Category Archives: America

UPDATED: Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy

America, Colonialism, Conspiracy, Debt, Democracy, Economy, Foreign Policy, Government, Inflation, Middle East

Was Moammar Gadhafi promoting a gold-driven monetary revolution? Did he, somehow, contravene the American creed of cruising on credit? Is it entirely within the realm of conspiracy to posit that the war against Libya had at least something to do with taking down “a pesky, persistent Arab gold bug?”

The following is from my new column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” now on WND.COM:

“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. I do not know for sure if Colonel Gadhafi persevered in the plan he had hatched to ditch the dollar and adopt a ‘Gold Dinar.’ … Had a gold revolution engulfed oil-rich African and Persian-Gulf states this would have spelt trouble for the debt-strapped West.

If only symbolically, a gold revolution across Arabia and Africa would have outweighed by far the significance of a democratic revolution. …

A Gadhafi-driven gold revolution would have, however, imperiled the positions of central bankers and their political and media power-brokers. The former surreptitiously print away the fruits of the people’s labor; the latter scramble their brains so that they don’t know they are being robbed blind.” …

The complete column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” is now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

If you’re interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason“ is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.

UPDATE (Aug. 28): The late Elizabeth Wright had an interesting tidbit about the twisted relationship between Muammar Gaddafi and “the foolish Europeans”:

When Libya’s cynical Muammar Gaddafi laughs at the foolish Europeans, who have encouraged the emigration of millions of Third World aliens, and offers Europe’s leaders a financial deal to keep more of the mob out of that continent, are American conservatives taking notes?
As literally tens of thousands of African refugees in boats try to reach Italy, the Libyan navy has been instrumental in keeping them out, thanks to an agreement with the Italian government. “We don’t know,” the bemused Gaddafi is quoted as saying, “if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions.” And then he comes right out and says it: Your continent is turning into Africa.

UPDATE III: Merciless Revolution & Its Masterminds (‘Crimes Against Libya – Redux’)

America, Democracy, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Journalism, Just War, Justice, Law, Media, Middle East, Neoconservatism

“The concept of a society is based on the quality of its mercy, of its sense of fair play, its sense of justice.” So Billy Hayes told his inhuman and inhumane Turkish jailers in “Midnight Express” (a film that surely represents Hollywood’s heyday).

Hayes’s (essentially Christian) protest against a merciless authority now, sadly, applies to the US (“NATO”) and its adopted surrogates around the world.

Once again the US is supervising, and/or lending imprimatur, to a French-Revolution like upheaval in a Muslim country.

(The blood-drenched, illiberal, irreligious French Revolution, of course, bore no philosophical resemblance to the American Revolution.) Repulsive (deeply silly) Western journalists are darting about cheering like groupies for the amorphous entity the same “tards” have termed “Rebels.” America helped kill-off the extended family of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, who is on the lam, small children included. Now we’re whooping it up for those who want to do the same to Qaddafi.

Naturally, our enlightened “leaders” said not a word about the quality of justice former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak is receiving in another court that is masquerading as a court of law, but seeks to oblige the masses. This set-up (down to the caged defendant) also more closely resembles the French Revolutionary Tribunal, meting justice mercilessly by popular demand.

Under American auspices a stoic Saddam Hussein, noose about his neck, was hung (and heckled by a hooded Shiite executioner). Even more repugnant than that hasty hanging were the US-sponsored legal proceedings that preceded it. (All the obligatory denunciations of Hussein obtain here, naturally. Bad man. Bad man. Bad man.) That Tribunal, which was branded “made-in-America,” also had more in common with the French Revolutionary Assembly’s methods.

As Hayes said in that memorable scene, asking mercy from the merciless is “like asking a bear to sh-t in a toilet.”

UPDATE I: In answer to TL on Facebook: Would you feel you’d gotten due process sitting in a cage in court, being tried by the Muslim Brotherhood? Why the trials? Why not just begin your democracy with a pardon? I’m not the Christian; you guys are. What did i quote in the beginning of the post? If these new, Middle-East regimes are so magnificent, why not be munificent? Forgive and spend your money on building your society, not prosecuting crimes for which evidence in a court of law is impossible to muster.

UPDATE II: Compassionate Fascist: Yes, why haven’t anti-Semites like yourself (and others who bayed about the Jews having brought about an invasion of Iraq) pointed toward the Arab neoconservatives pushing lies about Libya in the media?

Fouad The Awful Ajami is not the only Arab agitating for ever more intervention.

UPDATE III (Sept. 5): “Crimes Against Libya – Redux.”

The Money Market’s Mortician

America, Debt, Economy, Elections, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

When Standard & Poor’s cut the American credit outlook to negative, one Canadian wag mocked the credit ratings agency’s “special talent for arriving at the morgue and predicting the demise of the deceased.”

Now the money market’s mortician has made it official:

Via the WSJ: “Standard & Poor’s said U.S. Treasury debt no longer deserved to be considered among the safest investments in the world. S&P removed for the first time the triple-A rating the U.S. has held for 70 years, saying the budget deal recently brokered in Washington didn’t do enough to address the gloomy long-term picture for America’s finances.”

Ask Vladimir Putin, who knows a lot more about inflation that does “Zero,” and he’ll tell you that downgrading obligations such as have been incurred by the USA to an AA+ score is still too optimistic.

The mighty USA’s finances “rank below Liechtenstein and on par with Belgium and New Zealand.”

Be Afraid: The Proof is in the Putin

America, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Government

The following is an excerpt from “Be Afraid: The Proof is in the Putin,” my new, WND.COM column:

“Left and right, the cable commentariat is currently engaged in a cut-and-thrust over the use of strong words in politics. In particular, does ‘terrorism’ describe the initial reluctance of some tea partiers to support the US government’s set-in stone spending?

Lost in this silly squabble is the following: ‘the second coming of the Republican revolution,’ as Politico.com dubbed the tea party contingent on Capitol Hill, failed to defuse the threat of the debt. Only 28 tea-party freshmen voted against the ballyhooed “Budget Control Act Amendment.”

Listen to the words of one wily politician whose country’s central bank holds almost 40 percent of dollars as reserve currency. Vladimir Putin’s response to the debt compromise was pitch-perfect, given the stakes stateside and beyond. This via RT and Press TV, respectively:

‘The current deal struck by US lawmakers will not solve the underlying issues. This colossal debt, $14 trillion or more, means that the country has been living on credit, which is really bad for one of the world’s leading economies. They live beyond their means, and put a part of their burden on the entire world’s economy. … The country is … shifting the weight of responsibility on other countries and in a way acting as a parasite.’

Having impressed themselves no end, the lawmakers who came up with the “Budget Control Act Amendment” don’t impress Putin much.

So what was the deceptive deal that was endorsed by 59 of the already stale tea-party freshmen, and got enthusiastic whoops from many among mainstream media’s menagerie of morons? …”

The complete column is “Be Afraid: The Proof is in the Putin.”

If you are interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason“ is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

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