Friends, Some of you may want to reject the second story below, because it comes from a right-wing source. I suggest however that we are getting good information there, and the biases are very evident, so that we can take them into account. We need more listening between left and right. Factionalism only serves elite interests - divide and rule. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-02-13T153028Z_01_L13432231_RTRUKOC_0_US-SYRIA-US-FOREX.xml&rpc=22 Syria switches to euro amid confrontation with US Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:31 AM ET DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syria has switched all of the state's foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political confrontation with the United States, the head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria said on Monday. "This is a precaution. We are talking about billions of dollars," Duraid Durgham told Reuters. The bank, which still dominates the Syrian market although private banks have been allowed to set up in the last few years, has also stopped dealing with dollars in the international foreign exchange flows of private clients. The United States has been at the forefront of international pressure on Syria for its alleged role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri a year ago. Damascus denies involvement in the killing. "It looks like a kind of pre-emptive action aimed at making their foreign assets safer, preventing them from getting frozen in case of any conflict," said a Middle East economist who requested anonymity. © Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. -------------------------------------------------------- http://www.teamliberty.net/id223.html teamliberty.net While the mainstream media sleeps: Iran / Venezuela declares economic war on the U.S. February 15, 2006 -- During a recent visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Iranian parliamentary speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel said U.S. opposition to Iran's nuclear program was "only a pretext." "They are worried that we want to be independent," Hadad Adel said through an interpreter.[1] Adel was kind to use the word "pretext". A more direct statement by Adel would have been to say that U.S. opposition to Iran's nuclear program is more of the same hardliner propaganda coming out of the Bush Administration, meant to drum up public support for additional Bush Administration sponsored, pre-emptive strikes against nations that dare to abandon the U.S. dollar in favor of the euro or any other foreign currency. Why else would Adel say that the U.S. opposition to Iran's nuclear program was "only a pretext" if he didn't possess full knowledge of what he believed to be the real reason why the Bush Administration and its supporters in the U.S. Congress have suddenly gotten themselves all hot and bothered over a nuclear program that has been in play for decades and is by many accounts, at least ten more years away from being able to produce even a single nuclear weapon? What did Adel mean when he said that "they are worried that we want to be independent" when Iran is already an independent country? No foreign army is presently occupying Iran. It holds elections. In 2000, the U.S. applauded when the Iranian people elected reformists to the Iranian Parliament. In 2004, the Bush Administration, the spread democracy by spraying bullets administration, frowned when those same Iranian voters elected the resurgent conservatives into power once again. The point here is that Iran is already independent by all accounts, so what did Adel mean when he said that the Bush Administration and its NEO-CON supporters are worried that Iran wants to be independent? When mining alternative media sources (the mainstream media in the United States is not and will not report this information) to catch a glimpse of what Iran is attempting to become independent of, the only plausible explanation to be uncovered suggests that Iran wants to become independent of the U.S. dollar. It is of great importance to understand that only those countries that are adversarial to the U.S. dollar have earned the scorn of Bush's Global, Big Brother Machine. Iraq stopped using U.S. dollars in 2000 under the U.N. monitored Oil for Food Program. Two months after the U.S. invaded Iraq, all purchases of Iraqi oil were returned to petrodollars once again. Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, who is considered a dangerous adversary by the Bush Administration, has declared war on the U.S. dollar. In October 2005, Chavez announced that Venezuela was ready to move the county's foreign-exchange holdings out of the dollar and into the euro.[2] Now Iran and Venezuela have joined together to gain independence from the U.S. Dollar. Chavez supports the opening of the Iran Oil Bourse on March 20, 2006. The Iran Oil Bourse will challenge U.S. dollar supremacy in global oil market transactions executed on the New York Mercantile Exchange and London's International Petroleum Exchange by creating the opportunity for countries to shift foreign-exchange holdings out of dollars and into euros or other currencies. In his February 1, 2006 Energy Bulletin: (Trading oil in euros - does it matter?) mathematical technician, Coilin Nunan wrote, "If the denomination of these important imports, in particular oil, were to move away from the dollar, then rich countries would move their reserves into other currencies and consequently the dollar would lose a lot of its importance." What the Coilin statement means to America is that if the dollar loses importance, the United States will lose importance on the world stage. And if the U.S. loses the spotlight, so does the Bush Administration, particularly in its ability to orchestrate world affairs. And while the ultra-rich that control the elected elite in the United States fear losing power and prominence throughout the world and have proven that they will resort to war to retain power, it will be the American middle-class and poor that will be called upon once again to fight, and if necessary, die for their country under less than creditable and honorable circumstances. Invading other countries to sustain the value of a non-governmental money system is not honorable warfare. It is not by chance that the Bush Administration and the NEO-CON targets countries like Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela as adversarial. All three had or have two things in common - very large oil reserves and a desire to weaken the United States by declaring war on the petrodollar. The fact that the United States, and particularly, the Bush Administration knows that North Korea already has nuclear weapons that are in the hands of a deranged and disturbed, if not clinically insane leader, Kim Jong il, but is for all intensive purposes, doing little if anything about it, serves as more circumstantial evidence that the " Iranian nuclear threat" propaganda churning out of the government and banking cartel controlled mainstream media, is just that, war propaganda designed to convince the American people that there is a new bogeyman out there that wants to destroy our way of life with weapons of mass destruction. It is sad to report that much of the White House propaganda regarding Iran is having its desired effect on the mainstream media and consequently, the American people. Most Americans believe that Iran is a nuclear threat right now, when it is not. If you poll one thousand Americans and ask if they have ever heard of the Iran Oil Bourse, at best, maybe twenty will have knowledge of it. If asked what a petrodollar is, again most Americans will have no clue, not because they're clueless, but because they believe that what they read in their newspapers and see on the evening news are complete news stories, when they are not. Here's the headline you will not read or hear from the mainstream media, but no doubt should. America is under attack. Iran and Venezuela have declared war on the petrodollar. The reason why the U.S. dollar is vulnerable to attack is because our currency is printed and loaned to the federal government by a syndicate of private banking institutions doing business as the Federal Reserve. The money system, the Federal Reserve System, is a funny money system that makes money out of nothing and loans it to the government of the United States at face value plus interest. The remedy for this currency crisis is to abolish the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, eliminate the 16th Amendment commonly referred to as the income tax amendment, and return the Secretary Treasurer back under the control of the U.S. Congress, as well as the printing and management of all our nation's currency. Finally, all currency and coin of the United States must be permanently anchored to a gold or silver standard. These objectives might seem impossible to implement. But when weighed against the alternative; killing and maiming while being killed and maimed, all to protect the interests of a private corporation banking syndicate that created, funds, and has cleverly disguised itself as a pillar of Americanism under the War on Terror canopy as it sinks the U.S. taxpayer so deep into debt that no peaceful means will ever achieve discharge of the debt, and suddenly, fixing our own county's glaring defect, our fiat money system, so that the United States no longer has to fight wars to sustain the value of its currency does not seem like that difficult of a task when compared to the price the U.S. pays to wage war. [1] Associated Press, A Defiant Iran Makes Atomic Boast, Ali Akbar Dareini, February 14, 2006, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE= IADES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-02-14-15-47- 01, [Accessed February 14, 2006] [2] WorldNetDaily, Iran, Venezuela declare war on petrodollar, Jerome Corsi, February 9, 2006, http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48751, [Accessed February 14, 2006] Freelance writer / author, Ed Haas, is the editor and columnist for the Muckraker Report. Get smart. Read the Muckraker Report. [http://teamliberty.net] To learn more about Ed's current and previous work, visit Crafting Prose. [http://craftingprose.com] Copyright © 2002-2006 by MUCKRAKER REPORT. All rights reserved. For re-print permission, contact Ed Haas: (843) 388-6158. -- -------------------------------------------------------- http://cyberjournal.org "Escaping the Matrix: how We the People can change the world": http://escapingthematrix.org/ Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?date=01Jan2007&lists=newslog Subscribe to low-traffic list: mailto:•••@••.••• ___________________________________________ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
