Iraq and Libya have been taken out, and Iran has been heavily
boycotted. Syria is now in the crosshairs. Why? Here is one overlooked
scenario.
In an August 2013 article titled “Larry Summers and the Secret ‘End-game’ Memo,”
Greg Palast posted evidence of a secret late-1990s plan devised by Wall
Street and U.S. Treasury officials to open banking to the lucrative
derivatives business. To pull this off required the relaxation of
banking regulations not just in the US but globally. The vehicle to be
used was the Financial Services Agreement of the World Trade
Organization.
The “end-game” would require not just coercing support among WTO
members but taking down those countries refusing to join. Some key
countries remained holdouts from the WTO, including Iraq, Libya, Iran
and Syria. In these Islamic countries, banks are largely state-owned;
and “usury” – charging rent for the “use” of money – is viewed as a sin,
if not a crime. That puts them at odds with the Western model of rent
extraction by private middlemen. Publicly-owned banks are also a threat
to the mushrooming derivatives business, since governments with their
own banks don’t need interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, or
investment-grade ratings by private rating agencies in order to finance
their operations.
In his article Palast descibes at length the fate of countries in the WTO, and this is further covered here but Palast did not discuss
those that were not in that organization at all, including Iraq, Syria,
Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. These seven countries were
named by U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.) in a 2007 “Democracy Now” interview
as the new “rogue states” being targeted for take down after September
11, 2001. He said that about 10 days after 9-11, he was told by a
general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Later,
the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five
years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
What did these countries have in common? Besides being Islamic, they were not members either of the WTO or of the Bank for International Settlements
(BIS). That left them outside the long regulatory arm of the central
bankers’ central bank in Switzerland. Other countries later identified
as “rogue states” that were also not members of the BIS included North Korea, Cuba, and Afghanistan.
Countries laboring under the yoke of an extractive private banking
system are being forced into “structural adjustment” and austerity by
their unrepayable debt. But some countries have managed to escape. In
the Middle East, these are the targeted “rogue nations.” Their
state-owned banks can issue the credit of the state on behalf of the
state, leveraging public funds for public use without paying a massive
tribute to private middlemen. Generous state funding allows them to
provide generously for their people.
Like Libya and Iraq before they were embroiled in war, Syria provides free education at all levels
and free medical care. It also provides subsidized housing for everyone
(although some of this has been compromised by adoption of an IMF
structural adjustment program in 2006 and the presence of about 2
million Iraqi and Palestinian refugees). Iran too provides nearly free higher education and primary health care.
Like Libya and Iraq before takedown, Syria and Iran have state-owned central banks
that issue the national currency and are under government control.
Whether these countries will succeed in maintaining their financial
sovereignty in the face of enormous economic, political and military
pressure remains to be seen.
As for Larry Summers, after proceeding through the revolving door to
head Citigroup, he became State Senator Barack Obama’s key campaign
benefactor. He played a key role in the banking deregulation that
brought on the current crisis, causing millions of US citizens to lose
their jobs and their homes. Yet Summers is President Obama’s first
choice to replace Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chairman. Why? He has
proven he can manipulate the system to make the world safe for Wall
Street; and in an upside-down world in which bankers rule, that seems to
be the name of the game.
full article here
Oil, gas, banks, democracy: conspiracy theory or another devious, undemocratic, self-enriching move of capitalism's policy makers? You decide!
1 comment:
I'm very sceptical of Ellen Brown, the article's author, who appears to blame everything upon the banks and advocates state-owned banks as in North Dakota as a cure all for all capitalism's problems.
At one time the Bank of England was nationalised, nominally free education and health care existed in the UK, so associating these as motives for escalating the Syrian war is IMHO far fetched and indeed verging on irrational conspiracy theory.
More mundane motives can be read here
http://www.alternet.org/world/meet-major-players-who-turned-syrian-crisis-devastating-proxy-war?paging=off
Although it omits the British, French and Qatar geo-political reasons.
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