 |
 |
| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Kidnapped Pinoys atbp
By Antonio C. Abaya Written on Aug. 06, 2007 For the Standard Today, August 07 issue For the past several days, about a dozen readers of this column have sent me emails and YouTube visuals of one Roy Mayberry, an emergency medical technician, who testified at the US House of Representatives last week that Filipino overseas workers had been �kidnapped� to help build the new US Embassy in Baghdad . According to Mayberry, in March 2006 he accompanied 51 Filipino workers who thought they were going to build hotels in Dubai . The Filipinos did not know, until ten minutes into their flight from Kuwait , that they were headed, not for Dubai , but for Iraq , there to build the US Embassy in the tightly guarded Green Zone. When the Filipinos learned of their actual destination, �people started shouting. It wasn�t until a security guy working for First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting � the company in charge of the embassy project � waved a sub-machinegun in the air that people settled down. They realized they had no choice�.� Mayberry�s claims were backed by one John Owens, an architectural expert with experience on US embassy projects: �When flying from Kuwait to Baghdad , I saw a bunch of workers with tickets to Dubai . Mine was the only one that said Baghdad . �When I asked the First Kuwaiti manager, he said , �Shhh, don�t say anything. If Kuwaiti customs knows they�re going to Iraq , they won�t let them on the plane.�� Owens testified that conditions in the ( Baghdad ) camp were �deplorable, beyond what any man should tolerate.� Workers from Asia and West Africa were paid between $240 and $300 a month for working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, he claimed. The above details are from a news story by Nichola Smith titled �Kidnapped Filipinos Build US Embassy� in the August 05 2007 issue of TimesOnline, from The Sunday Times (of London ). Keep in mind that the incident narrated by Mayvberry and Owens took place in March 2006. It may or may not have something to do with an article I wrote on Dec. 20, 2005 titled Uncle Dick and Lolo Abat, archived in www.tapatt.org. In that article, I recounted that on Dec. 15 I received an email from someone with a German-sounding name, suggesting that US Vice-President Dick Cheney � Uncle Dick to American editorial cartoonists � may be behind the plots to remove President Arroyo from Malacanang. (The Hello Garci tapes had been exposed in June 2005, followed by street demos every Friday, principally in Jejomar Binay�s Makati .) The email included links to two articles written by Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist, with a website at www.waynemadsenreport.com . In the article �All Roads Lead Back to Cheney,� dated Dec. 14, 2005, Madsen says that Cheney�s oil company, Halliburton and its Iraq subsidiary � Kellogg, Brown and Root or KBR � have a business link with an airline, Aerocom/Air Mero, based in Moldova and owned by one Viktor Lout who, according to one search engine, has at least five aliases and holds several Liberian diplomatic passports, plus two Russian and one Ukrainian. According to Madesn, Cheney�s KBR and the Lout airline �fly low-wage earners from East Asia in to Dubai and on to Iraq where they work for paltry salaries in sub-standard living conditions.� KBR, writes Madsen, has �subcontracted to a shadowy Dubai-based firm, Prime Projects International Trading LLC, or PPI, which �trades mainly in workers from Thailand , the Philippines , Nepal , India , Pakistan and other poor Asian nations.� (In early December 2005, there was a story in media about 88 Filipino workers who were stranded in the Dubai international airport and could not proceed to Iraq , but refused to come back to the Philippines . They and the 51 workers Mayberry testified about � and possibly other unpublicized groups � may be part of what Madsen calls �low-wage slave trading in the Middle East .�) Madsen says that the Arroyo Government banned the PPI � which operates from P. O. Box 42252 , in Dubai � from further recruiting Filipino OCWs for the Middle East after a Filipino was killed during a terrorist attack on Camp Anaconda in 2004. Madesn: �Inside sources report that PPI has some high-level financial partners, including the Nahayan royal family in Dubai and Cheney.� Madsen claims there is a connection between PGMA�s �ordering the repatriation of Filipino workers from Iraq and Kuwait, and the discovery that US Marine Corps and FBI spy Leandro Aragoncillo, a Filipino-American who worked as a Marine security aide inside Cheney�s office�who was arrested by the FBI last October (2005), had stolen dossiers from Cheney�s office that were considered damaging to Mrs. Arroyo.� �Aragoncillo passed Cheney�s reports on Macapagal-Arroyo, some of which were obtained from National Security Agency intercepts, to (Joseph) Estrada, a political opponent of Macapagal-Arroyo�.Estrada was planning a coup against Macapagal-Arroyo with US support.� (Emphases mine.) The above means that the NSA was intercepting and eavesdropping on PGMA�s landline and cell phone conversations, and passing on the dirt to Estrada. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Hello Garci tapes were first made public by Allan Paguia, a �former lawyer� of Estrada. The above paragraph confirmed what I have written several times, that the neo-cons in Washington, who are led by Cheney, wanted to see Arroyo removed from office, for a) withdrawing the Filipino contingent from Iraq; b) signing an oil exploration agreement with the Chinese on the Spratlys; and c) failing to dismantle the Jemaah Islamiyah camps in Mindanao. (See my article Replacing GMA, June 14, 2005). That paragraph also confirmed what I wrote when the Hello Garci scandal first broke out in June, that �the Americans here certainly have the capability for eavesdropping on President Arroyo�s cell phone or landline conversation and recording whatever incriminating statements they can find for future use, when she is no longer useful to them�� (See my article Junta? Maybe. Erap? No, June 07, 2005). Finally that last paragraph from Madsen also confirmed my belief that the neo-cons favored Joseph Estrada to replace Mrs. Arroyo because of the �total war� that he waged against the Muslims in Mindanao when he was president. (See my article US Loves Erap, Sept . 25, 2005) His chief lieutenant, Horacio Morales, was summoned twice to Washington , the first time in November 2004, the second time in March 2005, in both times meeting with the staff of Cheney. But after Aragoncillo and his partner Michael Ray Aquino were thoroughly investigated by the Americans and put on trial for espionage (both were sentenced to long prison terms recently), Estrada � considered the main beneficiary and financier of the caper � and Sen. Panfilo Lacson � the former boss of Aquino in the PNP � appear to have been dropped from the neo-cons� short list of replacements for GMA, and the Americans have decided to stay with GMA until 2010, or unless and until a more suitable replacement can be found before 2010. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Kidnapped Pinoys atbp� More Reactions to �Human Insecurity� More Reactions to �Concerts on DVD� Reaction to �Hell Explained� �The Rape of Europe � �Uncle Sam, your banker will see you now� According to this US government website, the testimony about the Filipino workers was last July 2007: oversight.house.gov/documents/20070726115612.pdf (The testimony was made last July 2007 But, according to The Sunday Times of London , the incident mentioned in the testimony happened in March 2006. ACA) In 2005, as per this US Democratic party website, Rory (not Roy) Mayberry also testified about abuses by Halliburton in Iraq: democrats.senate.gov/dpc/hearings/hearing22/mayberry.pdf Funny though, he was complaining long ago of Halliburton abuses, saying even that he fears US military reprisal for his testimonies, yet he goes again to Iraq and happened to accompany those kidnapped Filipinos. (And what�s so funny about that? Many people go to Iraq more than once. Including some US troops who now complain that they have already served three tours of duty. ACA) Funnier though is how you connect the dots like weaving a nice novel ala the DaVinci Code:)) Best regards, (Since you obviously do not believe me, then you should go directly to the website [supplied] of Wayne Madsen and read what he wrote about Uncle Dick. Or are you afraid to face an inconvenient truth? ACA) Sef Dudeo, (by email), California , Aug. 08, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: I won't at all be surprised if all these imputations against US vice president Dick Cheney are factual. Probably because of George W. Bush's inadequacies and shortcomings when he assumed the presidency--his experience limited to that of Governor of Texas-- it was only a question of time before Mr. Cheney succeeded in maneuvering to arrogate unto himself many of the powers and prerogatives of the presidency itself, thus making him incontrovertibly the most powerful vice president the US has had in its more than 200-year history. But the record shows that Mr. Cheney's influence on Mr. Bush and on US domestic and geopolitical policies as well have been less than benign. There is no denying the fact that it was the "neo-conservatives" led by Mr. Cheney--with their depraved mindset that nothing stood in the way of US military power, and that the US had a divine mission to remake the world in America's image-- who succeeded in getting Mr. Bush to attack and occupy Iraq unilaterally and pre-emptively (as it later turned out, on misleading, false and even "doctored" intelligence). Personally I have no reason to be ecstatic about Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's performance as president. But, on balance, she is certainly to be preferred over the immoral and degenerate Joseph "Erap" Estrada. Mariano Patalinjug, (by email), Yonkers , NY , Aug. 08, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I am not surprised at all if people are misled into believing that they (foreign workers) are supposed to work for something and only to find out that the project will be different and elsewhere. This is the American system, driven by greed and evil intentions. It is no different when the American public were led into believing that there was a valid reason to wage war in Iraq and ignore the place where Al Qaeda resides. Dr. Nestor P. Baylan, (by email), New York City , Aug. 08, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, Your are right. The Americans have great influence on Philippine destiny. They determine who our leaders are. Espionage is their forte, but if they are exposed, they jail our people. Anong sama naman. Rex Rivera, (by email), Gen. Santos City, Aug. 08, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww It just shows again the far-reaching effects of an ill-conceived, ill-planned, with no exit strategy, war. What I can�t understand and frustrated about are the remaining 27% or 29 % who still support this sorry administration of King George and Prince Dick or is it the other way around? Eligio Abellera, (by email), Fairburn , Georgia , Aug. 09, 2007 (The 29% of the American public that continues to support George W in Iraq are mainly the Christian Fundamentalists who support the war in Iraq because it goes along with their belief that the Final Battle between the forces of Good and Evil, as foretold in the Book of Revelations, has began or will soon begin, during which Israel will be totally destroyed except for 144,000 Jews who will survive and convert to Christianity, and this will be the signal for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Mr. Abaya, we have to do something about those kidnapped Filipino workers. How can they do this to our people? Or to any person? Whatever little benefit of a doubt I have on Cheney is all gone. He is so "abhorable". They are not only being made slaves for the Americans but are also being used as shields! Do the wives and children of these workers know where they really are? While reading through your article, I can�t help but wonder, did the US have a hand in the phenomenal winning of Trillanes in the last election? Is he being groomed to be it in 2010? Does the US have a scary agenda why Honasan was set free, in spite of all the damage he has done? Pura Flor Isleta, (by email), August 09, 2007 (So far, I have not seen any signs that the Americans were involved in the victory of Trillanes or in the dropping of charges against Honasan. But it would not be beyond the realm of the possible. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww We have reason to believe that my article �Kidnapped Pinoys atbp� (Aug. 08) was blocked by persons unknown from being distributed to our entire distribution list. Those who did not receive said article may access same at www.tapatt.org or at acabaya.blogspot.com. Or they may request for a hard copy from [email protected]. The same observation applies to two succeeding postings: �Human Rights in ASEAN� (Aug. 09) and �Reactions to �Strong Peso Hurts.�� (Aug. 11). wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Reaction to �Hell Explained� Mr. Abaya, The episode/comment on "Hell Explained" has been around for sometime. Snopes website: http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp has coverage on this. Pierre Tierra, (by email), Great Falls , Virginia , Aug. 14, 2007 (I know that �Hell Explained� has been going around the Internet for the past two or three years, and I am sure someone just made it up. But I am perennially amused by Teresa�s religious experience. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww More Reactions to �Human Insecurity� (Aug. 02, 2007) Tony, who do you suggest should implement it, the CBCP or whoever is more popular to the squealing masa than the �unpopular� personalities you mentioned? Wait for 3 years for a more �popular� regime based on surveys, media hype or getting elected? Seems another �damn if you do damn if you don�t� situation for an administration I perceive is only trying to exercise political will. We are agreed on the need, urgent I should say, for this initiative, yet we say �later na lang kasi hindi popular si Gloria & co.� Ano ba ya?! I was in Malaysia when Mahatir�s government, in the mid 90s, launched his 20/20 vision for a more progressive country with the slogan �Bersatu, menaju, wawasan�(forgot what it exactly meant). Mahatir, Le Kuan Yew, etc are known to be visionary leaders who brought prosperity to their respective countries. How come we say �fantasy� if our own GMA launches her own 20-year vision for a better Philippines by laying the firm economic groundwork NOW to realize that vision?? Ano ba talaga ang gusto natin? (oops! I�m having chest pains again�) No wonder many of our current �illustrados� are migrating to countries less plagued with suspicion, prejudice and despair promoted here by a rambunctious and licentious media. Apart from a destructive Gringo Honasan, the absence of these plagues obviously helped create the healthy atmosphere and impetus for progressive countries to make their respective quantum leap to the First World . Talk of �crab mentality� � this should be a POSITIVE Filipino trait that should mean pushing each other up or lifting each other out of the rut! Shalom, Ed J. T.Tirona, (by email), BF Homes, Paranaque City (Only a sitting president can implement a law. What I�m saying is that President Arroyo is so unpopular that she cannot successfully implement a seriously flawed law like the Human Security Act. You cannot compare her with Prime Ministers Lee Kwan Yew or Mahathir Mohamad because they were very popular during their incumbencies. Of course, there is no legal impediment for PGMA to implement said law. But don�t say I didn�t warn you. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww ...and when you see ordinary citizens from all over the country and outside comment with sincerity, then you are even much better than the many "awarding" snob groups like the TOYM...YOUNG PRESIDENTS...ROTARY GROUPS...AIM GRADUATES, .for without the mechanism and support they enjoy, you have nothing but GOOD IDEAS...KEEN OBSERVATION AND THE GUTS...THE LAST ONE BEING THE HARDEST. GUTS ARE PRICELESS. AT ANY TIME OR CLIME. Tony Joaquin, (by email), Daly City , CA , Aug. 14, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww More Reactions to �Concerts on DVD� (July 24, 2007) I also love (top of my list of guitar music) Francisco Tarrega�s Recuerdos de la Alhambra and also Romansa by an unknown composer. Ed J. Tirona, (by email), Aug. 14, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww You wrote: (When we were operating Erehwon Bookshop, we sold hundreds, even one or two thousands, of cassettes of classical music, and easily 95% of our buyers were men. That told me that women in general do not really enjoy classical music as much as men do. Women enjoy going to concerts because it gives them an excuse to dress up and be seen by other women. But men who like classical music do so because it stirs their souls, whether they go to concerts often, seldom or never. Have I just stirred up another hornet's nest? ACA) I hope your women readers are well-balanced ladies. Otherwise, you may have stirred up something worse than a hornet's nest - a nest of ultra-feminists. Ricardo I. de Leon, (by email), Aug 14, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony --- Yes indeed, you have stirred up a hornet's nest (mine, for sure) with that unfortunate macho statement that it was mainly males who bought classical records from your Erehwon store in the old days. Your contention that men have a greater need for soul-stirring experiences and appreciate music more, and that women prefer to listen to live music in concert halls because they just want to show off their fancy clothes (meaning that they're airheads incapable of appreciating the finer things in life) is incredibly insulting. How do you know that those men buying music then didn't have lists given to them by their wives and girlfriends telling them to purchase Bach, Brahms and Beethoven? (I used to ask my husband to get me Cherubini instead of clothes, and Mendelssohn instead of make-up.) Have you also considered that back in those days, not many Filipino women were as economically independent as they are today --- which is surely why they couldn't afford to indulge in luxuries like music and art because they saved their money to care for their families? Like you, I discovered music in my early teens (thanks to a pianist mother and a jazz-loving father who owned many LPs & 45 rpms). I have several female relatives and friends who, like myself, make the classics part of their daily lives. We await your apology. Isabel Escoda (by e-mail, temporarily in California buying CDs), Aug. 14, 2007 (Men loving classical music more than most women do has nothing to do with macho culture. It has to do with biology and the hormonal difference between men and women. Some day, I am confident, a neuro-chemist will discover the chemical difference in men�s and women�s brains that predisposes men to have an affinity for classical music more than most women do. In the redneck culture of the US [and, by extension, the Philippines ], classical music is considered �sissy stuff,� but classical music is actually a very masculine art. (Just look at the evidence. There are virtually no women composers of classical music. I have CDs/LPs of only two: Hildegard of Bingen (12th century) and Lili Boulanger (20th century). For eight centuries, there were no women composers of classical music who were of any lasting significance. (There are also very few women orchestra conductors. Again, I know of only two: Helen Quach of Hong Kong and Iona Brown of the UK . But they have never attained the prominence of men conductors. I will not hazard a guess why. (Among performers/soloists, males also predominate, although there are several outstanding female soloists, such as Martha Argerich, Cecile Licad, Mitsuko Uchida (piano); Anna Sophie Mutter, Kyung Wa Chung (violin), and Jacqueline du Pre, Ofra Hanoy (cello). But the overwhelming majority have been men. (In Philips� landmark CD release called �Great Pianists of the 20th Century� 72 pianists are included, of whom only 11 are women. (My statement that �women in general� etc stands. But it obviously admits that some women in particular, and that includes you and your female relatives and friends, do not fall under that general statement. ACA) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I do agree with you that men are great purchasers of classical records or cassettes, but it is not indicative that those who purchased or listened to chunks of classical records will transform these men into good interpreters or credible critics of classical music. (No one is claiming that. ACA) Western women may drag their unwilling husband to attend concerts not to display their dresses but for the experience. Women go to concerts and museums with their husbands; husbands go to the stadiums without their wives. (That is true only in the redneck culture of the US . ACA) Times have changed, Tony. Dr. Nestor P. Baylan, (by email), New York City , Aug. 14, 2007) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. The Rape of Europe By Paul Belien The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper "DeVolkskrant" that young Europeans who love Freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will not exist twenty years from now. While sitting on a terrace in Berlin , Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said, "We are watching the world of yesterday." Europe is turning Muslim.. As Broder is sixty years old he is not going to emigrate. "I am too old," he said. However, he urged young people to get out and "move to Australia or New Zealand . That is the only option they have if they want to avoid the plagues that will turn the old continent uninhabitable." Many Germans and Dutch, apparently, did not wait for Broder's advice. The number of emigrants leaving the Netherlands and Germany has already surpassed the number of immigrants moving in. One does not have to be prophetic to predict, like Henryk Broder, that Europe is becoming Islamic. In Britan the applications for emigration has reached some 4000 per month! Just consider the demographics. The number of Muslims in Contemporary Europe is estimated to be 50 million. 1% would be 500,000! It is expected to double in twenty years. By 2025, one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families. Today Mohammed is already the most popular name for newborn boys in Brussels , Amsterdam , Rotterdam , and other major European cities. Broder is convinced that the Europeans are not willing to oppose Islamization. "The dominant ethos," he told De Volkskrant, "is perfectly voiced by the stupid blonde woman author with whom I recently debated. She said that it is sometimes better to let yourself be raped than to risk serious injuries while resisting. She said it is sometimes better to avoid fighting than run the risk of death." In a recent Op-Ed piece in the Brussels newspaper De Standaard the Dutch (gay and self-declared "humanist") author Oscar Van Den Boogaard refers to Broder's interview. Van den Boogaard says that to him coping with the Islamization of Europe is like "a process of mourning." He is overwhelmed by a "feeling of sadness." �I am not a warrior," he says, "but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it." Consider that in all of Europe no one under the age of 65 has picked up arms in defense of their country. That task has been borne by the United States since Hitler surrendered in 1945. As Tom Bethell wrote in this month's American Spectator: "Just at the most basic level of demography the secular-humanist option is not working." But there is more to it than the fact that non-religious people tend not to have as many children as religious people, because many of them prefer to "enjoy" freedom rather than renounce it for the sake of children. Secularists, it seems to me, are also less keen on fighting. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, this life is the only thing they have to lose. Hence they will rather accept submission than fight. Like the German feminist Broder referred to, they prefer to be raped than to resist. "If faith collapses, civilization goes with it," says Bethell. That is the real cause of the closing of civilization in Europe . Islamization is simply the consequence. The very word Islam means "submission" and the secularists have submitted already. Many Europeans have already become Muslims, though they do not realize it or do not want to admit it. Some of the people I meet in the U. S. are particularly worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe . They are correct when they fear that anti-Semitism is also on the rise among non-immigrant Europeans. The latter hate people with a fighting spirit. Contemporary anti-Semitism in Europe (at least when coming from native Europeans) is related to anti-Americanism. People who are not prepared to resist and are eager to submit, hate others who do not want to submit and are prepared to fight. They hate them because they are afraid that the latter will endanger their lives as well. In their view everyone must submit. This is why they have come to hate Israel and America so much, and the small band of European "Islamophobes" who dare to talk about what they see happening around them. West Europeans have to choose between submission (Islam) or death. I fear, like Broder, that they have chosen submission - just like in former days when they preferred to be Red rather than dead. Europeans apparently never read John Stuart Mill: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war, is worse." "A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.� ***** wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Uncle Sam, Your Banker Will See You Now By Paul Craig Roberts Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. 08/08/07 "ICH" --- - Early this morning China let Washington, and Wall Street, know that it has them by the short hairs. Two senior spokesmen for the Chinese government observed that China �s considerable holdings of US dollars and Treasury bonds �contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency.� Should the US proceed with sanctions intended to cause the Chinese currency to appreciate, �the Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar.� If Western financial markets are sufficiently intelligent to comprehend the message, US interest rates will rise regardless of any further action by China . At this point, China does not need to sell a single bond. In an instant, China has made it clear that US interest rates depend on China , not on the Federal Reserve. The precarious position of the US dollar as reserve currency has been thoroughly ignored and denied. The delusion that the US is �the world�s sole superpower,� whose currency is desirable regardless of its excess supply, reflects American hubris, not reality. This hubris is so extreme that only 6 weeks ago McKinsey Global Institute published a study that concluded that even a doubling of the US current account deficit to $1.6 trillion would pose no problem. Strategic thinkers, if any remain who have not been purged by neocons, will quickly conclude that China�s power over the value of the dollar and US interest rates also gives China power over US foreign policy. The US was able to attack Afghanistan and Iraq only because China provided the largest part of the financing for Bush�s wars. If China ceased to buy US Treasuries, Bush�s wars would end. The savings rate of US consumers is essentially zero, and several million are afflicted with mortgages that they cannot afford. With Bush�s budget in deficit and with no room in the US consumer�s budget for a tax increase, Bush�s wars can only be financed by foreigners. No country on earth, except for Israel , supports the Bush regimes� desire to attack Iran . It is China �s decision whether it calls in the US ambassador, and delivers the message that there will be no attack on Iran or further war unless the US is prepared to buy back $900 billion in US Treasury bonds and other dollar assets. The US , of course, has no foreign reserves with which to make the purchase. The impact of such a large sale on US interest rates would wreck the US economy and effectively end Bush�s war-making capability. Moreover, other governments would likely follow the Chinese lead, as the main support for the US dollar has been China �s willingness to accumulate them. If the largest holder dumped the dollar, other countries would dump dollars, too. The value and purchasing power of the US dollar would fall. When hard-pressed Americans went to Wal-Mart to make their purchases, the new prices would make them think they had wandered into Nieman Marcus. Americans would not be able to maintain their current living standard. Simultaneously, Americans would be hit either with tax increases in order to close a budget deficit that foreigners will no longer finance or with large cuts in income security programs. The only other source of budgetary finance would be for the government to print money to pay its bills. In this event, Americans would experience inflation in addition to higher prices from dollar devaluation. This is a grim outlook. We got in this position because our leaders are ignorant fools. So are our economists, many of whom are paid shills for some interest group. So are our corporate leaders whose greed gave China power over the US by offshoring the US production of goods and services to China . It was the corporate fat cats who turned US Gross Domestic Product into Chinese imports, and it was the �free trade, free market economists� who egged it on.. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |