, our dollar has often been dubbed the “petro dollar.” There are other factors, primarily confidence in the currency which is why the dollar is likely to lose its reserve status.

The wikipedia entry as a good description
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14243.html

We are nearly at a point where we can no longer afford to pay the interst on our debt. When that happens, the mighty dollar will crash and life as we know it will change rather quickly. We’re already seeing state and local governments sell of their assets to private companies, such as the highways built with our tax dollars, because they can no longer afford the upkeep. The companies will come in light at first, but after the people get used it, they will begin jacking up prices on everything from toll booths to parking meters to trash collection. This is different than contracting for services, which can be controlled. We’re talking about owndership and the right to charge whatever they want because they can.

There is more good information at the Market Oracle. NOTE: “Monetizing Bonds” means nothing more than monetizing debt or turning our debt into money. That’s all a bond is: debt with a promise to pay. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14243.html

Finally, below is what Thomas Edison said of our monetary system in the New York Times on Dec 6 1921, seven years after the Fed was created. In short, he’s saying the government is NOT issuing our currency but is instead getting hit with debt twice by going through the Fed, first on the bond then on the interst.

“That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.

“Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000—that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

“But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20 per cent, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to Muscle Shoals in some useful way.”

http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/edison.html

If the Treasury issued its own money, it would be debt free, honest interest could replace income tax or a large portion of it, and there would be enough currency to meet the population’s needs. As it stands, we have about 9 Trillion Federal reserve notes to pay for 57 Trillion + interest in debt. you do the math. By keeping the money supply contracted and the debt high, the banks are able to monopolize the economy and have their way, even over our political machinations, while we go out and fight each other for the scraps.

C. Curtis Dillon—You’re correct in saying that the Europeans have their own concerns and issues. But they also are just as insistent that we cooperate with them when needed as we are when the shoe’s on the other foot. The last few days, the Euros (especially France) have been complaining about America’s apparent attempt to keep talking to Iran instead of putting tough sanctions in place. Now that their cities are in range of Iranian rockets, they are suddenly worried about what the Iranians might be able to put on those rockets (just as the Israelis are). This is just the way things are. People who feel threatened want their allies to shape up, get pushy with the perceived threateners, etc.

thebeerdoctor, you’re usually on the mark but I think you misunderstand the reason Hamas was elected. The Palestinians were fed up with the corruption of Fatah, and many in Gaza voted for Hamas but didn’t expect them to win. There have been stories to that effect in the NYTimes recently, with some Gaza Arabs saying they are sorry they voted for Hamas, not just for the hostilities with Israel (and many Arabs in Gaza also like that aspect of Hamas, “standing up” to Israel) but because Hamas is actively persecuting people identified with Fatah. Not too long ago—last week—it was reported that a large number of Fatah members from Gaza who had been wounded in Israel’s assault and taken to hospitals in Israel and in the West Bank, were asking for permission to remain out of Gaza because they feared for their lives and their families. The situation in Gaza is tragic. While adequate humanitarian aid and food is being trucked in—100s of trucks daily—Israel is not allowing many kinds of imports that make it difficult for people to reestablish their businesses in Gaza. While I support Israel’s existence 100%, I really do think that the Israeli government should make it possible for Gazans to get enough materials to start up small businesses again, and easing restrictions as they’re doing (but not nearly enough) in the West Bank.

Re Algeria, there have been many factions fighting for control, not just one set of Islamists v. the ‘91 government, and that continues to be the case. There has been grotesque butchery and murder by government, rebels (and of course the uber-colonial repression by La Bellle France).  My son-in-law’s grandparents were native Algerian (not French)teachers in a small mountain village, tortured, and would have been killed had not they been rescued by one of the government’s army units. As educated people with family already in the U.S., they then were able to move to this country and he says his family still owes a lot to the U.S. They obviously love this country, and don’t even blame France for the bloody rebel-government fighting that made the notorious ‘67 uprising—met with the harshest kind of brutal French repression—look like child’s play. Sometimes people from other countries DO look at the U.S. as an amazingly tolerant, multi-religious country where it is possible to live your life in peace.

I hope Obama is gathering enough information—and I think he considers Afghanistan and Pakistan so important that he IS trying to learn all he can before making a firm troop increase. Just hope he understands well enough how to undo or simply not enable the conditions and rules of engagementthat were the brainchild—make that brain-challenged child—of Cheney and W. Though I’ve been very disappointed in his handling of the financial crisis, I think he may be trying to get it right in Afghanistan. (“Right”, in my opinion, is getting out, but what do I know? Maybe I just don’t want to see my son-in-law go over there out of some sense of gratitude for his grandparents’ lives.)

Dunadan:

So as long as they’re private, they’re “grounded in reality” now? (Lest you forget that you just finished criticizing them in your last post.) 

Let’s put it another way. A nickel borrowed in the time of Jesus at 5%, would have an interest debt of 1.1955511023068771e+41 today (or about 10 earths worth of gold) while the only “money” ever created was the original nickel. This is an impossible system.

Or, let’s say you came to me and asked to borrow $10. If I agreed and I wrote the number “10” down on a post-it note and gave it to you at interest, you’d say I was crazy. But let’s assume you agree to the deal. And let’s assume that post-it note is the only legal tender ever created. When your debt comes due, you return the post-it note to pay your debt. Where do you get tthe currency to pay the interest? It does not exist.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

The concept of interest as it was origninaly applied is fair. It assumes that because I lent you some amount of money, I have given you a portion of my wealth. I have endured both cost and hardship in lending you money. How does the creation of currency out of thin air equate to any financial hardship that justifies interest? It doesn’t. But because they MUST turn a profit to satisfy their shareholders, we are charged interest that can never be repaid. Its called indentured servitude. This is no different than the sharecropping debt traps of the 19th century.

You’re wrong about private bankers wanting a sound economy. Perhaps in theory, but in business, profit trumps all—even a sound economy. Just like real-estate derivitives traders. That is the reality they are grounded in.

Take a look at the figures below and explain to me how that debt is supposed to be repaid. I’m not talking about govenrment debt, which is high but not impossibly so. I’m talking about total American debt. It can’t be repaid, because the monetary system is a ponze scheme and, as with any ponze scheme, you can make money if you get in early enough and find yourself at the top of the pyramid. Everyone else, though, is screwed.

Being corporate DOES a private insitution make, as the Federal Reserve Act clearly illustrates below. (Governments do not have stock.)

Federal Reserve Act (excerpted)

“Section 5. Stock Issues; Increase and Decrease of Capital

1. Amount of Shares; Increase and Decrease of Capital; Surrender and Cancellation of Stock

The capital stock of each Federal reserve bank shall be divided into shares of $100 each…”

http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/section5.htm

“Section 7. Division of Earnings
Dividends and Surplus Fund of Reserve Banks
(a)
 
After all necessary expenses of a Federal reserve bank have been paid or provided for, the stockholders of the bank shall be entitled to receive an annual dividend of 6 percent on paid-in capital stock.
The entitlement to dividends under subparagraph (A) shall be cumulative.”

“Exemption from Taxation
(c) Federal reserve banks, including the capital stock and surplus therein, and the income derived therefrom shall be exempt from Federal, State, and local taxation, except taxes upon real estate.”

http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/section7.htm

As of this posting:
Total American debt (public and private):
57 Trillion (Tr).
US GDP for 2008: 14.26 Tr.

GDP per capita: $46,900
Total debt per capita: $186,717
Total Money supply (M2 Funds): 9.795 Tr

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

Care to calculate the interest on 57 Trillion? The paymets are about 45% of annual GDP, tax free of course. That is your wealth leaving you to corrupt your democracy.

You are free to advocate keeping the system as is. But if so, please stop selectively lecturing the rest of us on the righteousness of the Constitution, the founding fathers, and the dangers of “centralized control” of the free market. Its your democracy. Do as you will with it.

Dunadan

From FED RES FAQ:
If the Fed is federal, why do they have to explain the distinction between a “U.S. Note” and a “Federal Reserve Note?” U.S. Notes are created by the government. Reserve notes are “authorized” by the government. Big difference…

“What are U.S. notes, and how do they differ from Federal Reserve notes?

U.S. notes, the first national currency, began circulating during the civil war; they were authorized by the Legal Tender Act of 1862. The Department of the Treasury issued these notes directly. Issuance was subject to limitations; the Congress established a statutory limitation of $300 million on the amount of U.S. notes outstanding and in circulation. Although this amount was significant in Civil War days, it is a very small fraction of the total currency now in circulation in the United States.

U.S. notes serve no function that is not already served by Federal Reserve notes. As a result, the Treasury Department stopped issuing U.S. notes, and none have been placed into circulation since January 21, 1971. Those that remain in circulation are obligations of the U.S. government.

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 authorized the production and circulation of Federal Reserve notes. Although printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), these notes move into circulation through the Federal Reserve System. They are obligations of both the Federal Reserve System and the U.S. government.”

http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqcur.htm#3

Dunadan:

A caveat to the federal reserve bank. Even though the board of governors is federally appointed, the revolving door ensures that bankers with interests tied to the private banks are often appointed.

From the Federal Reserve Act:

“4. General Corporate Powers
Upon the filing of such certificate with the Comptroller of the Currency as aforesaid, the said Federal reserve bank shall become a body corporate and as such, and in the name designated in such organization certificate, shall have power—

First. To adopt and use a corporate seal.”

Dunadan:

“The Fed may not be perfect, but it is not a private bank. It is conceived specifically to be INDEPENDENT from the white house to a certain degree, while still within a governmental system of checks and balances, in order to ensure it does not cater to private OR official interests.”

The Fed is best described as a hybrid institution. Yes it has a federally appointed board of governeors. However, the financial interests remain private. To date, the Fed has never been audited. The public does not know who has benefited from its policies. That is why R Paul has introduced a bill with broad bipratisan support that would allow the GAO to do just that.

It has become a de facto 4th branch of government without Consitutional approval or authority. However, the only check and balance offered is that congress may call the chairman for hearings. In fact, the Consitution expressely defines who may coin money, which did not include any kind of a central bank.

The main problem with the current system (as best I can describe it here) is that the Fractional Reserve banking system charges interest on the creation of money, but does not account for that interest when it creates the money. Hence, there is only enough money in the money supply to pay the principle amount of loans, but not the interest charged. This creates bubbles of debt that grow to consume all of us. The government is forced to engage in ever-rising borrowing and social spending to keep things on an even keel. It also creates unrealistic growth requirements for the economy, because if the economy does not grow, it begins to die. That is simply not sustainable.

Let us not forget that prior to our revolution, each colonial government had begun producing its own srcip. B Franklin obesrved massive inflalion and poverty during a trip to England. He told them that the colonies did not have that problem and explained the monetary system they were using. As all empires believe, the crown decided that the colonies existed to enrich the crown and mandated currency through the Central Bank of England. Shortly after that, the wealth of the colonies began to disappear and the revolution was born not long after. They did not include a central bank in the Constitution specifically because they wanted wealth dispersed throughout the nation and their currency to remain relevant.

If the government were in charge of currency creation as was originally intended, it would not need to charge interest on the creation of money. It can simply produce enough to meet the population’s needs. Or, it can create enough to account for the interest. (ie. assuming 5% CI on $100 created, it could create $105 rather than just $100 loan amount.) As it stands, that bubble of interst siphons nearly 45% of GDP away from the free market system. Wealth is sucked up to the banks, the dollar gets devalued, and both the government and public are forced into hock. Inflation is nothing more than a hidden tax on the public. Because money is produced from debt, and each loan creates 10 times that amount of currency in circulation, the value drops along with our buying power. We are forced in to the work place more and more for less and less buying power.

Fix monetary policy first, then we can address fiscal policy. Until we fix our currency, government spending is a moot point. It will only grow because it must.

As for Iraq, the dollar became the reserve currency because it was “backed by the full faith and credit of the govenrnment.” Under fractional reserve interest bearing money creation, the dollar has plummeted and the world has begun the doubt that faith and credit. The currency that oil is traded in determines the dominant currency. Iraq was a last ditch attempt to keep oil being traded in dollars. The irony being that the increased debt we inherited from such escapades may have sealed its fate.

Dunadan:

I wish I could explain monetary policy one post. Sadly, it cannot be summed up in sound bytes. I linked you to the allegorical explanation of the story of Oz because, as that story and those quotes indicate, monetary policy is a recurrent theme throughout our history. Since the Fed came into existence, though, it has largely disappeared from American consciousness as more people deferred to the knowledge of “the Wizard” in lieu of contemplating how monetary policy impacts their selves and their communities.

Instead, most Americans now see all things as a result fiscal policy. What they don’t tend to link is how monetary policy drives fiscal policy over the long run. Hence we have a 95% devaluation of our currency (inflation) since the Fed came into existence, the ever-increasing need for social spending (lest they face the pitchforks and torches), and desperate attempts to hang on to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency (Iraq).

Long story short, there is not enough money in the money supply to cover the interest charged. There hasn’t been since 1864. This was the premise of Lincoln’s attempt to create a debt-free currency in the Greenback. In fact, central fractional reserve banking practices by England, which decreed colonial scrip illegal, is often argued as the shot heard throughout the colonies. The Bank of England was largely considered the mechanism by which the colonies were kept in servitude. The gold standard ensured sane levels of monetary discipline, but when Nixon ended it in 1971 and based our currency on oil, the money supply went through the roof, along with inflation, stagnant wages, social spending, and accelerating military conflict.

I would argue that profit-driven, fractional reserve, fiat banking, where private banks are allowed to create a debt-driven currency out of thin air, is designed to deposit debt in ever growing bubbles throughout its market because that interest is numerically impossible to pay to back. That debt drives higher levels of government spending and an impetus to fill that void from abroad, while removing the buying power of the dollar for all of us. Over time it sucks us dry and begins approaching a level of servitude, which brings us back to the story of Oz.

I prefer to see monetary policy as the place where liberalism and conservatism meet and become singular in their purpose. Both Ron Paul and Michael moore are calling to strip the Fed of its power to create currency and return that power back to government/states as Lincoln, Franklin, Jefferson, Jackson and FDR all intended.

There are several publications which explain this much more detail than I can here. Links are below.

Modern Money Mechanics: Chicago Federal Reserve
http://www.rayservers.com/images/ModernMoneyMechanics.pdf

Ellen Brown: Web of Debt (highly recommended)
http://www.webofdebt.com/

Ron Paul: End the Fed
http://www.ronpaul.com/2008-11-23/ron-paul-end-the-fed/

Dunadan:

“Either that or you have all been collectively Jedi-mind-tricked into the same brand of BS that has been gangrening liberals since the sixties. As a matter of fact, i take issue with leftists calling themselves liberals…it’s an insult to liberalism as it was conceived by the likes of Locke, Montesquieu and the founding fathers.”

Do you always condradict your porported ethic that is critical of broad generalizations or categorization in the same statement, or just when you’re emotionally tied to something that has proven disastrous?

Being the expert on the founding fathers, as your post implies, perhaps you can explain why so many of them seemed to come around to the same theme. Then, please explain why GW didn’t, or couldn’t, as the case may be.

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
—Henry Ford

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
—Thomas Jefferson

“The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.”
—Andrew Jackson

“The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity. The financing of all public enterprise, and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and will then become servant of humanity.”
—Abraham Lincoln

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson…The country is going through a repetition of Jackson’s fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt

“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.”
—The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/oz.html

Invasion of Iraq was the most evil calculation in American history. (The invasion was even timed to happen in March because you don’t launch a new product in, say, August.)  With Bush’s numbers falling, with bin Laden apparently not to be caught, Bush needed a ‘proper’ war, a number raiser, an evil doer, not to mention a lot of oil there for the taking.

Europeans, unlike Americans, have long since figured out that American politicians create policies to further their political careers and Europeans could care less about the political success or failure of American politicians.

Mary Ann McNeely, you’ve nailed it.

By melpol, October 24 at 9:56 am #

It cannot be repeated often enough: “ The war against dissidents is a trillion dollar
business, it employes millions”. No American president will want, or dare cut a
hole in that budget. There will always be dissidents and there will always be wars
that cannot be won. Relax and watch the show.

* * * *

Sorry Mel, but this is the first I have heard about the “War on Dissidents”.

Not that I would argue that the primary factors motivating successive American governments since 1945 to pursue military adventures in pursuit of stated objectives that are vaguely defined, dubious or just plain false, are:

(1) to keep the money flowing to the powerful military contractors and Pentagon careerists;

(2) to persuade the naive, credulous and easily led segment of the American population (probably about 75% of us) that some bogeyman out in that nasty, never-visited, mistrusted and barely imagined world beyond our borders, is threatening our “Way of Life”, so they will close ranks and reject the leadership of American dissidents whose calls for economic and social justice have been ignored over and over again.

Is this what you mean by a “war against dissidents”?

Whatever you mean by that expression, I think the game is up for American militarism and imperialism. Not because the majority of Americans have gotten any smarter, but because the American government is on the verge of bankrupting itself and the only thing keeping the cash merry-go-round running is the Chinese government’s unwillingness to let its own currency appreciate against the dollar - and so they keep buying US government debt. China is paying for America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by extending credit to the American government as irresponsibly as American banks were making sub-prime loans just a little while ago. When the Chinese government stops lending, as eventually it must, the American government will have to choose between radically increasing taxes or radically cutting military (and all other) spending.

Needless to say, the American government will first try to cut out all spending that benefits the American people in order to preserve the sacred cow of “defense”. They will try to persuade us that we must give up what is left of our schools, roads, hospitals, parks, Social Security and Medicare because, so they will tell us, we can no longer afford those things so long as we face the “threats” that justify our foreign wars and bloated “defense” establishment.   

But every population has its limits as to the amount of exploitation, deprivation and abuse they will endure from their rulers. Passive, ill informed and easily led though they have become, even today’s Americans still carry some of the DNA of the people who over the course of the past 400 years had the gumption to make their own decisions and leave behind the caged security of the worlds they knew in search of a freer life in a lawless and untamed land.

And god said “kill them all”. Which god is that? Which one have you got?

“Europe,” Gordon said, “is as vulnerable as we are, if not more so.”

Vulnerable to what?  American lies and bullshit?

It cannot be repeated often enough: “ The war against dissidents is a trillion dollar
business, it employes millions”. No American president will want, or dare cut a
hole in that budget. There will always be dissidents and there will always be wars
that cannot be won. Relax and watch the show.

Merely more evidence, as if any were needed, that the “global” privateering pyramid scam has gone completely cannibalistic in the death-throes phase of its operations.  Can autophagia be far behind?

Just a little food-for-thought, tame Sisters and Brothers, as you crowd into the great urban feedlots and onto the terror-filled killing floors of the meat-grinder CONtraption you like to call “civilization.”

HokaHey!

President Obama will soon decide whether to send as many as 60,000 additional U.S. soldiers to the war in Afghanistan.

Let’s urge Obama to live up to his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Tell him to withdraw troops from Afghanistan—not send more.

http://bit.ly/noafghansurge

actually, its about “self defence”
for example, yanks reserve the right to retaliate against a threatening carpark 2000 miles away from home….in iraq.
http://tinyurl.com/yfo23du

Zbigniew Brzezinski, pres. Carters National Security
Advisor, briefly part of his plan, to basically
promote an international movement to spread Islamic
fundamentalism causing ‘A few stirred up Muslims’.

C. Curtis. Dillon.
As a UK citizen I really wish I could say we were not
so militarily strong handed, unfortunately the
majority fall for the stories and happily sign up,
but then there are no jobs in abundance except for
the army and our youth see a fight for freedom. I
have little sympathy for a person who happily signs
their life to the country and return in a coffin. I
see no great war where we MUST defend ourselves
without choice, No we have choice and I do tire
hearing the families wail. Yes I feel for their pain
and loss, but it was a concious decision to go fight.
We still seem to believe our troops are conscripted
and we are fighting for the world. War and politics
have changed much in 60-70 years..

Dar McWheeler
Yes, we need to rise up and break these companies
backs before they completely break ours.

No_Mans_Land
I thoroughly agree about the global lines need
changing for us to see these things better.

As a UK citizen I can only say, shame on my country
for it’s evils and America too, this is not our war.

Once America is at war with anyone we must commit ourselves fully to the endevor…. It matters not if the war is illegal or immoral… It’s a proven fact that on August 31st, 1939 most Germans were against war with Europe but that all changed 24 hours later…. They had to support the troops and the homeland… Just like US….

Which brings me to the patriotic American flag lapel pins that are so popular on Capital Hill… They’re just not patriotic enough for someone like me… I’m producing and selling American flag arm bands…  I got the idea watching Hogan’s Heros…. Those wacky Nazis wore ones emblazoned with the swastika to show everyone how much they loved their Homeland…. Peace everyone…  America Uber Alles….

William Pfaff writes: “The only successful terrorist bombings in France during the past quarter century were carried out by Algerian Islamist sympathizers to punish France for keeping up relations with an Algerian military government then attempting-by brutal measures to put down an even more brutal Islamic fundamentalist campaign indiscriminately killing Algerian civilians.”

What a remarkably cavalier piece of neoliberal drivel this paragraph is. That Algerian military that Pfaff is giving a half-ass alibi for, nullified the 1991 election in which the Islamist Salvation Front was about to gain a parliamentary majority, Pfaff sets himself as the final arbiter as to who is the most brutal, siding with the Algerian military in a civil war that cost in excess of one hundred thousand lives.
But, like the Palestinians choosing to elect HAMAS, the neoliberal vision promotes democracy only when it is a government that the United States and Israel can accept, and woe betide any people who stand up and choose any alternative, no matter how distasteful to western sensibilities.
Pfaff seems to have neoliberal amnesia. He forgets the brutal tactics used by France to repress the Algerians’ desire for independence, Memory goes a long way in the Middle East. The United States remained silent when the 1991 Algerian election was nullified, just as it slently colluded with Israel for punishing the Palestinians for electing the wrong people.
All the chatter about faith in democracy is actually a cruel propagandistic joke. As the late Fela Kuti would say: “I must look and laugh”.

Dar McWheeler

“The profits, however, remain in the US.”

Agreed with all points but this one. Business is no longer homogenized by nation-states. There is a parallel corporate state that does not recognize the map beyond the level of being a necessary but unfortunate obstacle for the time being. I am quite certain that there are Europeans, banking/business types, who have no problem with American foreign policy. This is mere theater from the EU. No different than “anti-war” democrats who continue to enable the policy. The EU answers to its business interests as much as we do. Those interests have never had a problem riding the coattails of American military action—if not encouraging it. As such, the EU political machinations remain complicit. The sooner we stop looking at lines on the globe and start looking at this as a network of interests that is between the cracks and beyond the control of any one democracy, the better off we’ll all be.

The Real Meaning of War

It always been about the money. This was confirmed in the McChrystal leak. Chaosistan? A corporate, for-profit war theater managed and milked from without? Run your political analysis through this filter and suddenly it all makes complete sense. It’s the American Way.

from Newsweek article:
“Chaostan”—a vast region stretching from Poland to North Africa to China, Vietnam, and Indonesia—would eventually merge into World War III. From an investor’s point of view, Maybury wrote, this will be “great for weapons stocks and security—equipment stocks…and non-Chaostan oil investments.”

In my business, entertainment and investment, things get done in much the same way as war. So, my take is this: they are crying wolf to boost involvment, which means increased weapons sales and increased overall cost distribution. The profits, however, remain in the US.

It’s like the show promoter who tells the lighting director he needs more of the Really Expensive lights, and he also owns the company that makes them, but without them, he cries, the audience will demand their money back. And no, the lighting director doesn’t get paid more for this. Nonsense, of course, but it works.

Now that it’s been confirmed that war has nothing to do with security, democracy, safety or anything else except money, we have a great opportunity to fight against this insane, sci-fi version of corporate capitalism by not letting anyone forget that war, armies, soldiers and the M.I.C. are nothing more than Wall Street with guns.

“the attacks on the London Underground were copycat affairs inspired by 9/11”

True enough, if you mean that like 911 they were false-flag operations using terror drills as cover:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/memory-holes-in-the-floor/

Living on the European side of the great pond I see a different world from America.  The Europeans have their own problems to deal with and are less inclined to want anything to do with issues outside their borders.  They have a hugely bureaucratic system which has been made more complex by the European parliament.  With approval of the new European constitution all but assured, they must also deal with a new European foreign policy apparatus and a new president on top of their already bloated national structures.  Getting any consensus is extremely hard under this system.

Add to that a decidedly anti-military environment (with the exception of England) and you have the situation that exists at this time.  Germany is constitutionally prohibited from waging war and there is strong discussion about the emerging combat requirements on their troops.  They are there for nation building and can only fire in self-defense.  Europe gave into Bush as a sympathetic reaction to 9/11 but there is a limit to their commitment and patience with this open-ended engagement in Afghanistan.  And, despite much more terrorism on their soil, they are less inclined to lash out.  They found ways to deal with the issues locally.

But, we in America have been conditioned to the Rambo response.  Don’t try to figure out why they attacked, make them pay!  Of course, in the end this behavior only engenders more anger and revenge which will happen eventually ... despite Dick Cheney and his bluster.  Every bomb that kills an innocent (or a Taliban leader) creates a new wave of terrorist dedicated to punishing us (meaning civilians since we are such juicy and susceptible targets).

Lemuel G., much of what you say makes sense, but I think this article is under-researched and it’s hard to answer strung-together opinions with anything other than more strung-together opinions.
We on Truthdig sometimes tend to oversimply our broad-brush portraits of why a huge group of people does this or that, how or why they react, when the underlying conditions are variable, complex, and in flux. The Europeans in their own way are just as complex as any Muslim nation, as the U.S., and, for that matter, as inscrutable as any court scrutinized by Machiavelli.

Surely the author doesn’t believe that these same justifications are being offered to European policy-makers behind closed doors?

The ‘old’ Europeans are less enthusiastic not because they believe in non-intervention or because they are any more beholden to negative public opinion than American politicians… they just don’t get-with the US-style ‘look Mom - no hands!!’ brand of imperialism. (by that I mean they do all the hard work, and then hand it all off to the most corrupt locals they can find, instead of taking the reins themselves)

The current Afghan war is being waged not so the US can control and own Afghanistan - it is in order to deny that ‘priviledge’ to any other (almost certainly less moral and accountable) regional powers (‘radical’Islam counts as well - they’re fine to sik on your enemies like rabid mutts, but you can’t have ‘em roaming the neighbourhood). This is the pattern of US pseudo-imperialism since WWII.

If America really was the insane, marauding, theiving monster-state many in these pages would like to make it out to be… it would’ve annexed Mexico long ago - it’s what the ‘old’ Euros would’ve done (who knows, the Mexicans may have been better off).

Without someone to fight,  the Pentagon would dry up and blow away.  Think of all those tons of dollars going back into the public coffers.  Think of all those hi-tech companies giving up their no-bid government contracts, terminating their employees and shutting down the vast research labs that invent bigger and better ways to kill people—other people, of course. Think of what that money could do to feed, clothe and house poor wretches who are picking through dumps for food and dying of water-bourne diseases that could be eliminated with pennies. Most people are not made happier by living off the abuse of other people.  It’s time for governments to rethink violence as foreign policy.

The Europeans aren’t the only ones getting tired of hearing this. It seems as if the U.S. government must have someone to scare the population with.

With an enemy to scare us with, the government can continue to strip us of our rights. Our government uses the threat from an enemy to justify its own atrocities.