What I find most interesting is that the mainstream media has absolutely refused to give any coverage to the idea that one of the contributing factors to the invasion of Iraq was that Hussein was intending to set up an oil bourse denominated solely in euros…

Thanks to Alan E. Lewis for bringing the below to the attention of the Green Alliance membership.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m23264&l=i&size=1&hd=0

May 13, 2006

A Final Step Toward US Dollar Collapse & Preemptive Nuclear Strike

by Daniel L. Abrahamson

The impending opening of the Iranian International Oil Bourse
(IOB), set to commence trading next week on the island nation of
Kish, strongly increases the chances of an imminent nuclear
American-Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear and financial
facilities. The electronic oil bourse, much discussed by terrorism
expert Webster Tarpley, appears ready to launch in the coming
weeks or even days. Because it will offer oil in euros, it may
trigger the rapid collapse of the U.S. dollar.

Over the past four days, the Western media has finally ended their
blackout and acknowledged the possibility of an imminent dollar
collapse, as gold reaches nearly $700 an ounce.

On Friday, May 5, the Associated Press covered the oil bourse with
their article “Iran wants oil market in Euros.” The article warns
of a rapid decline in the dollar while feebly attempting to
minimize the importance of the oil bourse.

Nevertheless, the AP quotes a top Wall Street analyst who gives a
far more realistic assessment: “But if one day the world’s largest
oil producers allowed, or worse demanded, euros for their barrels,
‘it would be the financial equivalent of a nuclear strike,’ said
A.G. Edwards commodities analyst Bill O’Grady.

‘If OPEC decided they didn’t want dollars anymore,’ he added, ‘it
would signal an end of American hegemony by signaling an end to
the dollar as the sole reserve currency status.’

Incredibly, some neocon warmongers are now openly calling for a
strike on Iran because of the bourse.

On May 8, Bush apologist Jerome Corsi penned an editorial entitled
“Iran Signs It’s Own Death Warrant.” Corsi is the same GOP hack
who helped sponsor the Swift Boat ads & wrote Unfit for Command
during the staged 2004 presidential election. In his article he
admits a major reason for the US invasion of Iraq was the
oil-for-euros policy of Saddam Hussein, and warns of China’s
interest in the oil bourse.

He then goes further, predicting an imminent US attack: “If Iran
wants also to seriously threaten the dollar’s position as a
dominant foreign reserve currency, a war becomes almost certain.
The Iranian oil bourse may never be mentioned by U.S. policymakers
as a official reason the United States decides to go to war with
Iran, but it may end up being the straw that broke the camel’s
back.”

According to Forbes, the bourse may open this week. In their May 7
coverage, they suggest the electronic oil market is ready for
trading: “Iran’s oil ministry on Friday also made a move to
establish an oil-trading market denominated in euros instead of
U.S. dollars, granting a license for the bourse, according to a
report from the country’s state-run television.”

Warren Buffett who is a well known Rothschild banker is predicting
demise, Bill Gates, George Soros are all predicting economic
demise.

The Forbes coverage echoes another article from April 26, when the
Iranian state media reported their oil-for-euros market will open
some time in the next week. Iranian Oil Minister Kazem
Vaziri-Hamaneh made the announcement at the 10th General Assembly
of International Energy Agency and consultations with OPEC member
states.

Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting the bourse will not open for
another two months, based on quotes from President Ahmadinejad.

So assuming the bourse opens sometime between now and the next two
months, how might it disrupt the fragile geopolitical balance
which has reached near Cuban Missile crisis proportions?

Clearly the economic threat of the Iranian Oil Bourse is one of
the main motives behind the pending US invasion, rather than the
bogus official claims of a nuclear threat. The National
Intelligence Estimate from the US State Department acknowledges
Iran is at least 10 years away from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Even the more hawkish estimates from within the White House
estimate Iran is at least three years away from acquiring a
nuclear weapon.

On April 30, Al-Jazeerah reported the oil bourse has widespread
international support, and “Some of the major oil-producing
countries such as Venezuela (which has boosted its economic ties
with Iran) and a few of the larger oil consuming countries, most
notably China and India, have already announced their support for
the IOB.”

The Al-Jazeerah article, entitled “Petro-Euro: A reality or
distant nightmare for U.S.?” warned that the Iranian oil bourse
could sink the U.S. dollar and lead to the rise of the euro as the
world’s reserve currency: “Such a move could lead to a collapse in
value for the American currency, potentially putting the U.S.
economy in its greatest crisis since the depression era of the
1930s.”

The same article mentions how Saddam Hussein’s decision to trade
oil for euros in 2000 may have been a major trigger for the U.S.
invasion of Iraq. Al-Jazeerah also quotes American security expert
William Clark as predicting that “if Iran threatened the hegemony
of the U.S. dollar in the international oil market, the White
House would immediately order a military attack against it.”

Before this week, the mainstream media had tried desperately tried
to blackout news about the bourse. A small mention came in a UPI
article from April 25, while an April 2 piece in the San Francisco
Chronicle warned, “the bourse would rival the New York Mercantile
Exchange and International Petroleum Exchange in London — the
twin centers of the oil-trading world. They quoted the cogent
analysis of finance scholar Krassimir Petrov, who wrote, “The
Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate ‘nuclear’
weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning
the American Empire.”

Why would Iran’s oil exchange present such a threat to the U.S.
dollar and worldwide economy?

The dollar accounts for more than two thirds of all central bank
reserves worldwide because all international oil transactions have
to be in US Dollars. This reserve status creates a constant demand
for dollars, despite the underlying weakness of the U.S. economy.
Hence, central banks are willing to overlook the massive trade and
budget deficits are expanding with on-the-books Federal debt at
record highs over 9 trillion and a fiscal gap estimated at $72
trillion.

But the United States is an economy on life support and nearing
default, ravaged by agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, and MFN trade
status with China (all under the auspices of the WTO). The
industrial and machine tools factories in America have been
eviscerated, with Ford posting a quarterly loss of 1.2 billion. GM
posted a quarterly loss of $325 million and both companies had
their bonds cut to junk status back in 2005.

Ravaged by capital flight, mired in debt, and borrowing $2 billion
a day just to stay afloat, the U.S. economy is increasingly
reliant on this petrodollar reserve status. The vast size of U.S.
liabilities means that any threat to the dollar hegemony could
result in a rapid currency collapse, sinking the world into
recession. Hence the dire threat of the Iranian Oil Bourse, which
may put an end to the fiat currency charade that began after the
US defaulted on its gold payments in 1971.

On Wednesday May 3, the dollar fell to one-year lows against the
euro and the lowest level since 1970 against the Canadian dollar.
A Telegraph article entitled “Dollar drops as great sell-off
looms” described the impending currency crisis as the dollar loses
its role as the world’s reserve currency: “Greenback liquidation
comes amid growing concerns that global central banks and Middle
East oil funds are quietly paring back their holdings of US bonds…
Gold leapt to a 25-year high of $660.95 an ounce on fears the
dollar decline could spiral out of control, disrupting the global
financial system.”

The demise of the dollar looms as the Federal Reserve stopped
releasing M3 money supply numbers on March 20. Some unconfirmed
internet rumors claim the Fed recently ordered 2 trillion
greenbacks printed. While such reports may seem outlandish, new
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech in 2003:
“”The US government has a technology called a printing press that
allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at
essentially no cost.”

A February 6 article in the London Telegraph expounded on
Bernanke’s reputation as an inflationist. Discussing Bernanke’s
position, they wrote: “Ultimately, the Fed can flood the system by
buying any kind of asset, or even dropping bank notes from
helicopters, he said. The speech earned him the epithet
‘Helicopter Ben’”

Even before Bernanke took over, Alan Greenspan helped direct the
Fed’s desperate scheme of raising interest rates 15 times since
June 2004, vastly increasing liquidity, and debasing the value of
the U.S. dollar.

The Financial Times reported on May 16 that the dollar was facing
a freefall collapse, in an article entitled “Fears for dollar as
central banks sell US assets.” The article explained the recent
sell-off in the dollar was triggered by dollar divestiture by the
European central banks: “The world’s central banks were net
sellers of US assets in March for the first time since September
2002, according to figures that may hint that the recent rebound
in the dollar will be temporary. Central banks sold a net $14.4bn
in US assets during the month, the largest sale since August 1998,
the US Treasury revealed.”

Russia’s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin recently warned of a
dollar collapse on April 21 at the opening spring session of the
International Monetary Fund. He said “Russia cannot consider the
dollar as a reliable reserve currency because of its instability.
This currency has devalued by 40% against the euro in recent
years.” Two years ago Russia had nearly 90% holdings in US dollars
and today that proportion has fallen to below 80%.

The same IMF conference featured the release of the 2006 World
Economic Outlook, which warned of a U.S. dollar collapse due to
global trade imbalances, spiraling U.S. debt, and the demise of
the petrodollar reserve standard. The report stated, “global
current account imbalances are likely to remain at elevated levels
for longer than would otherwise have been the case, heightening
the risk of sudden disorderly adjustment”.

“Disorderly adjustment” is the newest banker euphemism for the
hyperinflationary spiral and worldwide economic depression which
will accompany a dollar collapse.On that same day of April 21,
Sweden’s Riksbank recently cut their dollar holdings in half,
instead favoring Euros. Reuter reported that, “The Riksbank’s move
to increase its euro holdings to 50 percent of its reserves
follows comments by Gulf central banks in recent weeks that they
are considering increasing the share of the euro in their
reserves.

Back in February, South Korea shocked the currency markets when
they announced a move away from dollar-denominated assets. CNN
reported, “The world’s fourth-largest stockpile of reserves that
has traditionally been held in U.S. debt…announced its plans to
diversify into other currencies.”

Recently, currency shocks hit Iceland and New Zealand and may
portend a global financial meltdown in its growing stages.

Within hushed circles on Wall Street, the impending dollar crisis
has been long predicted. In a closed-door meeting in 2004, the
chief economist at Morgan Stanley, Stephen Roach, predicted
“economic Armageddon.”

The Boston Herald article reported Roach’s comments as follows:
“His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of
avoiding economic “Armageddon…Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a
slump soon and a 60 percent chance that ‘we’ll muddle through for
a while and delay the eventual Armageddon.’”Furthermore, globalist
banker & billionaire Warren Buffett is warning of a global
financial collapse and the precipitous drop in the dollar in a
recent Forbes Magazine. Buffett has personally bet at least $20
billion against the U.S. dollar, and said the following: “The rest
of the world owns $10 trillion of us, or $3 trillion net. If lots
of people try to leave the market, we’ll have chaos because they
won’t get through the door.”

The article went further: “A continuing fall in the dollar ‘could
cause major disruptions in financial markets. There could be
unpredictable side effects. It could be precipitated by some
exogenous event like a Long-Term Capital Management,’ Buffett
says, referring to the 1998 collapse of a steeply leveraged hedge
fund.”

Warren Buffett is strongly linked to the Rothschild banking
syndicate, and Buffett brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to visit Lord
Jacob Rothschild’s Buckinghamshire estate in 2002. Buffett’s dire
warnings likely represent the sentiments of the Rothschilds and
others in European financier dynasties dominating the New World
Order overclass; those who hope to use a worldwide depression to
seize assets, depopulate the planet of “useless eaters,” and
create a unipolar biometric police state.

Billionaire software kingpin and Bilderberg member Bill Gates, who
recently hosted Chinese police state head President Hu, is also
shorting the dollar. Last January, Bloomberg quoted Gates
predicting a collapse in the U.S. currency. He said, “I’m short
the dollar. The ‘ol dollar, it’s gonna go down…It is a bit scary.
We’re in uncharted territory when the world’s reserve currency has
so much outstanding debt.” The article continued: “Gates’s concern
that widening U.S. budget and trade deficits are undermining the
dollar was echoed in Davos by policymakers including European
Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder.”Billionare investor and Bilderberg member
George Soros recently predicted a U.S. recession in 2006 or 2007.
Soros believes a the U.S. housing bubble will soon collapse the
Fed cannot keep the dollar propped up. Soros told the press,
“Europe is growing relatively well… but a hard landing in the
U.S. will be associated with a decline in the dollar which would
hurt the European economy,”.

It appears the bottom may already be falling out from under the
financial house of cards. The fiat currency ponzi scheme, bloated
by hundreds of trillions in leveraged derivatives, hedge fund
manipulations, and unregulated currency speculation, appears
doomed.

In order to stave off the collapse, the Cheney-led shadow
government and their Anglo-American financiers appear ready to
launch a nuclear strike on Iran, destroying the oil bourse and
shutting off oil shipments at the Straits of Hormuz. The larger
invasion of the Middle East appears to be a plan to limit oil
supply and spike prices, as Iraq is now a net importer of oil
since the US/UK invasion.

Major financial analysts are now warning of $100 a barrel oil,
which will further increase the artificial demand for dollars and
perhaps stave off a dollar collapse. Daniel Eustulin and Jim
Tucker reported back during the 2005 Bilderberg, the New World
Order announced the coming $120 a barrel oil at the secret world
government conference.

In June 2005, Eustulin wrote, “A British Bilderberger noted that
oil at $120 a barrel will greatly benefit Britain and the US, but
that Russia and China would be the biggest winners.” Eustulin also
described the strong sentiment for moving away from the dollar and
toward the euro for the world currency.

The insane plan to attack Iran with nuclear weapons will likely
backfire, producing massive financial upheaval and a potential
Armageddon. The inflation caused by $120+ a barrel oil will likely
shock markets and the dollar will collapse regardless. The neocon
endgame, which envisions an apocalyptic “World War 4″ conflict
against Russia and China, might become inevitable.

The Anglo-American oligarchs and their shadow government moles
inside the Pentagon are desperate to stop the Iranian bourse and
seize control of the oil in the tiny region Khuzestan (containing
90% of Iran’s oil wealth). The possibility of a false-flag terror
attack or joint Israel-U.S. strike during the months of May or
June appears more grave than ever before.

Recent mainstream reports of TOPOFF 2 drills in Chicago and a wave
of other drills in May and June may indicate the final planning
for a synthetic terror attack is complete. Additionally on July
18, the Defense Department is wargaming a military strike on Iran.
The Asia Times reports, “This particular ‘war game’ is the fifth
in a series that has also included exercises related to a
purported avian-influenza pandemic and a crisis in Pakistan.’

Will the Iranian Oil Bourse be the final straw that inspires one
of these drills to go live? Will the potential dollar collapse
usher in the next stage in insane neocon push toward World War
Three?

Source : InfoWars

An Absolute Must-Read : ‘The Oil Boil’ by Anwaar Hussain

: Article nr. 23264 sent on 14-may-2006 00:04 ECT

: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=23264

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: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility
of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Uruknet

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PLUS:

http://capuchinomics.com/news/index.php?option=content&
task=view&id=243&Itemid=

Brokeback Dollar — Is the world quitting the US currency?

Sunday, 14 May 2006

The demise of the dollar has long been predicted but with little
success, until now. Over the last month the dollar has lost nearly
7% …. The dollar is now in a vertical decline. The Wall Street
Journal yesterday reported that “The Bush administration is
quietly acquiescing in the dollar’s recent slide, a potentially
risky approach but one it hopes may gently narrow the yawning U.S.
trade gap by realigning world currencies.” Now it’s official –
every time US treasury secretary John Snow is trotted out to say
that the administration is for a “strong dollar,” it’s really a
gold plated invitation to sell the US currency. […snip…]

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SEE ALSO:

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/laird/2006/0426.html

FINAL DAYS OF US DOLLAR?
by Christopher Laird
PrudentSquirrel.com
April 26, 2006

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Green_All_Views/message/13779