...well, Mr. Chapman is only about 1.5 years late to the thesis that I posted here in Dec 2002, but I suppose its better to be late than never...
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'The real reasons Bush went to war' by John Chapman
July 28, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1270414,00.htmlWMD was the rationale for invading Iraq. But what was really driving the US were fears over oil and the future of the dollar
"There were only two credible reasons for invading Iraq: control over oil and preservation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yet the government has kept silent on these factors, instead treating us to the intriguing distractions of the Hutton and Butler reports."
.."In 1999, Iran mooted pricing its oil in euros, and in late 2000 Saddam made the switch for Iraqi oil. In early 2002 Bush placed Iran and Iraq in the axis of evil. If the other Opec countries had followed Saddam's move to euros, the consequences for Bush could have been huge. Worldwide switches out of the dollar, on top of the already huge deficit, would have led to a plummeting dollar, a runaway from US markets and dramatic upheavals in the US.
<<<snippet>>>
"...Oil and the dollar were the real reasons for the attack on Iraq, with WMD as the public reason now exposed as woefully inadequate. Should we now look at Bush and Blair as brilliant strategists whose actions will improve the security of our oil supplies, or as international conmen? Should we support them if they sweep into Iran and perhaps Saudi Arabia, or should there be a regime change in the UK and US instead?
If the latter, we should follow that up by adopting the pious aims of UN oversight of world oil exploitation within a world energy plan, and the replacement of the dollar with a new reserve currency based on a basket of national currencies."
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...for those interested in these complex issues, you might find this recent article on Venezuela somewhat interesting too. Although Dr. Koth has the wrong Clark (not a lawyer in CA, and not with an "e" on the end hte name), but his analysis is rather astute...
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'Why should the United States care who is the President of Venezuela?' (June 29, 2004)
by Karl Koth
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=21779 "We know, for example, that the US wishes to get rid of constitutionally-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias, but what precisely is behind this goal is less clear.
Let us first eliminate some of the more obvious perceived reasons behind the US attitude..."
<<<snippet>>>
"...So, what then is the reason? What is behind the constant manipulation, the virulent hostility, the verbal abuse, and the probable (I admit, not yet proven) support to Colombian paramilitaries who recently invaded the country? I believe that the answer, albeit complicated, is to be found in the interesting thesis constructed by a Californian lawyer by the name of William Clarke, and which, obviously, has not been given wide coverage in the news media . I say interesting, because this plausible and well-constructed analysis allows us inter alia to understand primarily the real reasons behind the attack on Iraq, as well the hostility towards Iran and North Korea, the so-called Axis of Evil. What we are dealing with, in fact, is geo-politics in its most serious strategic implications!
The Clark Thesis : Clark’s thesis was first made public via the Internet about a year ago. He deftly argues that the economic problem plaguing the US at the moment is the financing of a huge external trade deficit (almost $500 billion per annum), not to speak of the total debt, which has reached more than US $7 trillion. His thesis is made more plausible when one considers that other countries, especially China, now hold an economic club over the head of the US because of their holdings of US treasury bills.
<snippet>
"....Why should the US care who is the President there?
The answer is that a president favorable to Washington would be one who did not implement a nationalist Venezuela policy, which is to say doing what it deems right and honorable with its oil production and sales. In other words, a pro-US president would not be making the deals that President Chavez has done, namely swapping oil for commodities and supporting OPEC’s move to the Euro as these actions impinge on the exclusivity of the Petrodollar as intermediary currency in oil transactions. Yes, Venezuela is supporting an OPEC move to switch from the US dollar to the Euro, and that in the foreseeable future . This makes President Chavez anathema in the eyes of the US. But that is not all. He is guilty of even a worse “crime” in the eyes of the US: Venezuela accepts oil-for-service swaps with poor countries, such as Cuba, that don’t have sufficient US dollar reserves with which to buy the oil it desperately needs, effectively avoiding the use of the Petrodollar."
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FWIW- If someone wants to read the full-blown thesis, and have lots of time to read a long essay, here you go....
"Revisited - The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq:
A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth"
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html