posted on Jun, 18 2006 @ 10:33 AM
K
User ID: 107046
6/17/2006 9:47:00 PM
The nature of the discussion which has dominated Pentagon and Treasury thinking these past two years revolves around one central question:
Is the security of the United States best served on a global basis, not only in terms of our military spread, but also in terms of diversifying and
internationalizing our military-industrial base, or on the basis of a repatriated manufacturing capability?
The big problem for us lies in our ability to placate potential adversaries by giving them a big enough piece of the cake, which in turn serves our
dollar policy best. China, for instance, although smartly disadvantaged in our eastward push, is paradoxically committed to providing some of the
tools our military men need to accomplish their objectives. China knows that her short to medium-term profit is mitigated by the inevitability of less
influence in Asia.
We are playing a very dangerous poker game and nobody can afford to blink.
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K
User ID: 107046
6/17/2006 10:08:00 PM
Let me further emphasize the extent to which we have endangered our long-term national security by exporting manufacturing and corporate management
deals, while at the same time stressing my general support for the process known as globalization.
The invasion of Iraq would scarcely have been possible without the logistical and financial support of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. I was not
among those outraged by the "Dubai Ports Acquisition" deal, because the authority in question was shorn of all geo-political considerations. It
simply represented payback for services rendered, and in perpetuity.
It was the way in which this deal was handled (mostly in secrecy) that led to widespread discontent. Furthermore, few congressmen and senators have
been provided with a comprehensive overview of the new economic-security duopoly, their retaining somewhat fanciful notions of a domestic
manufacturing capability that no longer exists.
If the dollar is to prolong its primacy in international trading markets, we need to ensure that non-nationals are engaged in manufacturing activities
animated by our defense procurement budget. Please don't forget that we allocate more funding to defense than all other nations of the world
together. It represents our single greatest industrial, scientific and intellectual enterprise.
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K
User ID: 107046
6/17/2006 10:24:00 PM
Woodrow Wilson did indeed warn of such forces, yet I see them in more prosaic terms than he, and none more clearly than in the conflict between both
groups right across the board within our own government. Had Donald Rumsfeld been relieved of his duties, this would have represented an enormous
victory for the Pentagon planners campaigning for a return to a domestic manufacturing base.
However, President Bush is not of the same view, believing that America's interests lie beyond what most of us had accepted as rational
globalization. Should, for instance, America's heartland be destroyed in a nuclear exchange that [by some chance] did not solicit an immediate,
retaliatory response, the United States military, not wholly dependent on US continental manufacturing and re-tooling, could inarguably survive to
fight another day, or at least defend offshore US facilities and seats of government.
E Pluribus Unum: Is the continental landmass of the United States an important factor in the continued hegemony of the United States government, or
can it be sacrificed, albeit partially, for the "greater good"?
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K
User ID: 107046
6/17/2006 10:47:00 PM
This is the crux of the matter: Should the United States as a nation state dissolve itself into the body politic of the global leviathan in order to
ensure its international reach, or should the United States retreat to a position similar to that seen prior to the Nixon administration?
The current administration, laudable in many respects, has perhaps pushed the envelope too far, too quickly and in a way that was only possible in a
military flight-forward on the grand chessboard of south west, central and south Asia. The catastrophe in Iraq has delayed what many observers once
believed would be the swift march of democracy and new markets throughout the Middle East and Asia. Effecting regime change in Iran by means of
military intervention is therefore unconscionable, leading as it would to a widening of the conflict beyond the Muslim world to engulf the greater
part of the global polity in a protracted war or series of hot wars. Inevitably, such a conflict would see the use of nuclear weaponry, laying waste
to resources vital to the economic viability of all developed and developing nations.
However, the United States is faced with an economic challenge it cannot hope to resolve without taking extraordinary measures. The choice is this: Do
we downgrade the economic viability of the continental landmass of the United States (spoiling the pack) in a bid to escape creditor liabilities, or
do we accept such obligations (forced upon us by a weakening dollar) and repatriate our manufacturing capabilities, simultaneously losing our global
military hegemony?
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K
User ID: 107046
6/17/2006 11:03:00 PM
The attacks planned for next week are in keeping with the imperative of those who argue for spoiling the pack to a minimal extent, allowing for
massive credit defaults, while still pressing for the expansion of some kind of institutional presence in Syria, Iran and beyond. Furthermore, rather
than play the "wounded dog" card alone, the United States would aggressively play the "mad dog" card, making it explicitly clear to all global
players that any action on the part of the SEA, EU and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei economies to wholly or partially abandon the dollar in international
trades would have military implications. By that I mean the implicit and very real, deliverable threat of a nuclear strike against any nation or
trading bloc that sought to conduct business injurious to the dollar or the economic well-being of American interests at home or abroad.
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K
User ID: 107046
6/17/2006 11:16:00 PM
I am currently slightly out of favor with the administration, yet they continue to defer to my advice on account of my experience, knowledge and very
advanced years. I have, however, been given no indication as to the yields they intend to deploy. I can only say that their intention is to obtain
levels of structural damage and human losses that provide the desired outcome in terms of universally accepted defaults on trillions of dollars of
debt and deficits, and the submission of the American people to a vastly reordered society.
I don't agree with this strategy, but I must concede that it possesses its own logic. It's an inelegant solution, but a solution nonetheless.
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K
User ID: 107046
6/17/2006 11:19:00 PM
I am responding to your questions. Please read what I have said.
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