Who are you supporting in the upcoming American election

[kidstaxi]

Everyone know that Osama Bin Ladin planned and had his follwers (troops) carry out these attacks. The US asked the Taliban to hand him over. They refused, so the US took action. For you to at least say what you did, to me shows you are in this conversation to promote your agenda or to stir up hard feelings.

Do you know, though? This is the whole point of this discussion - 9/11 was spectacular, to be sure, but there is very little evidence connecting the incident with anyone. Most of the accused 19 have been verified to be very much alive and well in various countries around the world and have absolutely nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The FBI has never updated their list of suspects though - nobody seems to care who really did it.

But at any rate, 9/11 aside, the US and UK had plans drawn up for the invasion of Afghanistan well before 9/11 even happened. September 3, 2001 the UK sent the HMS Illustrious to the Middle East in the largest naval deployment since the Falkland war. The US made similar preparations well in advance. Again, these children's stories of bogeymen and religious fanatics are all just that - stories. They are a popular narrative crafted for consumption by the public, but when you take the time to actually study what has actually happened, the more it becomes obviously clear that reality has very little to do with such superficial explanations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1550366.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1522987.stm

I mean, Bush had the documents on his desk on the morning of the 9th September, just waiting to go. How do you think they got pictures of Osama on the TV just hours after the attacks - do you really think they managed to conduct an investigation in that time? Even in just a normal airline crash the investigation can take months before they figure out what happened, never mind uncovering an international terrorist ring.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4587368/

Yep...Your a whack job. I think, I know why your parents smoked alot.
Seriously, you might need to see a mental health doctor.

[Zero]

I'll tell you what I do hate about *some* Americans - it's exactly this propensity for reflexively closing your minds to scary ideas. I'm putting effort into these posts - carefully crafting my words and thoughts in order to convey information and a point. If you're not willing to do the same, then please don't bother posting.

As for my parents... they quit smoking almost 20 years ago. Quite before I was liable to be considered a "whackjob" by anyone, even yourself. :wink:

[Starcadia]

I think also that too many Americans actually believe what is written in their newspapers and portrayed on television news programs - where even what is written between the lines has been calculated by some affiliation or other, all of which have an agenda - as if it were all somehow authoritative and unbiased. Feeling they have all the information they need, they do no legwork of their own to find the truth, or at least begin to unravel the vast complexities behind every issue. They become walking (and posting) perpetrators of propaganda, similar to those who wear brand names and logos on their clothing without demanding pay for the advertising, even after paying exorbitant amounts for the clothing in the first place. They hear what they want to hear from sources that are unreliable at best, and go through life effectively delusional, dropping bombs of stupidity everywhere they go.

I do it all the time myself, sadly, but I'm trying to get better, or just learn to keep my mouth shut when I don't know what I'm talking about. I do however, work very hard to make sure I don't advertise a product I'm not actually passionate about.

Great fun.

[Dead Rabbit]

I have written a response to your interesting, (and for me, because its based on economics-challenging ) theory on the dollar and oil.

Only after writing my response did I see your other posts. I do have to point out; your theories on 9/11 are so utterly out of the mainstream, it might be impossible for us to debate. Not because of any emotional reaction or anything. Its more akin to the difficulties I would have taking part in a discussion of World War II with a holocaust denier. I tremendously enjoyed our debate. But, we are coming from two different planets. You live in a world where Al Quada didn’t attack the towers. My country can’t live in that world, because we will die. Democrat or Republican. Black or White. Rich or poor. McCain or Obama.

Well, for shits and giggles, here was my response. And I mean it dude, no hard feelings at all!


The premise of your economic argument is a classic “which came first, the chicken or the egg” debate. Oil is traded in dollars because of confidence in the dollar. You’re saying there is confidence in the dollar because it is traded for oil.

Dude, your conclusion is complete insanity. The law of supply and demand dictates the terms of the dollar. You can’t possibly be arguing that the laws of supply and demand is somehow superseded by force?

We can’t make the world demand the dollar. Just like the Soviets couldn’t make their citizens like their crappy apartments.


Your theory on the invasion of Iraq, due to Saddam switching to oil traded in Euros is nonsensical and easily disprovable. Just look at the invasion, itself. Was the invasion set up to simply secure oil fields, keep um’ flowing and traded for the dollar? That probably could have been done with a simple coup. That invasion was so obviously set up to install democracy. That is exactly why it has been such a tough go. The very fact hardly any oil is being sold for pez candy right now, not alone the dollar, proves your theory wrong.

No doubt about it. Economic warfare can be used against the dollar. And ultimately, no paper currency lasts forever. But if the world was going to switch over to Euros, why didn’t they do it earlier, when the dollar was stronger? The fact is, the world economy is still very much pegged to the dollar and Saddam wasn’t enough to change that.

Side note:
Dude, you have seemed to have lifted your entire argument from an article called “The Invasion of Iraq: Dollar vs Euro Re-denominating Iraqi oil in U. S. dollars, instead of the Euro" by Sohan Sharma, Sue Tracy, & Surinder Kumar found in Z Magazine, which is a left wing journal that has archived all of Noam Chomsky’s stuff. You and I like to go at it, and nothing would kill the fun more then requiring source citing, but it does need to be pointed out how slanted that publication is to the left. No doubt, the magazine starts off with the conclusion that the U.S. is evil first and writes its article second. Canned as it gets.

I do think I finally have you pegged though: A dreaded Chomskyite!!!!!!

[Dead Rabbit]

I think also that too many Americans actually believe what is written in their newspapers and portrayed on television news programs - where even what is written between the lines has been calculated by some affiliation or other, all of which have an agenda - as if it were all somehow authoritative and unbiased. Feeling they have all the information they need, they do no legwork of their own to find the truth, or at least begin to unravel the vast complexities behind every issue. They become walking (and posting) perpetrators of propaganda, similar to those who wear brand names and logos on their clothing without demanding pay for the advertising, even after paying exorbitant amounts for the clothing in the first place. They hear what they want to hear from sources that are unreliable at best, and go through life effectively delusional, dropping bombs of stupidity everywhere they go.

I do it all the time myself, sadly, but I'm trying to get better, or just learn to keep my mouth shut when I don't know what I'm talking about. I do however, work very hard to make sure I don't advertise a product I'm not actually passionate about.

Great fun.

Are you directing that at me? If so, let it fly dude. No biggy.

You talk about "they" (Americans) a bunch? What theories of other "theys" do you have? Any on blacks? Jews? Asians?

[Starcadia]

Are you directing that at me? If so, let it fly dude. No biggy.

No, actually. Why did you think that? You have clearly done more reading than I have on these matters.

You talk about "they" (Americans) a bunch? What theories of other "theys" do you have? Any on blacks? Jews? Asians?

I've got too many theories on "theys" than I know what to do with, for better or worse, as well as many theories on "people-as-a-collective-whole". Either way, they're constantly being updated. And I'm certainly not planning on publishing them anytime soon. Election season is always rife with valuable information. You?

[Dead Rabbit]

Are you directing that at me? If so, let it fly dude. No biggy.

No, actually. Why did you think that? You have clearly done more reading than I have on these matters.

You talk about "they" (Americans) a bunch? What theories of other "theys" do you have? Any on blacks? Jews? Asians?

I've got too many theories on "theys" than I know what to do with, for better or worse, as well as many theories on "people-as-a-collective-whole". Either way, they're constantly being updated. And I'm certainly not planning on publishing them anytime soon. Election season is always rife with valuable information. You?

lol....me too.....

[kidstaxi]

I'll tell you what I do hate about *some* Americans - it's exactly this propensity for reflexively closing your minds to scary ideas. I'm putting effort into these posts - carefully crafting my words and thoughts in order to convey information and a point. If you're not willing to do the same, then please don't bother posting.

I never close my mind to scary ideas. Here is the scariest idea, for me. Muslim extremest would love to inflect pain and terror world wide. The fact you or anyone else would say that it is all a myth, scares me to death.

I heard this in a movie. Can't remember which one. It goes, "The greatest thing the Devil ever did, was convince the world he did not exist". Now not trying to preach. But will use the "Devil" as evil in the world. You are convinced that America's foreign policy is the evil in this world. Keep that thought. Keep it, until terrorist actually hit you, your countrymen, or someone you love. Go burn our flag then.

As far as posting. I could post radom numbers, they would make as much sense as you are.

You tell me to take my personal feelings out of this discussion. I will do it when you do. Everyone can feel your hate and disgust in your posts.

Stop hiding behind the sorry excuse, "it is not America, I hate. It is thier foreign policy". Give me a break, man. Be a man about it and just admit it. You hate America. Thats fine with me.

It is like me saying, "I don't hate Mexico. I just hate it's policy on illegal immagration". I'll be a man about it. I hate Mexico.

I bet you will try to have a field day with my last comment. Take a little advice. Don't waste your time. Like I said before, I have zero respect for you.

FYI...The reason, I take this so personal. I lost some very close to me on 9/11. He was in Tower 1. His mother had a heart attack on the news of his death and died 3 days later.
I spent 16 months in Afghanistan. I have seen the brutality first hand that the Taliban put its people through. The fact you think nothing needed to change there, you are a cold blooded individual.
Seeing how everyone looks at us, for doing good in that country. My mind has closed up, just like yours. **** the rest of the world. It reminds like a spoiled little kid. As long it gets what ot wants, its all good. If it has to sacrifice anything blame mommy and daddy. IE...The Kid, the world. Mommy and Daddy, America.

I agree with you on one thing. It is time for mommy and daddy to slap the shit out of the kid and send it packing.

I'm done. I hope McCain wins now just to piss you off, Zero.

[Zero]

IYou live in a world where Al Qaeda didn’t attack the towers.

I didn't say that. The available evidence leaves it as a possibility, but it doesn't discount that "Al Qaeda" (whomever they are) actually were involved. In fact, I do think that Al Qaeda were likely involved - the pattern of US history has generally been that dirty work is effected through the use of proxies, and the CIA have a very long-standing and intimate relationship with Al Qaeda, having been their original masters and mentors. I'm not drawing any conclusions about 9/11, just pointing out that the evidence does not conclusively support any theory nor have those responsible ever been correctly identified or found. In fact, the US administration has routinely stonewalled and frustrated any attempts at investigation and, barring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have taken no action on the matter whatsoever (discounting Zarqawi's ridiculous show-trial).

The premise of your economic argument is a classic “which came first, the chicken or the egg” debate. Oil is traded in dollars because of confidence in the dollar. You’re saying there is confidence in the dollar because it is traded for oil.

What is "confidence", though? The fact that you MUST buy oil in dollars IS why people have "confidence" in it. Like my cheques in the analogy, they are valuable so long as everyone is happy to take them for payment. Why they originally started doing so is a different matter.

The US dollar used to be backed by gold, making it a hard currency. The last ties to gold were chopped around the same time as the oil shocks in the 1970s. The US dollar used to carry a confidence all its own. In fact, this was the prime reason for the American Revolution - to shed the hegemonic economic controls of the British Empire which, at the time, was forcing the colonies to incur debts against the Bank of England for their currency rather than allow them to use their own gold-backed, interest-free currency. But the transition to a purely fiat US dollar in the 1970s was the end of any tangible reason to have confidence in the US dollar. Beyond that time the only source of confidence has been the usefulness of the dollar to trade in commodities - by convenience since so many people already had US dollars.

In a sense, it was almost a bait-and-switch that the US pulled on the world. One day you could trade your dollars for gold and the next - poof - nothing. Just paper. The US even extended the convertibility of the US dollar to foreign holders for some time after they had denied US citizens the right to exchange for gold. This was clearly because foreign holders of currency were all too clever to not notice what had just happened - they held dollars because they were as good as gold and suddenly that was taken away? Surely that would anger people.

It took some time for the global market to adjust to the idea that simply by its usefulness in commodity trading, the US dollar held a different sort of confidence which was made them still worth using. Like my analogy man suddenly closing his account and declaring that his cheques could never be cashed - since there were so many of them out there and so long as nobody actually needed to go back to the bank to cash them, then there's good sense to keep using them. It's only when the shops decide to no longer take them (vis: Saddam wanting Euros instead of dollars) that this new "confidence" can be shaken.

So it's not really a chicken-and-egg problem, at least not as I see it.

Dude, your conclusion is complete insanity. The law of supply and demand dictates the terms of the dollar. You can’t possibly be arguing that the laws of supply and demand is somehow superseded by force?

Not at all. But the law of supply and demand can be exploited by force. Here demand is directly related to confidence. So long as people who have dollars wish to continue holding them, with confidence that they can be traded for goods, then demand remains high. Demand can also mean expanding your market - finding new people to use your dollar. This has been the leading reason for so many of the CIA led coups in so many countries. As soon as you can install a "friendly" regime, then you can open up trade. Usually this has taken the form of US contractors being promised contracts for infrastructure development, etc. The result is a net influx of US currency into the country and, if you have a stroll around South America, for example, you'll see US dollars everywhere. This is increasing demand. The war in Iraq was maintaining demand.

Consider what happens if Saddam does switch to Euros - everyone who has dollars for use to buy oil has to sell them. Currency exchange means you increase your supply of one currency at the expense of the other. Demand for the dollar goes down as supply on the open market increases. The price of the dollar then crashes proportional to the amount of currency given up for oil Euros with respect to the total volume of currency in circulation. In the case of the US dollar, there are a LOT of them held in foreign hands. This means that foreign owners of dollars have a very powerful handle on the value of the dollar since their "confidence" in it can have serious influence on the number of dollars unwanted on the market.

We can’t make the world demand the dollar. Just like the Soviets couldn’t make their citizens like their crappy apartments.

It's not about like. The soviets lived in crappy apartments not because they liked it, but because it was the only option they had. Just like the dollar - Saddam wasn't trading in dollars because he liked it, it was because oil must be traded in dollars. In fact, he took, at the time, at least a short-term loss to make the switch to Euros. This because the Euro did not have the confidence that the US dollar did at the time (because there was less stuff to buy with Euros compared to the US dollar). He just finally disliked using the dollar so much (the "currency of the enemy", as he called it) that he stopped, despite the economic consequences. The Iraq war was, as much as anything else, a lesson to his neighbours and others about what happens when you think about doing something like that.

Your theory on the invasion of Iraq, due to Saddam switching to oil traded in Euros is nonsensical and easily disprovable. Just look at the invasion, itself. Was the invasion set up to simply secure oil fields, keep um’ flowing and traded for the dollar? That probably could have been done with a simple coup. That invasion was so obviously set up to install democracy. That is exactly why it has been such a tough go. The very fact hardly any oil is being sold for pez candy right now, not alone the dollar, proves your theory wrong.

Not at all. In fact, it's proving to me how little I'm effectively conveying things to you. Oil fields be damned - I just talked about this in my last post. Oil traded in dollars is more important than oil fields pumping or whatever the price of oil happens to become. Every barrel that Saddam traded for Euros was a barrel not traded in dollars. Demand for oil doesn't ever go down, though. The wells stopped in Iraq and the question of supply stability (and reduction in supply from Iraq) caused the price of oil to increase, but this only affects ordinary people who have to either freeze or starve. This is not relevant to the geostrategic mind. The important thing is that oil continues to be traded in dollars. The fact that there is less of it and that the price has gone way up and that everyone has to pay crazy prices for fuel is all completely irrelevant. More expensive oil means more demand for dollars and that is what this is all about. See what I mean? You have to look at the big picture. Politics is nothing so crude as smashing your way in the door and then planting your oil buddies in front of the wells. Just look at how hard it is for me to even explain what they have done - the administration in charge knows only too well how poorly read people are on such topics and how easy it is to hide away such criminality in the obscurity of economic theory and cryptic financial ledgers.

But if the world was going to switch over to Euros, why didn’t they do it earlier, when the dollar was stronger?

But the world didn't, and hasn't. The US dollar, so long as people continue to use it, is indeed a useful and stable currency. Everyone who holds them is liable to take great losses if they suddenly ditch them, so there is interest to hold them regardless. Status-quo argument, if you will. Saddam simply hated US policy so much that he took the loss just to spite the US. Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong-Il also followed suit. The only difference is that North Korea has no economy to speak of and Venezuela is a much tinier drop in the oil bucket than Iraq is. Follow up that link to Global Research above, though, and you'll see that Venezuela has been under pretty fierce pressure from the US already.

The fact is, the world economy is still very much pegged to the dollar and Saddam wasn’t enough to change that.

He wasn't really given a chance to, though, was he? Consider what happened in the late 1970s when the US managed to persuade Saddam to invade Iran - both countries suffered acute and severe drops in oil production and the infamous Oil Shocks were the result. If Iraq's oil isn't enough to bother fighting about, then why is there a war going on there? From citing examples of countries in far worse states of affair it's clear that humanitarian reasons were not the concern. In fact, US trade sanctions on Iraq after the Gulf war drove five hundred thousand Iraqis, many women and children, to their deaths simply from starvation. Certainly this is no way to "care for the people under a brutal leader". Iraqis were manifestly worse off after the war because they weren't even allowed to buy food. A strange way to do good, if you ask me.

Dude, you have seemed to have lifted your entire argument from an article called... (etc)

I've never heard of that magazine nor have I read the article. Everything I've written here has been off the top of my head and very much my own words - an accumulation of knowledge I've amassed over the past eight years of very serious study of the situation. You have only my word to believe me on that, mind you. I have many books on the subject spanning economics, geostrategy, politics, etc, and I have been reading a heap of articles every week from sources across the spectrum. My opinions are my own - reached after very careful and critical thought.

I do think I finally have you pegged though: A dreaded Chomskyite!!!!!!

Another one of those annoying American traits - the need to desperately pidgeon-hole ideas you don't like into a general compartment of "random negative descriptor". Forget who said what, when, and what you think of them - stick to the topic at hand. Evaluate facts according to logic and reason. Build me a counterargument.

[Zero]

Stop hiding behind the sorry excuse, "it is not America, I hate. It is thier foreign policy". Give me a break, man. Be a man about it and just admit it. You hate America. Thats fine with me.

You're trying to tell me what I believe? Don't do this again.

FYI...The reason, I take this so personal. I lost some very close to me on 9/11. He was in Tower 1. His mother had a heart attack on the news of his death and died 3 days later.

I'm sorry for your loss. Nevertheless, it is not logical to conclude that what I've been saying is not true because you lost someone in the attack. In fact, if what I'm saying is true then you should have even more reason to care - not only has your government been involved in the death of your friend, but they have also sent you to the front lines to defend the profits of rich, cigar-smoking oligarchs, nevermind defending the country you love.

In fact, all political analysts agree that the threat of terrorism has been dramatically increased as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there is a terrorist threat to be worried about, then aggravating them on their home soil is certainly no way to change their minds about it. Yes, the Taliban was cruel, I agree, but this was not the motivation of the attack. In fact, when the Taliban took control one of the first things they did was to scrap the Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project. This is a critical piece of geography because it links the Caspian basin to open ports in the Arabian Sea. One of the first things Karzai did when he was back in power was to re-start the project with the Asian Development Bank. Any good that might come to the Afghani people is merely a collateral effect, not the reason for the invasion.

You'll also notice that the first thing the US did when they got to Afghanistan was to let a number of well-know heroin drug-lords out of prison. These promptly re-planted their opium crops, which had been all but eradicated by the Taliban, and started exporting heroin again. I won't get into it in this post because it's off topic, but there is significant interest in money-laundering of drug money in the financial world. About US$500 billion in drug money is moved every year. Through shell companies and sly mergers and acquisitions, this cash provides, arguably, essential liquidity to global financial markets. The loss of Afghanistan's heroin crop, by and large the lion's share of world production, at the time, was a serious threat to the viability of that liquidity. Curious how the war-on-drugs US allowed heroin production to resume when even the Taliban could get it under control (and had the guys already in prison!). Why?

[kidstaxi]

(edit - Zero)

I will tolerate a lot a great deal of freedom of expression and in my entire time on this forum I have never edited anyone's content, but this post was so egregiously offensive and devoid of any constructive content that I don't feel SnusOn is the sort of place for this. We're adults here - please try to act like one.

[RobsanX]

But at any rate, 9/11 aside, the US and UK had plans drawn up for the invasion of Afghanistan well before 9/11 even happened. September 3, 2001 the UK sent the HMS Illustrious to the Middle East in the largest naval deployment since the Falkland war. The US made similar preparations well in advance. Again, these children's stories of bogeymen and religious fanatics are all just that - stories. They are a popular narrative crafted for consumption by the public, but when you take the time to actually study what has actually happened, the more it becomes obviously clear that reality has very little to do with such superficial explanations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1550366.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1522987.stm

I mean, Bush had the documents on his desk on the morning of the 9th September, just waiting to go. How do you think they got pictures of Osama on the TV just hours after the attacks - do you really think they managed to conduct an investigation in that time? Even in just a normal airline crash the investigation can take months before they figure out what happened, never mind uncovering an international terrorist ring.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4587368/

I wasn't going to jump into this fray, but the African embassy bombings and the Cole attack were enough to justify attacking Al Qaeda in Afghanistan... That is not indicative of some grand conspiracy...

[KarlvB]

Zero, I think you are going to get a lot of flak for editing that post, but I will say this now....I am in complete agreement with you.

There is such thing as a constructive debate and I've appreciated that Zero, Dead Rabbit et al have been civil in their discussion despite the marked differences in opinion.

When I get a moment I will wade in with my leftie opinion.

Ps: It is possible to hate a country's foreign policy and not the country. I am half South African and I hate the fact that my country has stood by while the tragedy played out in Zimbabwe. Does that mean I hate my country? No, it does not. Learn the difference.

[Zero]

^^ RE : RobsanX

Well, fair enough. But one must still consider why those attacks took place. The USS Cole was on a mission to enforce the UN trade sanctions against Iraq - sanctions which, by that time, had caused a severe humanitarian crisis in Iraq. People were starving and dying in the hundreds of thousands. How can one expect them not to react? Wouldn't you do the same? If someone set up siege around your long-time neighbour and you could do nothing but sit and watch as their young children starved to death - what would you do?

Let's be clear that I'm not attempting to justiy terrorism here at all. The point, eloquently stated by the Merovinigian in the Matrix, is why. If nothing else, I hope that I can convince you that the motivations of such terrorists is not Islam or the aggressive desire to spread Islam, but is a very serious and heartfelt reaction, in the only way they are capable, of fighting back against the cruel and inhumane treatment of innocent civilians. The african embassy was much the same story - Africa has suffered severe treachery from American and European interests. They have both dumped masses of arms and munitions into a radically underdeveloped country, and then have set opposing tribes against each other with the intent of having them exterminate one another to save having to deal with them diplomatically when controversy over African oil starts to become louder. This same formula has been repeated over and over again.

Have a look for John Stockwell, former Station Chief of the CIA - he talks about this frankly and candidly, calling the collection of US covert operations and secret wars "The Third World War" - so named because it is a war against the third world, seeking to capitalise on their being easy targets in resource-rich areas. By his estimates, this secret war has been the third bloodiest in all of history with casualties in excess of six million people.

Actually, hear the man in his own words - I apologise that it's a crappy youtube video, but it's the first thing I could find. The clip is from a public speech he gave :

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z9VxnCBD9W4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed>

About the guy :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stockwell

This is a man who served seven tours of duty with the CIA and was up to his neck in the shit going on in South America. A quote :

"It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate and fear, so we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms."

The scary thing is that this man can tell some people, black and white, clear as crystal, right to their face exactly what the CIA is doing and still they will refuse to believe it. It's a magical feat of psychology, that's all I can say.

[Zero]

Zero, I think you are going to get a lot of flak for editing that post, but I will say this now....I am in complete agreement with you.

I know - I'm an extremely liberal person, but you can't imagine the rage-fuelled profanity that was the content of that post. It was an embarassment to SnusOn that I think is best forgotten.