printWas 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.
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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.
Ilana, your suggestion of a Libyan gold conspiracy is interesting, and perhaps even plausible; but your general argument against conspiracies is unhistorical and absurd: if you believe in the possible existence of one conspiracy, there is no logical objection to the existence of other possible conspiracies. If a conspiracy is mostly secret to the public, the lack of objective public proof of the existence of the conspiracy does not disprove the existence of the secret conspiracy. Or do you deny the existence of any and all secrets? I have read many dozens of history books, including many books written about historical conspiracies, and there is plenty of evidence for many conspiracies in recent history, and includes Government and Establishment news media complicity in the coverup.
Truth is hard to come by these days! Especially, if one refuses to pursue truth. If an alleged despot gets in the way of Novus Ordo Seclorum, he will be removed, sanctioned, or killed! How’s that for a conspiracy? It is real, not a theory! Keep on smilin…
1. Certainly gold has advantages over pure paper but I like Ron Paul’s ideas of competing currencies and actually like the concept of a “commodity basket” including gold, other metals, oil, fish, lumber etc. to be stable against paper printing, “scares”, and computer-driven speculation.
2. An interesting point was made (either on Lew Rockwell or Antiwar.com) that Ghadaffi gave up his nuke program and got overthrown – Kim Jong Il kept his nuke program and gets money and food – lesson to other nutjob dictators!!
There is no logic in anti-western logic. One of ‘live-on-earth’s’ greatest paradoxes is EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, viz there is nothing intelligent about emotions – in fact, emotion is intelligence’s antonym…
Where is this going you ask..? Africa’s ‘reasoning’, is as much an absence of reasonable logic, as it is the incidence of motive emotions. There is no structure as defined by Western mode of logic.., malice for instance, is not a periphery, it is the nucleus. Sound economic reasoning, at each end of the Mediterranean, has the diametric opposite value.
As such then, we need to be very careful, before we brand ‘debt’ the bane of the West – ‘credit’ is an enormously fascinating topic. Eg when- and in fact why do ‘credit’ turn from the knight in shining armour, to the three headed monster..?
There is no obvious answer in the world as we know it now.
To substantiate an answer we need to look a hypothetical society in complete isolation. ‘Credit’ has the potential, to turn a highly advanced society into an incubator of advancement, beyond even the imagination of Nikola Tesla.
Gold is not the issue here – not even remotely. If you indeed want to subscribe to a “theory” of whatever brand, then rather consider the following:
We are in the midst of a split of species. Nothing profound – in fact, it is an everyday event, on the evolutionary calendar.