The mainstream media in the United States is almost totally ignoring one of the most important trends in global economics. This trend is going to cause the value of the U.S. dollar to fall dramatically and it is going to cause the cost of living in the United States to go way up. Right now, the U.S. dollar is the primary reserve currency of the world. Even though that status has been chipped away at in recent years, U.S. dollars still make up more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world. Most international trade (including the buying and selling of oil) is conducted in U.S. dollars, and this gives the United States a tremendous economic advantage. Since so much trade is done in dollars, there is a constant demand for more dollars all over the globe from countries that need them for trading purposes.
Category: China-India-Russia Specials
Washington D.C. foreign policy think tank the Center For Strategic & International Studies took a long hard look at what it really means to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, what it would take, and what it could lead…
The Central Intelligence Agency cobbled together the forerunner of the present Muslim jihadist terrorist network in the late 1970s to battle Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Throughout the next three decades, the CIA continued to maintain links with the jihadist groups, using them as allies for certain operations and attacking them when America’s «commitment» to the «war on terrorism» required an propaganda boost in the world’s media. An example of the CIA ‘s flip-flopping between using its mujaheddin and jihadist allies and then declaring them «terrorists» and putting a price on their heads is the recent declaration by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the Haqqani network based in North Waziristan, Pakistan is a «foreignterrorist organization». The Haqqani network, led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, was cobbled together by the CIA and the Pakistani Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the 1980s.
The Global War on Terrorism not only targets “non-State” terrorist entities including Al Qaeda, it is also directed against alleged “state sponsors” of terrorism. In this regard, several Western countries including the US, Britain and Canada consider that Iran is supportive of the “Sunni jihadist terror network”, an absurd proposition. In December 2011, a Manhattan court judgment (based on selected testimonies and fabricated evidence), accused the Islamic Republic of Iran of supporting the 9/11 Al Qaeda hijackers. The investigation into Tehran’s alleged role was launched in 2004, pursuant to a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission “regarding an apparent link between Iran, Hezbollah, and the 9/11 hijackers”. The 91/11 Commission’s recommendation was that the this “apparent link” required “further investigation by the U.S. government.” (9/11 Commission Report , p. 241). (See Iran 911 Case).
[This year, 2012, marks the 15th Anniversary of the publication of the English and Japanese print editions of the book Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet by Michael Hauben and…
Early 2012 violent clashes between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhists broke out in Myanmar´s Rakhine State which is bordering to Bangladesh. In 2011 Myanmar ended 49 years of military rule. It is slowly implementing political, social, legal and economical reforms. It has been troubled by supposed ethnic conflicts for decades; Remnants of the British Divide and Conquer Strategy, aggravated by world war two and modo-colonial influences. It is the most rich country in the greater Mekong region in terms of natural resources. Yet it is one of the lowest ranking on the Social Development Index. The end of military rule opened the doors for western corporations, NGOs, think-tanks, human rights organizations and to a greater influence of UN Agencies. Many of them, UN-agencies included, are associated to and sponsored by the likes of the self-proclaimed philanthropist and multi-billionaire George Soros.
Imagine if Iran — or any other country — did a fraction of what American and Israel do at will. It is not easy to escape from one’s skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let’s take a few examples. The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Imagine the situation to be reversed. Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power participation. Its leaders announce that negotiations are going nowhere. Israel refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and allow inspections, as Iran has done. Israel continues to defy the overwhelming international call for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region. Throughout, Iran enjoys the support of its superpower patron.
Supranational ASEAN is Super Folly for Southeast Asia. US reveals ASEAN as neo-imperial consolidation as Clinton calls on bloc to present a “united front” against China. In the literary classic “Gulliver’s Travels,” the protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, finds himself shipwrecked on an island of tiny people called, “Lilliputians.” While he slept, the Lilliputians used their tiny rope and stakes to tie Gulliver down. When he awoke, though many times larger than any one of the Lilliputians, he was immobilized and at their mercy. This analogy is important because it represents the precise example used by Wall Street-London corporate-financier interests in producing policy for the containment of China. In 1997, a very different world from today, where the idea of a multipolar world order uprooting Anglo-American hegemony was still a fanciful notion, Western policy makers literally used this analogy to describe their strategy of encircling and containing China.
People are driven to war by conflicting ideologies, especially when they take a fanatical form – for example, when you believe that a certain piece of land was given to you by God, or that your country has a special mission, like exporting human rights and democracy, preferably by cruise missiles and drones. It is both sad and ironical that an idea that is largely secular and liberal, the one of human rights, has now been turned into one of the main means to whip up war hysteria in the West. But that is our present situation and a most urgent and important task is to change it.
The US government has got its feathers ruffled and even gone out of its way to berate NAM leaders for gathering in Iran. US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland – the spouse of neo-con Project for the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder and arch-imperialist Robert Kagan – has asked Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, and even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Washington’s own steward at the UN, not to travel to Tehran. Nuland and the US State Department have bitterly declared that Iran is not deserving of such “high-level presences.” The US, however, is forced to grin and bear the gathering of world leaders in Tehran.