Michael Hudson, America Escalates Its “Democratic” Oil War in the Near East

 

[Editor’s note: While I believe that Michael Hudson offers a brilliant exposition of US motives, tactics and strategy in the Middle East, the assassination of Suleimani appears to have been a target of opportunity for Israel, as I have suggested in “The Assassination of Soleimani: What Really Happened and Why it Matters”. For anyone who missed the memo, the imminence of the threat he posed is a crucial issue of international law, since the UN Charter declares that one nation has the right to a preemptory strike against another only when either (1) it has the approval of the UN Security Council, which was not the case here; or (2) it confronted an imminent threat that demand an immediate response, which likewise does not appear to be the case, either. Even if it was consistent with US foreign policy and the Senate had approved taking him out, that would not override international law.]

 

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 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.

The assassination was intended to escalate America’s presence in Iraq to keep control of 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 of the U.S. dollar. That remains the key to understanding this policy, and why it is in the process of escalating, not dying down.

I sat in on discussions of this policy as it was formulated nearly fifty years ago when I worked at the Hudson Institute and attended meetings at the White House, met with generals at various armed forces think tanks and with diplomats at the United Nations. My role was as a balance-of-payments economist having specialized for a decade at Chase Manhattan, Arthur Andersen and oil companies in the oil industry and military spending. These were two of the three main dynamic of American foreign policy and diplomacy. (The third concern was how to wage war in a democracy where voters rejected the draft in the wake of the Vietnam War.)

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. The actual context for the neocon’s action was the balance of payments, and the role of oil and energy as a long-term lever of American diplomacy.

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.

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 the dollar outflows on military account. In fact, U.S. foreign military spending helped finance the domestic U.S. federal budget deficit.

Saudi Arabia and other Near Eastern OPEC countries quickly became a buttress 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.

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 of 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.

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.

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.

That is the same strategy that the U.S. has followed in Syria and Iraq. Iran was threatening this dollarization strategy and its buttress in U.S. oil diplomacy.

The oil industry as buttress of the U.S. balance of payments and foreign diplomacy

The 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), 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.

America’s attempt to maintain this buttress explains U.S. opposition to any foreign governments 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.

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.

How a “democratic” nation can wage international war and terrorism

The Vietnam War showed that modern democracies cannot field 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.

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

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 an 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?’”[1]

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 United States 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.” [2] 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.

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 U.S. oil, and dollar and 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 pretense – or more accurately, the diversion – by the U.S. news media over the weekend has been to depict the United States as being under imminent attack. Mayor de Blasio has positioned policemen at conspicuous key intersections to let us know how imminent Iranian terrorism is – as if it were Iran, not Saudi Arabia that mounted 9/11 [Editor’s note: 9/11 was brought to us by the CIA, Neocons in the Department of Defense and the Mossad, with some Saudi financing], and as if Iran in fact has taken any forceful action against the United States. The media and talking heads on television have saturated the air waves with warnings of Islamic terrorism. Television anchors are suggesting just where the attacks are most likely to occur.

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: weak and threatened, requiring a strong defense – in the form of a strong offense.

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 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.

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.

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 flailing. 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 shies away from recognizing that his action did indeed have a rationale—do draw a line in the sand, to say that 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.

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. [Editor’s note: But Trump surely has violated international law, the rules of war and the Geneva Conventions, including his sanctions on Iran, which are a form of collective punishment.]

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.

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. [Editor’s note: A subtle point, perhaps, but the plane crashes were faked and the alleged “hijackers” were classic patsies; see “9/11: Who was responsible and why”.]

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.

Notes

[1] https://www.axios.com/trump-to-iraqi-pm-how-about-that-oil-1a31cbfa-f20c-4767-8d18-d518ed9a6543.html. The article adds: “In the March meeting, the Iraqi prime minister replied, ‘What do you mean?’ according to the source in the room. And Trump’s like, ‘Well, we did a lot, we did a lot over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking about the oil.’”

[2] Michael Crowly, “‘Keep the Oil’: Trump Revives Charged Slogan for new Syria Troop Mission,” The New York Times, October 26, 2019. . The article adds: “‘I said keep the oil,’ Mr. Trump recounted. ‘If they are going into Iraq, keep the oil. They never did. They never did.’”

Michael Hudson is the author of Killing the Host (published in e-format by CounterPunch Books and in print by Islet). His new book is J is For Junk Economics.  He can be reached at mh@michael-hudson.com

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30 thoughts on “Michael Hudson, America Escalates Its “Democratic” Oil War in the Near East”

  1. It’s a good read and a fresh perspective. Thanks. 911 was a crossing the Rubicon for me. It was a cab driver that compelled me to dig into it with his assertion that 911 was an inside job. “Not another conspiracy theory” Oh how Ben’s hackles stood up. I went home determined to prove what an insane idea it was. It turned so quick for me, almost immediately. It got a sick feeling in my stomach as I started reviewing press appearances by Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld on youtube. I got a cold chill up the spin that Ben was dead on right about the inside job.

    Then I ran into Beauty and The Beast… she was beautiful and her friend was not. They were life long friends and traveled the world together. They were in Berlin on September 10, 2001 and scheduled to fly to New York. A cab driver chatted them up while driving them to lunch. When he found out they were flying to New York, he said don’t go… something really bad is about to happen there. They took the out of the blue warning with a grain of salt. Then after lunch, they took a different random cab across town. When the girls said they were flying to New York, guess what the cab driver said? Don’t go something bad is going to happen there. They ignored both off the wall harbingers of doom and went to the airport. The airline offered two first class tickets anywhere to volunteer to be bumped. These girls were pros at the travel game and jumped on the offer. Then they heard the news from New York. And wondered how in the hell do two random Berlin cabbies knew something bad was going to happen.

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  2. There were no planes on 911. The fireball explosions we see coming from the Towers were explosive charges placed on the 92 floor by Israeli Mossad munitions experts [fake Art Students] to SIMULATE a plane crash. It was all media BS and crude CGI.
    If this video does not convince you 911 was a government operation….nothing will….the video comments are even more convincing:
    https://youtu.be/hxQ2-DcZuR4

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      1. That ”shill” has been seen at several hoax events, using different names. He even was video taped at that LAX hoax without his ID on him, so he said. He’s a probable CIA-FEMA-? asset and has ties to ABC news. He’s also a failed actor [ I can see why]. YouTube has scrubbed most of the videos he has appeared in. The link I posted looks like a 4th generation copy. Sorry its so blurred.

        There also used to be hundreds of youtube videos on Sandy Hook hoax but over 90% of these have been deleted.
        YouTube is at war with the truth.

  3. From ZH…America is a simulation and we all missed WW III…an excerpt:

    If that sounds like a distinction without a difference … well, it kind of is, and it kind of isn’t. What I mean by that is that it isn’t America (i.e., America the nation-state, which most Americans still believe they live in) that is militarily occupying much of the planet, making a mockery of international law, bombing and invading other countries, and assassinating heads of state and military officers with complete impunity. Or, rather, sure, it is America … but America is not America.

    America is a simulation. It is the mask the global capitalist empire wears to conceal the fact that there is no America … that there is only the global capitalist empire.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/world-war-iii-already-happened-america-simulation

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    1. It’s only money. Jew bankers (and a few goys along for the ride) control EVERYTHING with money. If they run short, they just print more.
      And nothing will change unless and until we get rid of their money monopoly.

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  4. This guy is saying the CO2 scare is real. It is not. Just a thought, if the CO2 scare is anti-oil, it is anti USA.
    This guy is saying 911 was Saudis, it was what Jim says.
    This guy may be too smart, or scared, to say the truth, or he may actually believe what he says.
    America had electric cars in 1910.

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  5. I find it strange that we are making a distinction between “Jewish” foreign policy and “oil backed fiat currency” in America sent all over the world. The so-called U.S. money system is not American, it is “Jewish.” So regardless of whether we are talking about oil backed currency or balance of payments or military backed currency, or a pro Israel US foreign policy we are still talking about a “Jewish” policy. None of this stuff is American based upon the principles of property our nation was founded upon. When I say “Jewish” I am referring to those who call themselves “Jews” but reject the King of Jews, Christ Jesus, the pinnacle of Judaism.

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  6. A few weeks ago, Gordon Duff wrote an article for VT indicating far more complicity in 911 by the US in toto rather than Mossad or Saudis. Immediately, people wrote in and queried about his interpretations about the Dancing 5’s, the placed bombs on several bridges, and other events we consider as truths. Needless to say, the article was bristling with adjunct information that did not seem to sit well with what other experts, Fetzer included, had deduced. Did anyone else see that article? VT is nothing if not iconoclastic.

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      1. Jim, I could not find the article Duff wrote on nukes at 911 and role of Israel. I’d say your best bet was to contact Gordie directly.
        His article stood me up in my tracks, too. I read it and had concerns that he had changed his mind on some 911 matters that he originally wrote.

  7. Now that is a superb report premised on the logic of an economist, banker and logical thinker. The stained glass through which he sees filters through the Saudi colors, but seems to block any Zionist influence. That certainly does not decrease the value of the article (enlightening, no doubt), but it does embody a sin of omission that would seem to require an explanation….. or not…..and if not, have all here been barking up the wrong tree?
    Regardless, there is never a black and white answer in todays world of an infinite number of gray hues. In an existence where gray has come to dominate and truth becomes it’s victim, no ONE answer is possible or even expected.

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      1. I have added three “Editor’s notes” on points that needed clarification with regard to my own research and point of view. Israel has been steering US foreign policy in the Middle East with powerful effect with a little help from its friends, including LBJ in relation to the Six Days War of 1967 and the attack on the USS Liberty and Bush and Cheney in relation to 9/11 and drawing the US into endless wars in the Middle East to take out the modern Arab states that have long served as a counter-balance to Israel’s domination of the entire region and to confront the Persian nation of Iran, which has now come to a dramatic point of escalation. Let us hope Trump pulls US troops out of the region and thereby secures a reelection that now appears to be in jeopardy. But he seems to be resisting mightily!

      2. Trump seems to think he has a lock on 2020…(and with Israel’s cyber assistance, he might)….But he has betrayed his base and ‘that ain’t good’. What works in his favor is the lack of any viable candidate on the other side. I still believe in this particular election it may finally be time for a third party to make a difference. As off the wall as it sounds, Jesse Ventura could pull it off. Voters are fed up with empty rhetoric and broken promises. One may say many things about Jesse, but he is man who has kept his word as a politician and had NO P:LACE for lobbyists and big donors.

      3. I like the idea. Jesse and I hit it off. I worry that he would have a problem getting on the ballot across the nation. My guess is that he would run as an Independent with someone like Tulsi Gabbard or, perhaps, Cynthia McKinney. A great team either way! Let me have your additional thoughts. I like the idea.

      4. Cynthia might draw even better than Tulsi, who does need to learn more about the importance of the 2nd Amendment. I am worried about the technical legalities of making the ballot as an independent and all that. He would, after all, have to be on the ballot!

      5. Cynthia would be a wonderful choice. What a team.
        Jesse has mentioned the most difficult task would be getting on the ballot in all the states. Since I have no idea what that takes…other than big bucks….I’ll leave that alone for now.

      6. I believe what Hudson says is true; the US does have an interest in preserving the petro dollar arrangement.

        But lots of geopolitical machinations serve several agendas at once and I also believe that the PRIMARY cause of mideast chaos and death is Jewish. The City of London Jew Bankers do not want any competition for their monopoly and are willing to do anything to quash it (think Libya and Iran). And Jews also want to perfect the Greater Israel Plan which means Israel’s neighbors must be destroyed. Jews want to control the world from Greater Israel. Believe that!

      7. Remember what I said about Jews wanting to control the Diamond Market in 1950? My uncle lost his jewelry store, my father lost his investment in that business and my mother lost her job at the store.

        We live in a very vicious world. A lot of ugliness comes out of Israel.

  8. ” (Religion really is not the key; I know of no ISIS or similar Wahabi attack on Israeli targets.) ”

    What Dr. Hoffman fails to recognize is that Israel and Saudi Arabia are joined at the hip. I do not know the history well enough to explain this deep relationship but I have observed it over and over again over the last few years.

    It is this fact that best explains why there have been no Wahabi attacks on Israeli targets.

    The “U S” does not need Saudi Arabia to play a key role in the “U S balance of payments by recycling its oil-export earnings into U S stocks” and the U S does not need Saudi Wahabis to serve as “manpower for the “America’s foreign legion, ISIS and Al-Nusra / Al-Qaeda.

    It is the “Israeli controlled U S” entity that may well find good use for Israeli’s close ally Saudi Arabia for those purposes.

    The Israeli controlled U S Federal Reserve system is already doing a fine job of pumping its counterfeit created money into the stock market.

    Remember, it was Israel in the immediate aftermath of 9-11-01 event that was strongly accusing Al-Qaeda as the perpetrator of the event.

    The lack of understanding of 9-11-01 event and the tacit acceptance as true the official narrative of the event by the leaders of every aspect of our government and academia is in my opinion best explains the near collapse of the United States of America today.

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  9. “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 author is obviously an intelligent writer. Yet he seems to have swallowed the official lies of 9/11/01 with the above quote. Frankly it isn’t clear there were any planes hijacked let alone “Saudi airplane hijackers.” Airplanes are easily faked. While there still may be some debate on details, the scenario presented in this link is the most likely one which happened: Israel did it aided by traitors Bush, Cheney and some four star generals and others. I urge Jim to comment.

    https://ehpg.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/israel_did_911.pdf

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    1. Win, of course I agree about the specifics of 9/11. But this may be the most profound critique of US foreign policy that I have ever read. It explains aspects of our conduct in the Middle East more clearly and persuasively than anything else I have ever read, ever watched or otherwise encountered. In spite of that, therefore, I regard it as of enormous significance and extremely enlightening.

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