Today the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. That means many necessary commodities, including oil, are priced exclusively in dollars. Since every nation that conducts trade must accumulate dollars, our currency maintains its value.

The world has to buy our money.

That’s how we finance our massive trade and budget deficits. This has allowed us to live well beyond our means for a generation, wage our wars, and avoid the consequences of our dysfunctional economy. If the US dollar were not the de facto global currency, our present economic debacle would be much worse.

Wall Street’s implosion has created the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Yet the Obama administration has not been forced to drastically raise taxes and cut spending. The US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve have simply printed trillions to cover the losses.

The rest of the world has watched in disgust as our financial firms were bailed out with what amounts to the world’s money.

The recent G-20 summit was part public facade, where such niceties as global warming were discussed. Behind closed doors, the real issue was the stability of the dollar. The world’s reserve currency has lost 15 percent of its value this year, and there is a very real prospect of a dollar devaluation.

Russia’s Central Bank has abandoned the dollar as a reserve currency in favor of the euro. China’s Ministry of Finance held their first auction of treasury bonds on September 28th. These bonds denominated in yuan will allow China’s currency to trade internationally.

Robert Zoellick, the President of the World Bank, issued a warning after China’s latest move: “The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency. Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar”.

Then the financial world was roiled by Robert Fisk, a journalist for The Independent. According to him, Economic ministers from China, Russia, Japan and France have been secretly negotiating with OPEC “to end dollar dealings for oil”. His news report sent gold prices soaring to record highs, and put more downward pressure on the dollar.

These recent events illustrate how precarious the dollar’s status as the world’s currency is. But this begs a question: How far will our regime go to defend this petrodollar monopoly?

The United States has suddenly taken a much more belligerent stance against Iran. The Obama administration is scrambling to get new sanctions passed, and even threatening war. Why?

Because Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his country to conduct all oil trade in euros on September 12, that’s why. His executive decree also shifted the nation’s $80 billion in foreign exchange reserves from dollars to euros. Our confrontation with Iran has less to do with their nuclear program than with saving the dollar.

On September 15, just three days later, the Bipartisan Policy Center issued this statement:

“If biting sanctions do not persuade the Islamic Republic to demonstrate sincerity in negotiations and give up its enrichment activities, the White House will have to begin serious consideration of the option of a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

On September 24, President Obama chaired a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. During his opening remarks he issued the following grim warning:

“Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city — be it New York or Moscow, Tokyo or Beijing, London or Paris — could kill hundreds of thousands of people, and it would badly destabilize our security, our economies and our very way of life”.

The next day Obama addressed the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. But he did not discuss the economy or the plummeting dollar. Instead, the President revealed a previously undisclosed nuclear facility near Qom, Iran.

“Yesterday in Vienna, the United States, the United Kingdom and France presented detailed evidence to the IAEA demonstrating that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.”

This was not precisely true. Iran had notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of a new “pilot facility” just days prior to Obama’s U.N. Speech. This notification was in accordance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, so the site was not illegal or even clandestine.

After declaring Qom a sinister nuclear threat to the world, Obama called on the U.N. to enact tougher sanctions against Iran, specifically targeting the oil-rich nation’s “energy sector”.

Obama’s grandstanding before the U.N. Security Council reminded many of Colin Powell’s infamous speech. As Secretary of State, Powell had briefed the U.N. on Iraq’s mythical weapons of mass destruction, complete with bogus intelligence reports and even fake diagrams. His diatribe helped convince the Security Council to back the US invasion of Iraq.

Of course Powell was lying. There were no WMDs in Iraq, they were an excuse used by the neo-cons to justify the war. The truth was, Saddam Hussein had ordered his country to conduct all oil trade in euros, just as Iran has done.

The Obama administration has failed to impose new sanctions on Iran through the U. N., which means they’ve failed to stop Iran’s oil trade in euros.

What they have done is unite Iran’s trade allies in a common cause; dethroning the dollar. Several state-run Chinese companies are already purchasing Iranian oil with euros, and supplying Iran with gasoline in return. Turkey is switching to national currencies in trade with Iran and China, ending dependence on the U.S. Dollar.

On October 26, the Iranian Oil Bourse opened as a new market for oil trade on the Persian Gulf island of Kish. According to the Tehran Times:

The oil bourse is intended as an exchange market for petroleum, gas, and petrochemicals in various currencies, primarily the euro and Iranian rial, and a basket of other major currencies.

Just two days later, the United States pressed ahead with unilateral sanctions in an attempt to curtail this trade. The US Congress has passed the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, (IRPSA). This bill prohibits firms that supply Iran with petroleum products from doing business in the United States.

Congressman Howard Berman declared that; “Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism, will be prevented from acquiring the capacity to produce nuclear arms.”

Understandably, the Iranians are infuriated. Congress has the nerve to accuse Iran of terrorism, while US troops are waging two illegal wars in countries bordering theirs. They have granted U.N. inspectors access to Qom, begun negotiations with the U.N. in Vienna, and even tentatively agreed to export most of their enriched uranium.

Last week IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei briefed the New York Times about Qom:

“It’s a hole in a mountain… nothing to be worried out”. “The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things.”

This whole business of enrichment is a non-issue anyway because Iran has only 1600 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, unsuitable for an atomic bomb. Even if the Iranians had weapons-grade uranium, they could not make it into a bomb under the auspices of the IAEA. Iran simply cannot produce a nuclear weapon.

The only nation in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons is our psychotic ally, Israel. The Jewish state reserves the right to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure at any time. This from a country that refuses to allow U.N. Inspectors access to their arsenal, or sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Although nothing is official, there are unconfirmed reports that Israel already plans to attack Iranian nuclear targets after Christmas. According to the French weekly Le Canard Enchaine, the Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has secretly briefed his counterparts from The United states and France on Israel’s war plans.

Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli deputy defense minister, told London’s Sunday Times;

“If no crippling sanctions are introduced by Christmas, Israel will strike.” “If we are left alone, we will act alone.”

The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, has stated that a nuclear armed Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel. During a briefing in Washington, the Admiral also implied that US naval and air forces could be involved in an Israeli assault. Even if the United States does not join in, they would certainly provide intelligence and logistic support.

Israel and the United States have just concluded their largest ever joint military exercises. The Israelis want US backing to crush Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while the US is desperate to halt Iran’s oil trade in euros. That’s why we are probably going to war with Iran, and probably sooner rather than later.

The American oligarchy is playing a very dangerous game, risking another war in the Middle East to save the US dollar. They’ve already destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan, killing at least a half-million people. And they’ve spent the world’s money doing it.

Americans do not pay for the trillion-dollar security apparatus that wages these global wars. It’s the Chinese, Middle Eastern banks, and Sovereign Wealth Funds who buy our debt. If they want to conduct trade, they have no choice but to finance this war machine.

Since the financial crisis began, the United States has flooded global markets with trillions of dollars worth of US Treasuries. Nobody wants them, and soon the world won’t have to buy them. The only question is, will our empire collapse before we start another war.

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The Original Thanksgiving

© A. Scott Piraino

When most Americans think of the origins of Thanksgiving, images of Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and feasts with Indians come to mind. That is not true. The Thanksgiving holiday we celebrate today originated in 1864, the bloodiest year in US history.

The Civil War had been raging for nearly four years. Over half a million soldiers were dead in what was by far the biggest war on earth up to that time. In 1864, the American people had to choose whether to end the war and dissolve the United States, or continue the carnage and hope for victory.

The Army of the Potomac had borne the brunt of the fighting, and had usually lost to the dashing Robert E. Lee. Bull run, The Peninsula Campaign, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville had been debacles for the Union Army. Only Antietam and Gettysburg could be called victories, and these battles were won because the Union held their ground, not by outmaneuvering the wily Confederates.

In the summer of 1864 command of all Union Armies passed to Ulysses S. Grant. His grim strategy was to engage the Confederate armies in a relentless war of attrition. To that end, the Union Army under Grant fought a series of battles in Virginia. The Army of the Potomac suffered 66,000 thousand casualties in six weeks, losing over half their strength.

Out west, Sherman’s Army faced equally stubborn Confederates in a battle for Atlanta. In the Shenandoah valley, another Confederate Army was marching towards Washington. In total, Union Army casualties in the summer of 1864 surpassed 100,000.

The press and public were horrified. President Lincoln was criticized for his conduct of the war, and his insistence that slavery, and the confederacy, be destroyed before the war could end. With the Presidential election just four months away, the prospects for President Lincoln, and the United States, appeared bleak.

Lincoln’s opponent in the election was George McClellan. A former Union Army General who was responsible for some of the bungled campaigns of the previous years. He promised an immediate end to the war, and negotiations with the Confederacy. Had he won, the United States would not exist.

On August 23rd, President Lincoln wrote, “it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such grounds that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."

Then on September 3rd, Sherman captured Atlanta. Two weeks later a Union Army took the offensive in the Shenandoah valley. After three victories, the Shenandoah valley, breadbasket of the Confederacy, was in Union hands.

Although the Army of the Potomac did not win any decisive victories in the summer of 1864, their sacrifice had finally besieged Lee’s Army. The most infamous Confederate army was entrenched at Petersburg, unable to move. The South now had no chance to defeat the Union in the field, and change the course of the election.

After two months of campaigning, what had been a futile war with no end in sight suddenly appeared to be all but over. The reversal of fortunes was astounding. By October of 1864, it was clear that the Union would win the Civil War. That November, the American people voted to re-elect President Lincoln,and pursue the war to it's conclusion.

Grateful for the victories that had saved the United States, Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November to be a national day of Thanksgiving.

Our country is being brought to the brink of another abyss by our cynical, corrupt leaders. Americans have survived tough times before, and we will suffer through the events of the near future. When we do let us give thanks.

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