Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Are The Middle East Wars Really About Forcing the World Into Dollars and Private Central Banking?

Zero Hedge
January 15, 2012

The Middle Eastern and North African wars – planned 20 years ago – don’t necessarily have much to do with fighting terrorism. See this, this and this.

They are, in reality, about oil.

And protecting Israel (and read the section entitled “Securing the Realm” here).
But as AFP reports today, there is another major motivation for the expanding wars:

The latest round of American sanctions are aimed at shutting down Iran’s central bank, a senior US official said Thursday, spelling out that intention directly for the first time.

“We do need to close down the Central Bank of Iran (CBI),” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity, while adding that the United States is moving quickly to implement the sanctions, signed into law last month.

***

Foreign central banks that deal with the Iranian central bank on oil transactions could also face similar restrictions under the new law, which has sparked fears of damage to US ties with nations like Russia and China.

“If a correspondent bank of a US bank wants to do business with us and they’re doing business with CBI or other designated Iranian banks… then they’re going to get in trouble with us,” the US official said.

Why is the U.S. targeting Iran’s central bank?

Well, multi-billionaire Hugo Salinas Price told King World News:

What happened to Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn’t want any solid competing currency out there vs the dollar. You know Gaddafi was talking about a gold dinar.

As I noted in August:

Ellen Brown argues in the Asia Times that there were even deeper reasons for the war than gold, oil or middle eastern regime change.

Brown argues that Libya – like Iraq under Hussein – challenged the supremacy of the dollar and the Western banks:

Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.

What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland.

The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.”

According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar”, Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency.

***
And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:

One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned … Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.

Alex Newman wrote in November:

According to more than a few observers, Gadhafi’s plan to quit selling Libyan oil in U.S. dollars — demanding payment instead in gold-backed “dinars” (a single African currency made from gold) — was the real cause [of the Libyan war and killing of Gadhafi]. The regime, sitting on massive amounts of gold, estimated at close to 150 tons, was also pushing other African and Middle Eastern governments to follow suit.

And it literally had the potential to bring down the dollar and the world monetary system by extension, according to analysts. French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly went so far as to call Libya a “threat” to the financial security of the world. The “Insiders” were apparently panicking over Gadhafi’s plan.

“Any move such as that would certainly not be welcomed by the power elite today, who are responsible for controlling the world’s central banks,” noted financial analyst Anthony Wile, editor of the free market-oriented Daily Bell, in an interview with RT. “So yes, that would certainly be something that would cause his immediate dismissal and the need for other reasons to be brought forward [for] removing him from power.”

According to Wile, Gadhafi’s plan would have strengthened the whole continent of Africa in the eyes of economists backing sound money — not to mention investors. But it would have been especially devastating for the U.S. economy, the American dollar, and particularly the elite in charge of the system.

“The central banking Ponzi scheme requires an ever-increasing base of demand and the immediate silencing of those who would threaten its existence,” Wile noted in a piece entitled “Gaddafi Planned Gold Dinar, Now Under Attack” earlier this year. “Perhaps that is what the hurry [was] in removing Gaddafi in particular and those who might have been sympathetic to his monetary idea.”

Investor newsletters and commentaries have been buzzing for months with speculation about the link between Gadhafi’s gold dinar and the NATO-backed overthrow of the Libyan regime. Conservative analysts pounced on the potential relationship, too.

“In 2009 — in his capacity as head of the African Union — Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi had proposed that the economically crippled continent adopt the ‘Gold Dinar,’” noted Ilana Mercer in an August opinion piece for WorldNetDaily. “I do not know if Col. Gadhafi continued to agitate for ditching the dollar and adopting the Gold Dinar — or if the Agitator from Chicago got wind of Gadhafi’s (uncharacteristic) sanity about things monetary.”

But if Arab and African nations had begun adopting a gold-backed currency, it would have had major repercussions for debt-laden Western governments that would be far more significant than the purported “democratic” uprisings sweeping the region this year. And it would have spelled big trouble for the elite who benefit from “freshly counterfeited funny-money,” Mercer pointed out.

“Had Gadhafi sparked a gold-driven monetary revolution, he would have done well for his own people, and for the world at large,” she concluded. “A Gadhafi-driven gold revolution would have, however, imperiled the positions of central bankers and their political and media power-brokers.”

Adding credence to the theory about why Gadhafi had to be overthrown, as The New American reported in March, was the rebels’ odd decision to create a central bank to replace Gadhafi’s state-owned monetary authority. The decision was broadcast to the world in the early weeks of the conflict.

In a statement describing a March 19 meeting, the rebel council announced, among other things, the creation of a new oil company. And more importantly: “Designation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”

The creation of a new central bank, even more so than the new national oil regime, left analysts scratching their heads. “I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising,” noted Robert Wenzel in an analysis for the Economic Policy Journal. “This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences,” he added. Wenzel also noted that the uprising looked like a “major oil and money play, with the true disaffected rebels being used as puppets and cover” while the transfer of control over money and oil supplies takes place.

Other analysts, even in the mainstream press, were equally shocked. “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power?” wondered CNBC senior editor John Carney. “It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.”

Similar scenarios involving the global monetary system — based on the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency, backed by the fact that oil is traded in American money — have also been associated with other targets of the U.S. government. Some analysts even say a pattern is developing.

Iran, for example, is one of the few nations left in the world with a state-owned central bank. And Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein, once armed by the U.S. government to make war on Iran, was threatening to start selling oil in currencies other than the dollar just prior to the Bush administration’s “regime change” mission. While most of the establishment press in America has been silent on the issue of Gadhafi’s gold dinar scheme, in Russia, China, and the global alternative media, the theory has exploded in popularity.

A reader comments:

No one is paying attention to the petro-dollars and the current desperation of European and US banks. Even Iran prices oil in $$$s per the treaty after WWII, but no one wants $$$s any more because it has been such a poor investment vehicle. Gold has been much better. Iraq did not want $$$s, was invaded. Libya did not want $$$s, was invaded (I believe they wanted gold). Iran does not want $$$. The dollars are deposited in US and European banks. The dollars standing as the finacial reserve currency of the world was / is being threatened, and thus the Federal Reserve Banks ability to print unlimited dollars!

» Are The Middle East Wars Really About Forcing the World Into Dollars and Private Central Banking? Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

Similar/Related Articles

Gadhafi’s Gold-money Plan Would Have Devastated Dollar
Federal Reserve boosts flow of dollars to European Central Bank
Obama gives strongest indication yet U.S. forces may be deployed in Middle East
Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking?
World War III Defined: Wider War Unfolding in Middle East
Libya is a Continuation of Neocon War to Remake Middle East
Money Markets Ease on Unlimited Dollars Pledge
UN Ends Sanctions on Libya Central Bank (Now that al Qaeda Rules)
US Naval and Troop Movements Toward North Africa, Middle East As Syrian Destabilization Escalates
What Have The Central Banks Of The World Done Now?
25 Reasons To Buy Gold And Dump Dollars
Iran To Dump 45 Billion Euros For Gold Bullion & Dollars

Guest Post: American Military Pit Bulls And Their Handlers

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/15/2012 18:11 -0500

Submitted by Ben Tanosborn

American Military Pit Bulls And Their Handlers

It is not what the few do but what the many don’t do. That really represents what we are all about, co-conspirators in a sea of silence. Marines who view despicable acts committed by other marines remain silent; the officers, who are well aware of this behavior, condone it, invariably following the “ethical criminal” attitude in war morality of “when in war, shit happens”; and the nation prefers to play the part of Pontius Pilates.

Hillary Clinton, most everyone in our government, and those hypocrites at the Pentagon should not be acting surprised at the outrageous and contemptuous behavior of those four marines from Camp Lejeune desecrating the Taliban’s corpses.

The four have received no different training, or possess different brainwashed mindsets, from the other 200,000+ marines now on active duty, or the 1,600,000+ empire-warriors comprising our international police force.

No, the Marine Corps does not teach its men to do such detestable and gravely outrageous things, none of the military services do; but neither do they teach them not to do them, or demand that honorable conduct be peer-enforced.

Therein lays the problem, honorable conduct taking a back seat to fellowship and camaraderie among fellow servicemen, particularly marines. And not just honorable conduct but humane, moral conduct as well!

And no, these are not only isolated cases that occur; only isolated in how they come to be public knowledge, their frequency just a minuscule fraction of the instances in which they happen. Ask any member of the military. I have, and ‘been there myself. If the academies do not demand, and unequivocally enforce, that honorable conduct be peer-enforced, how can such be expected to take place in the enlisted ranks?

Human rights and dignity have never been part of the military code of ethics, not in the officer nor in the enlisted ranks. In fact, ethics most often stands in the way of all military missions no matter how we try to rationalize soldiers’ behavior, embellish it, or try to find glory where there is none. American citizenry, no different from that in other countries, has been content to have its military stick to vague or irrelevant terminology such as that used at the Military Academy at West Point: “Duty, Honor and Country.”

West Point’s Cadet Honor Code, similar to that of the other military academies, states that “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal…” but it took until 1970 to have a most important clause added, as military criminal behavior in Vietnam was becoming better known through inductees returning home, or tolerate those who do. And, as it became evident with the cheating scandal at Annapolis just two decades ago, misguided loyalty to their peers persists, appearing to take precedence over any established code of conduct. And that, no matter how often it is denied, is an irrefutable fact.

In any event, it is less about honor and more about morality, two things that all too often we tend to use interchangeably. Our own “Sage of Baltimore”, H. L. Mencken, proved to be right on target when he stated that “the difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught” [Chrestomathy 617].

A well-known four-star general (US Army, retired) and television military analyst, Barry McCaffrey, when commenting on this recent marine incident eluded to the fact that soldiers under similar circumstances [assumed to be in combat or post-combat] can walk a fine line between acting normal and becoming animals. I am sure he meant irrational, for most animals have set behaviors, and seldom develop deviant ones.

That brings me to man and his best friend in the animal kingdom: the dog. For whatever reasons, invalid and repulsive to many of us, man (or at least some men) has decided to breed and train dogs with some undesirable characteristics, such as combative ferocity and instinct to kill. Americans have done a masterful job in this regard with the Pit Bull Terrier. And now, we as a nation are doing the same thing with the young men we are sending to fight our illegitimate wars – not to cast legitimacy to any war. Our grunts and junior officers have become the pit bulls fighting the wars, the military brass and the nation as a whole becoming their handlers, directly responsible for their amoral acts.

No one in the world is going to buy into our defensive hypocrisy of this incident, Madame Clinton. If we don’t want “shit to happen,” let’s just stop having these wars. Better yet, let’s tell the world our hypocrisy is coming to an end by renaming our Department of Defense for what it really is, our Department of War.

Guest Post: American Military Pit Bulls And Their Handlers | ZeroHedge

Similar Articles:

• Guest Post: Furious At Latest U.S. Attack, Pakistan Shuts Down Resupply Routes To Afghanistan "Permanently"
• "We are Confused" | Oakland Police Officer's Association Open Letter to the Citizens of Oakland
• The Australian Reports Of Second Explosion In Iranian City Of Isfahan
• Guest Post: Afghanistan - Newly Discovered Mineralogical Treasure House (Again)
• The Real Reason for Obama's Threat to Veto the Indefinite Detention Bill (Hint: It's Not to Protect Liberty)

Florida Primary Election 2012: Date Of Contest Set For Jan. 31

EARLY VOTING STARTS TODAY: Jan 16th

LET THE FIRING BEGIN

$1,304,438.77 VICTORY LIES AHEAD

http://ronpaul-2012.org/mbpledge_sc.html?pid=0110

Passionate About President Paul

Writes The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza:

In the wake of his second-place showing in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night, Texas Rep. Ron Paul declared: “We are dangerous to the status quo of this country”.
He’s right…
A look at exit polling from New Hampshire suggests that Paul has a significant — and steady — following that exists almost entirely apart from the Republican party and is, in many ways, based on a disgust with the GOP.
Two numbers from the exit polls jump out.
1) Almost seven in ten people who voted for Paul on Tuesday in New Hampshire said they would be “dissatisfied” if former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was the Republican nominee.
2) Fully 78 percent of Paul’s New Hampshire support came from those who are dissatisfied or angry with the Obama administration — not surprising given the low regard in which the current president is held by Republicans. But, consider this: 77 percent of Paul’s Granite State supporters in 2008 were similarly upset with the Bush administration. In fact, half of all Paul’s votes four years ago came from voters downright “angry” with Republican president.
Combine those two data points with the fact that Paul’s vote total more than tripled between 2008 (18,308 votes) and 2012 (56,000 votes and counting) and it’s clear that the Texas Republican’s support is not only primed and ready to follow him wherever he leads but it is also growing…
What creates Paul’s pied-piper appeal is not just consistency and authenticity. What really makes people follow Paul—whether they know it or not—is that he has a pretty empowering message: common sense prevails. If a guy who started out delivering babies can figure out what needs to be done to resolve the financial crisis, he seems to be saying, voters can too. He leads with explanations instead of orders, with straightforward logic instead of high-minded policy solutions.
This faith in common sense is what anchors Paul’s leadership, and is what makes him patient and trusting that both the system—and the voters—will ultimately come around to his truth telling. It’s often said Paul’s popularity comes from the fact that his followers trust him. But perhaps more important, he makes them feel like he trusts them.
Paul’s ability to inspire enthusiastic loyalty could help him were he to be elected president… if he were, such passion could help him pull together a galvanized team of staffers and motivated network of supporters lined up behind a common cause.

Passionate About President Paul*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Ron Paul to Receive Game-Changing Endorsement at Event in South Carolina

Gets consequential support in run-up to the Palmetto State’s January 21st presidential primary


COLUMBIA, SC – 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul will receive a consequential endorsement related to the South Carolina primary at a special event in Myrtle Beach.

The event will take place on Sunday, January 15^th at 6:00 p.m. at the Palisades Conference Center.

Event details are as follows. Time is Eastern.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

6:00 p.m.

Palisades Conference Center*

10000 Beach Club Drive

Myrtle Beach, SC 29572-5304

[*Next to Hilton Myrtle Beach Conference Center and Resort]

Doors open to the public at 5:20 p.m. Media set up any time after 4:00 p.m.

Free parking is located in the garage across the street.

Ron Paul to Receive Game-Changing Endorsement at Event in South Carolina*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Ron Paul Receives Pivotal Endorsement of South Carolina State Senator Tom Davis

Palmetto State Tea Party favorite and GOP heavyweight goes all in for Ron Paul

COLUMBIA, SC – 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul received today the key endorsement of tea party favorite and South Carolina political heavyweight, state Sen. Tom Davis (R-Beaufort).

The consequential endorsement took place at a press conference at 6:00 p.m. EST at the Palisades Conference Center, located in Myrtle Beach.

Sen. Davis is the most influential fiscal conservative in the South Carolina General Assembly and his endorsement virtually assures that fiscal conservatives in the “First in the South” primary state will take notice. His endorsement also is viewed as a political game-changer by many in South Carolina Republican Party circles.

Those outside South Carolina also have stated the importance of the Davis endorsement.

One of Paul’s rivals for the Republican nomination, Rick Santorum, recently spoke on the weight a Davis endorsement carries. Ruminating on the prospect Davis might endorse him the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania told The Hilton Head Island Packet newspaper that, “To get an endorsement from someone like Tom Davis is a big deal. It would speak volumes to folks and make them take notice and give us a look.”

Sen. Davis, as it turned out, took a far different path and instead endorsed a fellow fiscal conservative.

“We’re excited and grateful to have Sen. Davis’s endorsement, as it carries tremendous weight in South Carolina,” said Ron Paul 2012 National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton. “Sen. Davis knows a true fiscal conservative when he sees one. He’s uniquely qualified to distinguish between establishment candidate Mitt Romney and the conservative alternative to Romney, Ron Paul.”

Sen. Davis’s full statement of endorsement follows.

Statement from Sen. Tom Davis
“It’s easy to campaign on lower taxes, less spending and fewer regulations – it’s another thing entirely to stand up for these limited government principles when the entire Washington establishment is aligned against you. Yet for more than three decades Ron Paul has cast thousands of lonely votes in our nation’s capital based on the constitutional principles that this country was founded on – and that the Republican Party has promised to protect. Yet while generations of politicians – including far too many Republicans – were losing their way or caving to the status quo, Ron Paul was standing as a Tea Party of one against a towering wave of red ink.

“2012 marks the fifth consecutive year in which the federal government is going to spend well over $1 trillion in money it doesn’t have. Each and every American taxpayer is now on the hook for $135,000 worth of federal debt – and last year’s debt deal adds another $7 trillion in deficit spending over the coming decade. Meanwhile the U.S. Senate hasn’t passed a budget in nearly 1,000 days.

“I’m endorsing Ron Paul because enough is enough. Despite this wave of unprecedented government spending, our unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for the last 34 months and 146.4 million Americans – one out of every two people in this country – are now classified as poor or low-income.

“Government activism and government intervention clearly hasn’t fixed our economy – which is why the Republican Party needs a nominee who isn’t wedded to that failed approach. We won’t chart a path to fiscal solvency or victory in November by running toward the failed ideas of the left – we will achieve those victories by returning to the principles that the Republican Party once stood for.

“That is why I am proud to endorse Ron Paul for president.

“Ron Paul’s record matches his rhetoric, his fiscal plan matches the fiscal challenges that our nation is facing and his movement represents the taxpayers whose interests have been ignored in the political process for far too long.

“I’m also endorsing him because unlike what the pundits have led you to believe, he is the candidate who gives the Republican Party the best chance to beat Barack Obama in November.

“We have a choice: We can keep electing candidates who talk about change only during political campaigns as a way to get elected, or we can finally elect a candidate who will walk the walk and make that change a reality – restoring our bottom line, our individual liberties and our national pride in the process.”

Ron Paul Receives Pivotal Endorsement of South Carolina State Senator Tom Davis*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Reagan’s Surgeon General C. Everett Koop on Ron Paul and Abortion

Ron Paul has been 100% pro-life his entire political career. An obstetrician who has delivered over 4,000 babies, being pro-life has always been integral to Paul’s political and personal philosophy. In fact, Paul’s first book written in 1983 was titled Abortion and Liberty. The foreword was written by C. Everett Koop, the pro-life Surgeon General appointed by Ronald Reagan. Below is Koop’s foreword:

Foreword

One might wonder why another book on abortion. Is there anything to say except the tricky alliteration of a new slogan? Has someone found a new message? Is there a person out there with credentials no one else seems to have?

The answer to that last question is: “Yes.” Ron Paul is not only a physician, but he was trained in the discipline of obstetrics and gynecology and therefore is a the front lines in the battle against abortion. This physician was then elected to Congress four times and looks back on abortion as a problem he saw in biomedical ethics as a student, then as a resident and finally as a practitioner of obstetrics.

The fresh insights that Ron Paul, the physician, brings to the question of abortion stem from the experience he developed as a Member of Congress, as he contemplated the relationship between natural rights and a free society.

It is true that some of the old arguments about rights, viability, mother versus child, child abuse, health of the mother, and rape are considered in these pages. There is much more. The unique contribution found in this book is the examination of a free society in reference to that society’s responsibilities. Perhaps another way of stating it is that there is an examination of the child’s rights versus the mother’s obligations. The concluding warning is clear: a disregard for human life will not expand human freedom.

The individual rights we all cherish are rooted in the value we assign to human life, especially innocent human life. The author’s credentials are unique and so is his approach to the diverse social problem abortion has become in our day.

C.Everett Koop, M.D., Sc.D. 5

Reagan's Surgeon General C. Everett Koop on Ron Paul and Abortion*|*Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

Dr. Ron Paul: 6 Reasons He Is Electable and Will Win

Contrary to the false propaganda proclaiming that Dr. Ron Paul is “not electable”, his numbers are rising, his support growing and he stands an excellent chance of winning both the GOP nomination and the 2012 presidential race.

Dr. Paul’s opponents are desperate to stop Americans from listening to, and subsequently electing Ron Paul. Opponents of liberty falsely present Ron Paul as “unelectable” to the American people, attempting to plant subconscious seeds doubt of “don’t listen to him, don’t vote for him in the primaries or caucuses because he’ll never win”. This strategy is failing as more Americans hear Dr. Paul speak, leading them to contribute to his campaign and vote for him. The American public understands Dr. Paul’s common sense approach and trusts him. The other candidates are clearly in the race to serve their egos and personal agendas. The “Dr. Paul is not electable” rumors are deliberately created and spread solely as a calculated attempt to confuse honest, hard-working American with falsehoods such as “Ron Paul is crazy, anti-women, anti-Israel and anti-blacks. He’s isolationist, he’ll wreck the country, he’s anti-government”. These are simple “control the masses” fear tactics to try and stop Americans from actually listening to Dr. Paul, hearing his logical and intelligent plan and deciding for themselves.


Dr. Ron Paul: 6 Reasons He Is Electable and Will Win | Conservative Byte