Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

Originally Posted by Inscrutable

But What About the Marshall Plan?
By WILLIAM BLUM

During my years of writing and speaking about the harm and injustice inflicted upon the world by unending United States interventions, I've often been met with resentment from those who accuse me of chronicling only the negative side of US foreign policy and ignoring the many positive sides. When I ask such people to give me some examples of what they think show the virtuous face of America's dealings with the world in modern times, one of the things they almost always mention is The Marshall Plan. Along the lines of: "After World War II, we unselfishly built up Europe economically, including our wartime enemies, and allowed them to compete with us." Even those today who are very cynical about US foreign policy, who are quick to question the White House's motives in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, have no problem in swallowing this picture of an altruistic America of the period of 1948-1952.

After World War II, the United States, triumphant abroad and undamaged at home, saw a door wide open for world supremacy. Only the thing called "communism" stood in the way, politically, militarily, and ideologically. The entire US foreign policy establishment was mobilized to confront this "enemy", and the Marshall Plan was an integral part of this campaign. How could it be otherwise? Anti-communism had been the principal pillar of US foreign policy from the Russian Revolution up to World War II, pausing for the war until the closing months of the Pacific campaign, when Washington put challenging communism ahead of fighting the Japanese. This return to anti-communism included the dropping of the atom bomb on Japan as a warning to the Soviets.

After the war, anti-communism continued as the leitmotif of foreign policy as naturally as if World War II and the alliance with the Soviet Union had not happened. Along with the CIA, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, various corporations, and other private institutions, the Marshall Plan was one more arrow in the quiver in the remaking of Europe to suit Washington's desires -- spreading the capitalist gospel (to counter strong postwar tendencies towards socialism); opening markets to provide new customers for US corporations (a major reason for helping to rebuild the European economies; e.g., almost a billion dollars of tobacco, at 1948 prices, spurred by US tobacco interests); pushing for the creation of the Common Market and NATO as integral parts of the West European bulwark against the alleged Soviet threat; suppressing the left all over Western Europe, most notably sabotaging the Communist Parties in France and Italy in their bids for legal, non-violent, electoral victory. Marshall Plan funds were secretly siphoned off to finance this last endeavor, and the promise of aid to a country, or the threat of its cutoff, was used as a bullying club; indeed, France and Italy would certainly have been exempted from receiving aid if they had not gone along with the plots to exclude the communists.

The CIA also skimmed large amounts of Marshall Plan funds to covertly maintain cultural institutions, journalists, and publishers, at home and abroad, for the heated and omnipresent propaganda of the Cold War; the selling of the Marshall Plan to the American public and elsewhere was entwined with fighting "the red menace". Moreover, in its covert operations, CIA personnel at times used the Marshall Plan as cover, and one of the Plan's chief architects, Richard Bissell, then moved to the CIA, stopping off briefly at the Ford Foundation, a long time conduit for CIA covert funds; one big happy family.

The Marshall Plan imposed all kinds of restrictions on the recipient countries, all manner of economic and fiscal criteria which had to be met, designed for a wide open return to free enterprise. The US had the right to control not only how Marshall Plan dollars were spent, but also to approve the expenditure of an equivalent amount of the local currency, giving Washington substantial power over the internal plans and programs of the European states; welfare programs for the needy survivors of the war were looked upon with disfavor by the United States; even rationing smelled too much like socialism and had to go or be scaled down; nationalization of industry was even more vehemently opposed by Washington. The great bulk of Marshall Plan funds returned to the United States, or never left, to purchase American goods, making American corporations among the chief beneficiaries.

It could be seen as more a joint business operation between governments, with contracts written by Washington lawyers, than an American "handout"; often it was a business arrangement between American and European ruling classes, many of the latter fresh from their service to the Third Reich, some of the former as well; or it was an arrangement between Congressmen and their favorite corporations to export certain commodities, including a lot of military goods. Thus did the Marshall Plan lay the foundation for the military industrial complex as a permanent feature of American life.

It is very difficult to find, or put together, a clear, credible description of how the Marshall Plan was principally responsible for the recovery in each of the 16 recipient nations. The opposing view, no less clear, is that the Europeans -- highly educated, skilled and experienced -- could have recovered from the war on their own without an extensive master plan and aid program from abroad, and indeed had already made significant strides in this direction before the Plan's funds began flowing. Marshall Plan funds were not directed primarily toward feeding individuals or building individual houses, schools, or factories, but at strengthening the economic superstructure, particularly the iron-steel and power industries. The period was in fact marked by deflationary policies, unemployment and recession. The one unambiguous outcome was the full restoration of the propertied class.
That big red up there is exactly what's happening now. Can I have some WOOT! instead of cranberry sauce?

William Blum: But What About the Marshall Plan?

So in your opinion (or anybodys) do we see similar lines in Iraq

Well if you go by the bold, colored or enlarged text I would say they are twins.

Originally Posted by Inscrutable

Well if you go by the bold, colored or enlarged text I would say they are twins.

well I would definatley say they are in a financial crapper

Originally Posted by Big Beaut

Oh, good gravy! How many bottles of patience pills have you had??? Saints bless ya! This is my first post (pop!) - and I just can't take it any more!

Warrior44: put down the barbed tongue and slowly back away! For the following example, I'm asking you to suspend your system of disbeliefs:

ok: a man goes into a CITGO 7-11 with wads of dinar in pockets and 4 quarters USD. His purchases total an equivalent of $2 US. The clerk is willing to accept a mixture of currencies, so the man plunks down the 4 quarters.

Question: how much dinar (given the formula 1000 dinar = $1 USD) does he have to give the clerk to walk out that door with his purchase?

Answer: 1000 dinar.

Mathmatical proof: 4 quarters = $1 USD
1000 dinar = $1 USD
total = $2 USD

Reality check: the schmuck leaves the goods on the counter and RUNS to a buddy to borrow one dollar US and returns to make his purchase.

Moral: get a wealth manager and have him/her guide you before you cash in ANY dinar after the reval!

So how many new members have come in here the last few weeks? I think we understand if you have been forced out of another forum but good grief, give us a break. We are trying to understand this through a method of news articles and positive conjunction. I for one have not responded to all of the new folks but would like to know if I am off base. This is not for you Beaut.

Thanks


OSOK

Originally Posted by Inscrutable

But What About the Marshall Plan?
By WILLIAM BLUM

During my years of writing and speaking about the harm and injustice inflicted upon the world by unending United States interventions, I've often been met with resentment from those who accuse me of chronicling only the negative side of US foreign policy and ignoring the many positive sides. When I ask such people to give me some examples of what they think show the virtuous face of America's dealings with the world in modern times, one of the things they almost always mention is The Marshall Plan. Along the lines of: "After World War II, we unselfishly built up Europe economically, including our wartime enemies, and allowed them to compete with us." Even those today who are very cynical about US foreign policy, who are quick to question the White House's motives in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, have no problem in swallowing this picture of an altruistic America of the period of 1948-1952.

After World War II, the United States, triumphant abroad and undamaged at home, saw a door wide open for world supremacy. Only the thing called "communism" stood in the way, politically, militarily, and ideologically. The entire US foreign policy establishment was mobilized to confront this "enemy", and the Marshall Plan was an integral part of this campaign. How could it be otherwise? Anti-communism had been the principal pillar of US foreign policy from the Russian Revolution up to World War II, pausing for the war until the closing months of the Pacific campaign, when Washington put challenging communism ahead of fighting the Japanese. This return to anti-communism included the dropping of the atom bomb on Japan as a warning to the Soviets.

After the war, anti-communism continued as the leitmotif of foreign policy as naturally as if World War II and the alliance with the Soviet Union had not happened. Along with the CIA, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, various corporations, and other private institutions, the Marshall Plan was one more arrow in the quiver in the remaking of Europe to suit Washington's desires -- spreading the capitalist gospel (to counter strong postwar tendencies towards socialism); opening markets to provide new customers for US corporations (a major reason for helping to rebuild the European economies; e.g., almost a billion dollars of tobacco, at 1948 prices, spurred by US tobacco interests); pushing for the creation of the Common Market and NATO as integral parts of the West European bulwark against the alleged Soviet threat; suppressing the left all over Western Europe, most notably sabotaging the Communist Parties in France and Italy in their bids for legal, non-violent, electoral victory. Marshall Plan funds were secretly siphoned off to finance this last endeavor, and the promise of aid to a country, or the threat of its cutoff, was used as a bullying club; indeed, France and Italy would certainly have been exempted from receiving aid if they had not gone along with the plots to exclude the communists.

The CIA also skimmed large amounts of Marshall Plan funds to covertly maintain cultural institutions, journalists, and publishers, at home and abroad, for the heated and omnipresent propaganda of the Cold War; the selling of the Marshall Plan to the American public and elsewhere was entwined with fighting "the red menace". Moreover, in its covert operations, CIA personnel at times used the Marshall Plan as cover, and one of the Plan's chief architects, Richard Bissell, then moved to the CIA, stopping off briefly at the Ford Foundation, a long time conduit for CIA covert funds; one big happy family.

The Marshall Plan imposed all kinds of restrictions on the recipient countries, all manner of economic and fiscal criteria which had to be met, designed for a wide open return to free enterprise. The US had the right to control not only how Marshall Plan dollars were spent, but also to approve the expenditure of an equivalent amount of the local currency, giving Washington substantial power over the internal plans and programs of the European states; welfare programs for the needy survivors of the war were looked upon with disfavor by the United States; even rationing smelled too much like socialism and had to go or be scaled down; nationalization of industry was even more vehemently opposed by Washington. The great bulk of Marshall Plan funds returned to the United States, or never left, to purchase American goods, making American corporations among the chief beneficiaries.

It could be seen as more a joint business operation between governments, with contracts written by Washington lawyers, than an American "handout"; often it was a business arrangement between American and European ruling classes, many of the latter fresh from their service to the Third Reich, some of the former as well; or it was an arrangement between Congressmen and their favorite corporations to export certain commodities, including a lot of military goods. Thus did the Marshall Plan lay the foundation for the military industrial complex as a permanent feature of American life.

It is very difficult to find, or put together, a clear, credible description of how the Marshall Plan was principally responsible for the recovery in each of the 16 recipient nations. The opposing view, no less clear, is that the Europeans -- highly educated, skilled and experienced -- could have recovered from the war on their own without an extensive master plan and aid program from abroad, and indeed had already made significant strides in this direction before the Plan's funds began flowing. Marshall Plan funds were not directed primarily toward feeding individuals or building individual houses, schools, or factories, but at strengthening the economic superstructure, particularly the iron-steel and power industries. The period was in fact marked by deflationary policies, unemployment and recession. The one unambiguous outcome was the full restoration of the propertied class.
That big red up there is exactly what's happening now. Can I have some WOOT! instead of cranberry sauce?

William Blum: But What About the Marshall Plan?

woOOoooOooOoOoTTTTT!!!

wow, people get misinterpreted as bad as the articles do, lol.

An interesting read from a year ago this saturday.

http://www.cges.co.uk/pdf-lib/ChalabiAmman2005.pdf

e) The Iraqi dinar has lost its value. Prior to the war with Iran, it was worth $3.2. The dollar is currently worth around 1500 dinar. Abundant foreign currency reserves are a prerequisite for the government to be able to restore the purchasing power of the Iraqi dinar. One should not forget the old law of the Central Bank of Iraq, which restricted the circulation of the Iraqi dinar to 70% of the country’s gold and foreign currency reserves. This meant that for every 100 dinars issued for circulation, 70 dinars had to be retained in the Central Bank in the form of foreign currencies and gold, in order to support the dinar. This currency regulation provided a guarantee against inflation and for a stable and prosperous economy.
From where are these required financial reserves to be secured?

25% reserve now and ICI to supply your foreign currency needs. Oh my this is going to be a big big reval.

Originally Posted by shotgunsusie

after the posts about the lopping and revaluing to one thousand dinars equal a buck i need to go to the hospital with adster and have the negative ions removed from my person.

what i want to know is why are you taking articles that have been translated already and re-translating them to fit your own opinions? isnt that defeating the translation purpose??? i have read these translated articles non-stop for almost 3 years now and i dont seem to get such interpretations out of them. yes, some articles take being re-read about fifteen times to figure out what they say but it can be done. problem is everyone wants to determine what they 'think' the article states instead of what the articles are actually saying.

fact of the matter is, they are going to raise the rate of the dinar, they arent going to raise it an insignificant amount because they are basing its value on their potential growth. and they know they must reach adequate levels (as warned by gcc) in order to equate with the neighboring countries.

neighboring countries NONE OF WHICH have as large of a growth potential as iraq does. now if those neighboring countries have rates set at $2+ lets say and they dont have the potential that iraq does what would cause iraq to value any lower? if your argument is that it would throw the country into chaos apparently you havent noticed what is happening right now with the current rate and inflation. cant get any more chaotic than it is now.

As of a few days ago, here is the GCC list and an average value against the dollar.

1) Saudi Arabia .26
2) Kuwait 3.44
3) UAE 3.67
4) Qatar .27
5) Bahrain 2.65
6) Oman 2.59
Total 12.88 divided by 6 = $2.15 AVERAGE

ND

Originally Posted by Inscrutable

An interesting read from a year ago this saturday.

http://www.cges.co.uk/pdf-lib/ChalabiAmman2005.pdf

Excuse my french but DAMN, no wonder their SDR rate is still so high!!!! Good find Inscrutable!!!! So much for the Naysayers on a high reval. Like the old saying goes, let's lick em and stick em, NEXT!!!!

Originally Posted by FlagcityAutoD

I am getting tired from waiting on the RV!! Will someone Please wake me up when they get the RV taken care of!!

uh sure... but theres a 10000 dinar charge for it....