Re: Fwd: America's war against Europe (fwd)

Very interesting viewpoint indeed.  Alas, a bit
farfetched.

While the euro has become stronger it is far from
becoming the most important world currency.  Next to
economic factors that are a prerequisite for a
currency to become THE currency worldwide are
political factors.  Fact is, however, that the EU does
not speak with one voice yet.  Considering that more
countries will join the EU in the near future, it
becomes even less likely that it ever will.  Examples
in recent are ample such as the war in
Bosnia-Herzegowina.  The EU failed to develop a common
stand on the crisis.  It was the US who eventually had
to step in help resolve it.

There is no doubt that oil is one of the imminent
reasons for Bush to go to war.  Still, don't be
mistaken, it is also the inability of the UN to follow
through with its threatened consequences stated in
numerous resolution during the last 11 years that has
brought us to the brink of war.

Thomas Juli, Ph.D.
Heidelberg, Germany

--- David Smith <dasmith@orion.oac.uci.edu> schrieb: >
I don't know much about Paul Harris, but this
> article seemed interesting.
> It suggests some issue of "hegemonic transition," as
> well as being quite
> relevant to current discussions about the Bush
> motivations to attack Iraq.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> dave smith
> uc-irvine
> 
> >
> >Subject: America's war against Europe
> >
> >http://yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1083
> >
> >YellowTimes.org   February 19, 2003
> >
> >America's war against Europe
> >
> >By Paul Harris
> >
> >There are many reasons for George Bush's
> single-minded drive toward Baghdad.
> >In other articles I have written for
> YellowTimes.org, I hinted that a not so
> >obvious reason for the drive against Iraq is Bush's
> war against Europe. In
> >fact, I have now come to believe that is the
> primary reason for his
> >Iraqophenia.
> >
> >Whenever a nation decides to go to war, there are
> plans made for who is
> >going to win and who is going to lose; no one goes
> to war expecting to lose,
> >but it isn't always the obvious target of the
> aggression that is the real
> >thrust behind the war. Sometimes, it isn't a case
> of what you expect to win
> >from a war, but rather a case of what you hope
> someone else loses; and it
> >doesn't have to be your stated enemy who you hope
> will sustain the losses.
> >
> >In this case, Bush's hoped-for victim is the
> European economy. It is robust,
> >and is likely to become much stronger in the easily
> foreseeable future.
> >Britain's entry into the European Union is
> inevitable; Scandinavia will join
> >sooner rather than later. Already, even without
> those countries, there will
> >be 10 new member nations in May 2004, which will
> swell the GDP of the E.U.
> >to about $9.6 trillion with 450 million people as
> against $10.5 trillion and
> >280 million people in the United States. This
> represents a formidable
> >competing block for the United States but the
> situation is significantly
> >more complex than what is revealed just by those
> numbers. And much of it
> >hinges on the future of Iraq.
> >
> >I have written before, as have many others, that
> this upcoming war is about
> >oil. To be sure there are other reasons, but oil is
> the single most
> >impelling force. Not in the way you might expect,
> however. It isn't so much
> >that there are believed to be huge untapped oil
> reserves in Iraq, untapped
> >only due to outdated technology; it isn't so much
> an American desire to get
> >its grubby hands on that oil; it is much more a
> question of whose grubby
> >hands the Americans want to keep it out of.
> >
> >What precipitated all of this was not September 11,
> nor a sudden realization
> >that Saddam was still a nasty guy, nor just the
> change in leadership in the
> >United States. What precipitated it was Iraq's
> November 6, 2000 switch to
> >the euro as the currency for its oil transactions.
> At the time of the
> >switch, it might have seemed daft that Iraq was
> giving up such a lot of oil
> >revenue to make a political statement. But that
> political statement has been
> >made and the steady depreciation of the dollar
> against the euro since then
> >means that Iraq has derived good profits from
> switching its reserve and
> >transaction currencies. The euro has gained about
> 17 percent against the
> >dollar since that time, which also applies to the
> $10 billion held in Iraq's
> >United Nations "oil for food" reserve fund.
> >
> >So the question arises, as it did for George Bush,
> what happens if OPEC
> >makes a sudden switch to euros? In a nutshell, all
> hell breaks loose.
> >
> >At the end of World War II, an agreement was
> reached at the Bretton Woods
> >Conference which pegged the value of gold at $35
> per ounce and that became
> >the international standard against which currency
> was measured. But in 1971,
> >Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard
> and ever since, the
> >dollar has been the most important global monetary
> instrument, and only the
> >United States can produce them. The dollar, now a
> fiat currency, is at a
> >16-year trade-weighted high despite record U.S.
> current-account deficits and
> >the status of the U.S. as the leading debtor
> nation. The U.S. national debt
> >as of April 4, 2002 was $6.021 trillion against GDP
> of $9 trillion.
> >
> >Trade between nations has become a cycle in which
> the U.S. produces dollars
> >and the rest of the world produces things that
> dollars can buy. Nations no
> >longer trade to capture comparative advantage but
> rather to capture needed
> >dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts
> and to accumulate dollar
> >reserves in order to sustain the exchange value of
> their domestic
> >currencies. In an effort to prevent speculative and
> potentially harmful
> >attacks on their currencies, those nations' central
> banks must acquire and
> >hold dollar reserves in amounts corresponding to
> their own currencies in
> >circulation. This creates a built-in support for a
> strong dollar that in
> >turn forces the world's central banks to acquire
> and hold even more dollar
> >reserves, making the dollar stronger still.
> >
> >This phenomenon is known as "dollar hegemony,"
> which is created by the
> >geopolitically constructed peculiarity that
> critical commodities, most
> >notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone
> accepts dollars because
> >dollars can buy oil.
> >
> >The reality is that the strength of the dollar
> since 1945 rests on being the
> >international reserve currency for global oil
> transactions (i.e.,
> >"petro-dollar"). The U.S. prints hundreds of
> billions of these fiat
> >petro-dollars, which are then used by nation states
> to purchase oil and
> >energy from OPEC producers (except presently Iraq
> and, to some degree,
> >Venezuela). These petro-dollars are then re-cycled
> from OPEC back into the
> >U.S. via Treasury Bills or other dollar-denominated
> assets such as U.S.
> >stocks, real estate, etc. The recycling of
> petro-dollars is the price the
> >U.S. has extracted since 1973 from oil-producing
> countries for U.S.
> >tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel.
> >
> >Dollar reserves must be invested in U.S. assets
> which produces a
> >capital-accounts surplus for the U.S. economy.
> Despite poor market
> >performance during the past year, U.S. stock
> valuation is still at a 25-year
> >high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared
> with emerging markets. The
> >U.S. capital-account surplus finances the U.S.
> trade deficit.
> >
> >Since it is the U.S. that prints the petro-dollars,
> they control the flow of
> >oil. Period. When oil is denominated in dollars
> through U.S. state action
> >and the dollar is the only fiat currency for
> trading in oil, an argument can
> >be made that the U.S. essentially owns the world's
> oil for free.
> >
> >So what happens if OPEC as a group decides to
> follow Iraq's lead and
> >suddenly begins trading oil on the euro standard?
> Economic meltdown.
> >Oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars
> out 
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