It’s Almost Time
I have been an opponent up to now to the idea that George W. Bush should face impeachment, but not for the reasons one might think. I happen to believe he and his administration deserve impeachment. But for impeachment to be a viable option, one has to have clear evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors in order for such an effort to be successful. It would take clear evidence to get Republicans off their positions of blind support for a man who is attempting to destroy America in order to save it from competition from other nations.
I’m old enough to remember Watergate. I remember how long it took to accumulate enough evidence of Richard Nixon’s violations of the Constitution so that even his most loyal defenders could no longer ignore them. I remember reading the Chicago Tribune editorial which convinced Nixon that he had lost his battle to retain power. It took well over a year, and when that time came, there was no doubt that Nixon would have been impeached - and convicted. At least Nixon chose to submit to the inevitable and resign.
We are in that phase today concerning the many crimes of George W. Bush. All one has to do is look at how he attempts to rule as if he were all three Constitutionally-defined branches of the government rolled into one.
But that wouldn’t be good enough for those who still support His Highness. We as a nation are thus forced to go through a dark time of political unrest at home while we continue to lose allies and influence internationally.
The domestic battle will center on how the people’s representative is ignoring the will of the people. As Mary MacElveen wrote on January 10, 2007, We the people told President Bush we wanted a change of course, and yet he continues to lash out at other nations. He has attacked Somalia, an effort that has outraged the Somali people and caused The European Commission to announce opposition, saying, “Any incident of this kind is not helpful in the long term.”
But helpful to whom? Has the world forgotten George’s boast of “with us or against us?” Why should George W. Custer - I mean, Bush, care about the rest of the world if they won’t bow to his obvious superiority? Is that why he’s gone on the offensive against Iran and its allies with an attack on the sovereign territory of Iran in the form of a raid on the Iranian Consulate in the Kurdish city of Irbil? I suppose the Iranians are just going to understand that this is a small payback for 1978, but do we really want to anger the Kurds over this violation of international sovreignty?
Maybe the message was intended for those upstarts in the US Senate who are threatening to interfere with George’s war plans? Either way, according to former Reagan Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, it all serves to distract the Congress, the media, and a hostile public away from the real war plan to widen conflict in the region in a misguided effort to expand American petroleum hegemony in Southwest Asia.
Reporter William M. Arkin of The Washington Post thinks this expansion of the war theater is likely, saying that Bush is ready to attack Syria and Iran:
President Bush implicitly accused the two of providing sanctuary and material support for violent elements in Iraq. There is an ominous element here: When the President pledged to “seek out and destroy the networks supporting our enemies in Iraq,” to me, that means the threat of strikes on targets in those two countries.
It is looking like this attack may well be underway. Steve Clemons of The Washington Note reports that there are strong and consistant rumors that the Oval Office issued a secret Executive Order to launch military operations against Syria and Iran. Clemons adds, “Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us realize.”
If true, it would explain such odd happenings as the Pentagon eliminating active-duty service limits just before a “a Greek revolutionary group” launched a relatively harmless attack against the US Embassy in Athens, as well as the resumption of the traditional attack upon Iranian ally China’s poor human rights record.
Somewhere along this path, George W. Bush will overreach. Spitting in the eye of the Chinese, holders of the largest single block of our debt, especially when George has backed down from being confrontational with mumbled apologies several times before, isn’t wise. Maybe China has no interest in dumping dollars and take down the American economy - but it could!
There is, however, another hostile front,
closer to Iraq, that bears watching.
Remember all the flack about US port security being handed over to Dubai Ports World? The deal was squelched over homeland security concerns, costing Dubai Ports World great profits. That alone would be enough for the UAE to be reducing its holding of foreign exchange dollars, but they have publicly expressed concerns over losing investment value by continuing to hold dollars.
This observation is confirmed by the news that the central banks of the Opec members cut their dollar holdings to 65% of total reserves at the end of the third quarter of 2006.
Central banks elsewhere may also be looking to cut expected dollar losses. Russia, Venezuela, Indonesia and Iran have decided to cut their dollar reserves. “This is negative for the dollar in a broad sense as it reflects falling confidence in the currency,” said Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities Inc. in Toronto.
Reports are that next week should see a big selloff of dollars due to a cash crunch which would make holding dollars “expensive”. In addition, central banks are not buying dollars for fear that they will incur losses when the prices decrease.
This is a movement slowing increasing in speed. In Maylasia, there is strong sentiment to shift away from the dollar and into its own currency, the ringgit:
US dollars are a valueless fiat currency which the privately-owned US Federal Reserve Board can print in any amount of, and which we can only spend on buying products and services within the dollar economy, not on improving our own country and rasing [sic] our own people’s standard of living. [S]elling our goods denominated in the Malaysian ringgit … would give Malaysia and Malaysians more money to internally spend on things which would benefit us.
Even cell phone service provider Skype is offering euro pricing!
But that isn’t the biggest fear. What if the Gulf states sell off their large holding of Federal debt? They hold an amount of T-bills which just about equals the Chinese holding of US debt. As Bloomberg columnist Andy Mukherjee puts it, “Why should the authorities be satisfied with a less than 5 percent return on 10- year U.S. Treasuries when they could earn more by shifting some of the money to high-yield investments?”
How would George continue to fight a war
if he has no money to fight it with?
George W. Bush can’t allow the euro to dominate the dollar, for the implications are dire should the world abandon the dollar. That’s why he attacked Iraq after Saddam announced a desire to convert Iraq’s oil-for-food reserves into euros. It will be no different for Iran after their announcement of pricing their oil in euros in the future.
But such militaristic moves are only delaying the inevitable.
The dollar is in decline, and the the euro could displace the dollar as the international reserve currency. There is only one person upon whom to lay the blame - The Deciderer himself. We Americans will need to stop him and his mad scheme to dominate the world, for if we don’t, the rest of the world will.
If that happens, we will all pay -
and the cost will be very dear.