From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: AUT: Re: Kevin on Iraq
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 17:32:09 +0200



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "neil" <74742.1651-AT-compuserve.com>
To: "autopsy" <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 1. april 2003 06.41
Subject: AUT: Kevin on Iraq


> Kevin  Keating has issued new article on whats
> really behind war on Iraq.
> 
> http://war.linefeed.org/propaganda/iraqandahardplace.html
> 
> 
>      --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


The article referred to above "Is Uncle Sam about to get caught --
BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE? an anti-state communist
perspective on the war," wriiten by Angyal Istvan, contain many
things of intererest as others I to a lesser or greater degree
remain sceptical towards. 
        Here just to the following:


<< The future of the United States as the world's leading economic
and military power hinges on the US dollar continuing to be the
currency used in international oil market transactions:  

        "Over the past year...the euro has started to challenge the
        dollars' position as the international means of payment for
        oil. The dollars' dominance of world trade, particularly the
        oil market, is all that permits the US Treasury to sustain the
        nation's massive deficit, as it can print inflation-free money
        for global circulation. If the global demand for dollars falls,
        the value of the currency will fall with it, and speculators will
        shift their assets into euros or yen or even yuan, with the
        result that the US economy will begin to totter..." 

("Out of the Wreckage." George Monbiot, Guardian, Feb. 25, '03) >>


No I would not deny there is relation here. But there is reason
to be scpetical to a theory -- which claims far more a relation --
that is just asserted over and over again without being properly
explained nor, it may seem, sees any need to address the
objections raised against it.
        That I personally neither would not take George Monbiot in
the Guardian as an authority on anything, is pretty irrelevant here.

But let us look at the claim. "The dollars' dominance of world trade,
particularly the oil market, is all that permits the US Treasury to
sustain the nation's massive deficit, as it can print inflation-free
money for global circulation."

Now it what Daniel T. Griswold writes below as regards
Australia is true, this begs some questions.


    << Australia, a country similar to the United
    States in its level of economic development, has
    run current account deficits every year since 1973.
    Those deficits have been larger  than America's
    as a percentage of GDP, averaging 4.6 percent
    since 1983 and reaching 5.7 percent in 1999.  (31)
    By the end of 1999 Australia's negative net
    international investment position (that is, its
    "foreign debt") reached 57 percent of GDP, (32) more
    than three times the ratio in the United States. And
    like the United States, Australia is enjoying a long
    expansion fueled and prolonged in significant
    measure by a large annual net inflow of foreign
    investment.
        [...]
    
    Footnotes:
        31.  International Monetary Fund, International
    Financial Statistics Yearbook 53 (Washington: IMF,
    2000), p. 162
        32.  Trade Deficit Review Commission, The U.S.
    Trade Deficit: Causes, Consequences and Recommendations
    for Action (Washington: TDRC, November
    14, 2000), p. 172 >>


Now is it also true that the Australian "dollars' dominance
of world trade, particularly the oil market, is all that permits
the [Australian] Treasury to sustain the nation's massive
deficit, as it can print inflation-free money for global
circulation" ?

Before such questions are seriously addressed, I would
be a bit more careful in issuing and circulationg bold
assertions. 


There is another general remark that must be made in
this context though. Whether or not the theory is correct in
strictly economical terms is irrelevant to the question of
whether or not the Bush administration and/or powerful
intererests able to put pressure on it, are convinced
that it is so. 
        Of this I know very little. But to again quote
from Griswold's paper : "America's Record Trade
Deficit A Symbol of Economic Strength":

<< In 1998 those and other concerns prompted Congress
to appropriate $2 million to establish and fund the Trade
Deficit Review Commission with a mandate "to study
the nature, causes, and consequences of the United
States merchandise trade and current account deficits."
The 12-member panel of private citizens, half appointed
by the Democratic leadership and half by the Republican
leadership in Congress, heard testimony in Washington
and around the country from economic experts, business
and labor leaders, and other witnesses on the alleged
causes and consequences of the deficit. The commission
issued its final report on November 14, 2000. The Trade
Deficit Review Commission's report was really two
starkly contrasting documents beneath one cover-one
authored by the Republican-appointed members, the other
by the Democratic-appointed members of the commission.
The Democratic side concluded that the trade deficit
poses a threat to the U.S. economy, both immediately and
in the long run. The Republican side, while agreeing that
large and growing deficits cannot continue indefinitely,
concluded that the deficit reflects more benign
developments in the U.S. economy such as relatively
strong growth and rising levels of investment. >>

Harald

PS: Among other minor irritations Angyal Istvan paper
is the following claim:
        "The second Gulf war in January 1991, with the US
and its allies driving Saddam out of Kuwait, resulted in
131 deaths among the US and allied forces. Roughly
250,000 Iraqi were killed. "
        Does anybody really find this plausible?
Dilip Hiro in his recent book "Iraq: A report from the Inside"
is probably closer to the truth when he writes: " With an
estimated 25,000-30,000 fatalities caused by the coalitons
attacks on the 12 retracting Iraqi divisions, added to an
estmate of 32,600 deaths resulting from the coalitions's
air campaign, the Iraqi total came to 57,600-62,600. By
contrast, of the 376 coaltion deaths, the United States
sustained 266 (including 125 due to accidents during the
prewar seven-month field training), and britian 29. An
estimated 2,000-5,000 Kuwaitis, mostly civilians, died."
        The human misery hidding behind such figures is
not better grasped through quatiative inflation. It just tends to
undermine whatever else of importance one might write.
        Added to this, again quoting Hiro: "The death toll of
fortnight rebellion [in the south] has been put to 30 000."
He does not give any figure for deaths during the uprising
in the north.
        The figures Hiro gives are probably neither wholly
accurate. But altogether they are far more plausible. Of
course people continued dying in the aftermath  due to
the consequences of war without ever being found by
a bullet or a bomb. That is almost always the case, and
the combined effect of sanctions and a oppressive
regime were to harvest more death, prrety much reproducing
what occurred due to the naval blockades of
Germany after World War I. 

I do not give too much for the April Glaspie story (from
July 1990) either, for that sake. There is a difference be-
tween an old border dispute and the full occupation of
another state. This "argument" becomes even less
convincing when taking into account that the US Defense
Department stated on July 31 that "We remain strongly
committed to supporting our friends in the Gulf" replicating
the warning of crown prince Shaik Saad in the Kuwaiti-
Iraqi negoitations on the same day: "Don't threaten us. We
have very powerful firends." These words were also
backed up by putting the U.S. naval force in the Gulf
on high alert.

But nothing in the just mentioned and similar minor
irritations is central to the substance of the article. It
has more to do with my general critical attitude towards
that alterantive news resources are far too often
reproducing the "never cheque a good story" inclination
of the tabloids, and through this are only fooling
themselves. On the other ghand it is impossible not
to make some mistakes some times.


  





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