do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around . . .
Really, I don't consider myself a political person. Perhaps it is time to change that. B gave me an eye-opening article which I just finished reading called "The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq: A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth" by W. Clark (January 2003 (revised 20 February)). [Independent Media Center, www.indymedia.org]

It shouldn't surprise anyone if I said that this pending war was about money (and not the war on terror). The question is where does the money trail lead us? Clark's paper states that "the real reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves."

What has been completely suppressed by the US media and government is the fact that Iraq has switched from the dollar to the euro for oil trading. This is a big deal because the fear is that if the euro replaced the dollar, it could mean the crash of the US economy as the dollar would lose a large percentage of its value in the world market. As evidence for this, Clark cites the following:

As our government prepares to go to war with Iraq, our country seems unable to answer even the most basic questions about this war. First, why is there virtually no international support to topple Saddam? If Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program truly possessed the threat level that president Bush has repeatedly purported, why is there no international coalition to militarily disarm Saddam? Secondly, despite over 300 unfettered UN inspections to date, here has been no evidence reported of a reconstituted Iraqi WMD program. Third, and despite Bush's rhetoric, the CIA has not found any links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. To the contrary, some analysis believe it is far more likely Al Qaeda might acquire an unsecured former Soviet Union Weapon(s) of Mass Destruction, or potentially from sympathizers within a destabilized Pakistan.

Moreover immediately following Congress' vote on the Iraq Resolution, we suddenly became aware of North Korea's nuclear program violations. Kim Jong II is processing uranium in order to produce nuclear weapons this year. President Bush has not provided a rationale answer as to why Saddam's seemingly dormant WMD program possesses a more imminent threat than North Korea's active program. Strangely, Donald Rumsfeld suggested that if Saddam were 'exiled' we could avoid an Iraq war. Confused yet? Well, I'm going to give the game away -- the core driver for toppling Saddam is actually the euro currency.

Another point of interest cited is the following (watch the names here):

Other than the core driver of the dollar versus euro currency threat, the other issue related to the upcoming war with Iraq appears related to the Caspian Sea region. Since the mid-late 1990s the Caspian Sea region of Central Asia was thought to hold approximately 200 billion barrels of untapped oil (the later would be comparable to Saudi Arabia’s reserve base). Based on early feasibility study by Enron, the easiest and cheapest way to bring this oil to market would be a pipeline from Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan to the Pakistan border at Malta. In 1998 then CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney, expressed much interest in building that pipeline.

In fact, these oil reserves were a central component of Cheney's energy plan released in May 2001. According to his report, the US will import 90% of its oil by 2020, and thus tapping into the reserves in the Caspian Sea region was viewed as a strategic goal that would help meet our growing energy demand, and also reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

So folks, this is what it's all about -- oil and money.

(I believe you can go to www.radical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html for this essay. If not, I'd be willing to send you a copy in .pdf format -- just email me.)