WHY CAN'T THEY JUST COME OUT AND SAY IT?

And by "they" and "it" I mean, respectively, the neocon corporatists and the fact that they don't want Russia to trade oil in rubles. Just like they didn't like the fact that Iraq traded oil in euros (consequently invaded), and they don't want Iran to trade oil in euros (much talk of bombing or invasion).

This whole spy-poisoning story is debunked pretty well by Raimondo at Antiwar.com, and I want to quote him here, as he cites all the reasons (except the one above) why the "powers that be" want to mix it up with Russia:

"The attempt to portray the Russians as mad poisoners intent on assassinating their political opponents no matter where they try to find refuge is a powerful propagandistic theme that, although unsupported by any facts, winds its way through the media narrative on the wings of pure supposition. These people don't care about facts: it's all speculation, unsupported by evidence that passes the most perfunctory smell test...

Here is yet another link in the long chain of manufactured incidents meant to provoke a confrontation with Russia. An aggressive propaganda campaign aimed at the Russians has been in high gear for quite some time, and it appears to be reaching a crescendo with this Litvinenko nonsense...

U.S. intervention in Russia's internal affairs is deeply resented by most Russians, i.e., those not on the American payroll, but this matters little to the Russia-haters in our midst. Their message is not directed at the Russian people, who support Putin and his policies overwhelmingly: it is aimed at Western elites, who can be prodded into taking a harder line against those resurgent Russkies, flush with oil money and failing to toe the American line when it comes to Iran and Syria."

Achilles Heel of the U.S.

Our dependence on the dollar as the reserve currency of the world because the dollar is the international standard for oil purchases is our Achilles heel. All oil-producing countries--i.e., Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, etc.--have to do is set up their own oil bourses and exchange their precious natural resources for their own (or a non-U.S.) currency, and suddenly the U.S. is in a world of hurt--just look at the news today--"US fears spark dollar sell-off":

"The dollar suffered a steep sell-off this week amid expectations of a further slowdown in the US economy.

The greenback fell most sharply against the euro as the prospect of rising European interest rates contrasted with forecasts of easing US monetary policy...

'The current euro rally/dollar sell-off . . . is unlikely to end in the short term as the fundamentals and market flows are increasingly stacked up against the US currency,' said Ashraf Laidi, analyst at CMC Markets US."

The corporatists and the neocons would say that the answer to this problem is to "Bomb Iran" and to bring "peace and stability" (read as "death and domination") to the Middle East.

And speaking of oil and dollars, this AP story was a real shocker--"AP Analysis: Firms Crimping Oil Supplies." But the headline chosen by my local paper for the same story is, in my view, more accurate: "Study: Oil companies drive up gas prices."

And this is how they manipulate prices:

"Whatever the truth in Bakersfield, an Associated Press analysis suggests that big oil companies have been crimping supplies in subtler ways across the country for years. And tighter supplies tend to drive up prices.

The analysis, based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, indicates that the industry slacked off supplying oil and gasoline during the prolonged price boom between early 1999 and last summer, when prices began to fall."

They close down refineries or don't build new ones under the pretense that "market pressures" and "business judgments" are causing them to do so. Whether or not the companies' intentions are to manipulate prices (and you'd have to be a fool to believe otherwise), the effect is, as the story says, that "tighter supplies tend to drive up prices."

Oh, and another neat by-product of closing down refineries or only using existing ones no matter the volume of demand--when the huge profits from the supply "crimp" come rolling in, they're not reduced by having to pay for facilities that might allow the supply to increase to meet the demand and thereby reduce monstrous profits.

Good night and good show, jolly good show!

BOMB IRAN?

Of the three options, I like the last one the best and always have:

"The Pentagon's closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials.

Insiders have dubbed the options "Go Big," "Go Long" and "Go Home." The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said."

And people are now openly saying in national newspapers that we should bomb Iran?

You should read the words "bomb Iran" as "kill innocent people." This kind of bullshit is despicable--I spit on this vile, disgusting hatemongering. Bombing doesn't stop terrorism--bombing is terrorism.

And the only thing Iran has done to provoke our corporate masters is to threaten to diversify their currency holdings (and I hate linking to WorldNet, but ya gotta do whatcha gotta do), shifting more toward the euro. Hmmm...didn't another Middle Eastern country that has "I-R-A" as the first three letters of its name do something with euros before we decided to kill their innocent people in an illegal, immoral war of aggression?

William Clark has been on this for a while now, and it wouldn't hurt to read his words again:

"In 2005-2006, The Tehran government has a developed a plan to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-denominated international oil-trading mechanism. This means that without some form of US intervention, the euro is going to establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project for U.S. global domination, Tehran's objective constitutes an obvious encroachment on U.S. dollar supremacy in the international oil market."

We don't hold all the cards, you see. In fact, as we spend more and more on our stupid, unnecessary, indefensible war in Iraq, we get deeper and deeper in debt and consequently more and more susceptible to the kinds of things Clark is talking about.

Way to go, neocons!

Why War Fails

Don't forget, not only is war a racket, but it doesn't even work:

"The history of wars fought since the end of World War II reveals the futility of large-scale violence. The United States and the Soviet Union, despite their enormous firepower, were unable to defeat resistance movements in small, weak nations. Even though the United States dropped more bombs in the Vietnam War than in all of World War II, it was still forced to withdraw. The Soviet Union, trying for a decade to conquer Afghanistan, in a war that caused a million deaths, became bogged down and also finally withdrew.

Even the supposed triumphs of great military powers turn out to be elusive. After attacking and invading Afghanistan, President Bush boasted that the Taliban were defeated. But five years later, Afghanistan is rife with violence, and the Taliban are active in much of the country. Last May, there were riots in Kabul, after a runaway American military truck killed five Afghans. When U.S. soldiers fired into the crowd, four more people were killed."

War is terrorism, and terrorism is big business, and big business is only concerned with profit, not people's lives.

Good night.