Why We Fight
Please watch the clip that shows a famous speech by President Eisenhower. Also if you hit trailer you can see a clip about this award winning movie. Please view and tell me how much do you think this has affected the Iraq war?
-
Your ad here.
May 28th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
It’s the classic Eisenhower “beware the military industrial complex” speech. Something to think about I guess.
May 28th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
130 nations? I have often thought about that and why we are still in those places.
Much is because we support the economies of those nations and that makes them dependent on us. We heard Germany say they didn’t want us to close our bases there even though it has been 60 years since they were at war and the Cold war has ended and they buy oil and gas from Russia.
Why? Germany’s economy is bad and it depends on Government employees spending and the bases spending and propping up their economy. Same in other nations. They need our spending.
The U.S. dollar was collapsing in the 60’s and in 1971 we went off the Bretton Woods policy (a type of gold standard for foreign nations and the U.S.). When we did, we agreed to protect OPEC nations that would sell oil in dollars.
Many think we are in the Middle East for oil. Only partly true. The value of our dollar is the real reason. When we made that deal, it forced nations all around the world to need dollars to buy oil. That “demand” for the dollar saved it from collapse but, made us dependent on OPEC Oil when combined with other bad policies that drove oil exploration out of the U.S.
Could those decisions have really been what they seemed? Bad oil policies? Or were they designed to create more demand for oil being sold in dollars? Or to reward Saudi Arabia and the UAE for being our ally in propping up the dollar?
“Dollar Hegemony” where we create demand for dollars may be behind many of our political decisions.
quote:
Because dollars can buy oil, exporters in countries that need to import oil — i.e. most developed countries — will accept dollars for their exports. Hence everyone who needs to buy from those exporters will accept dollars as payment for other things, and so on. To pay their bills, importers must have reserves of dollars. To prop up their currencies against speculative attacks, the central banks of all countries must have reserves of dollars. To get capital, poor countries must borrow dollars, and to service these debts they must export goods to obtain more dollars. About 2/3 of all currency reserves, more than 4/5 of all currency transactions, more than half of the world’s exports, and all loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are denominated in dollars. As these things create demand for the dollar and shore up its value, oil exporters are the more willing to accept payment in dollars. So the process is self-reinforcing; it’s called “dollar hegemony”.
http://www.trinicenter.com/oops/iraqeuro.html
===========================
The attack on the U.S. by Saddam Hussein was real but it was economic. He started selling oil in Euro’s in Nov. of 2000 as I recall from what I read. The euro was 83 cents to the dollar. By the time we threw him out and restored oil sales to dollars, the euro had climbed 24% to $1.05 and Saddam had been praised by other nations on his successful attack on America.
That was the lesson that Iran and Venezuela learned. On my Birthday, Dec. 18th 2006, Iran announce they would sell oil in euros. Two days later we announced we were sending a 2nd Aircraft Carrier to that area to “threaten” Iran. Venezuela is already moving out of the dollar and we get about 12% of our oil from Chavez and we import gasoline and other distillates from him.
Kuwait has now announced they will diversify out of the dollar to reduce their use of it. Malaysia, same thing, China also will reduce the buying of debt with our dollars. Russia is being pressured to move to the euro too.
Why we fight? It could be that due to things set in motion 30 years ago, our Congress and Presidents feel they have no choice but fight or let our dollar collapse. The more we intervene in other nations and spend in those nations and make deals with them, the more the dollar is in demand. Yet, all that fighting, all the intervention, all the attempts to save the dollar, may still not succeed in the long run.
We fight for many good reasons too. Saddam was a terrible person for example, but we put up with him until he attacked our economy successfully. Whether you agree that was justification or not, it may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. The years of violations, training of terrorists (over 8,000), paying suicide bomber families, firing on our planes, still doing “plasma enrichment research,” etc. were real but, until he hit our economy by raising prices of imports from Europe 24%, we put up with him.
Yet, you can’t get on TV and say that was the reason. You would risk some nation panic selling the dollar and start a collapse of the dollar. So, you say he had WMD and was a tyrant, which was true.
Why we fight? We fight for all the reasons given but, some say how do we choose which ones we fight when so many places have WMD, genocide, tyrants, etc.? Maybe it is only when they put our way of life, our dollar and our economy at risk do they become the “chosen.”
We don’t have “evil” politicians that “want to go to war.” We have politicians that are advised to go to war because of many things we don’t even see on the news, like the value of the dollar being dependent on foreign nations using the dollar and buying our debt.
The top four largest lenders to the U.S. are Japan, China, U.K, and OPEC. How do you like our Bankers?
This isn’t THE REASON we fight. Don’t think I am trying to make it so. It is just one of many things that are part of the decision making process. If Iran gets Iraq’s oil either directly or through a puppet government look for them to sell Iraq oil in euros.
Should an attack on our currency by Iran (or Venezuela) be justification for war? Iraq was violating a cease fire and we were already at war and only under a cease fire with it. But, Iran and Venezuela aren’t under the terms of a cease fire. Should we attack? Is the fear of nuclear weapons enough? What about Venezuela and other nations moving from the dollar?
Our politicians have some very tough problems to solve, don’t they? Again, they aren’t evil in either party but I don’t believe either party knows how to get us out of this mess. They are fighting symptoms because they don’t know how to correct the root problems, socialism and a collapsing dollar.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:04 am
Ron Paul is here.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Why the fxxx is my comment in moderation, but this one isn’t?
You had your chance and this fxxx spam filter just blew it. Goodbye.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Jan,
Stating sales in dollars is nothing like buying or selling in dollars.
No dollars are exchanged. It merely pegs the contract price to a currency at a specific time.
Just as stating sales in Euros does not mean that Euros are exchanged. Stating that the transaction is in Euros just uses a sets an agreement.
Buyer and seller can then hedge against the euro until clearings.
Fidel Castro is internationally famous for his economic analysis of the dollar based trading system and it’s faults.
Trade with the U.S., you must pay in dollars. Count on the dollar falling in value after the deal is struck and before clearings. Sell or buy in dollars and the currency valuation will move in opposition to your position.
A notable exception was the grain sales to the USSR under Reagan.
Russia never took delivery of the grain, reselling it prior to delivery for hard currency dollars.
The grain was under market value to the USSR and payable in dollars. The dollar rose in value making the grain more expensive before clearings. The USSR sold the grain at market for dollars, depressing US grain markets, and making the USSR a profit.
The dollar is falling not the Euro rising.
The Euro has been pegged among the member nations and can’t be manipulated in theory.
The US controlls the dollars value and is letting it slip to make our exports cheaper, and reduce profits for importing nations.
MD
May 30th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Mad Dog/ Jan
I know a little about the dollar thing. And retaining “dollar hegemony” is given sometimes as a reason for these wars. Don’t you think that “dollar demand” would operate best under free market conditions rather than gunboat diplomacy/nationbuilding? And isn’t this a rather expensive undertaking, which is killing the dollar ultimately?