the United States the Biggest Extortion Racket on Earth

There has been some opinion voiced over my recent thread that I titled:

the United States the Poorest Nation on Earth

One member Ownification postulated that America was stockpiling weapons and debt and would wage war to clear their debt.

This got me to thinking that perhaps in a way this poster was right and that what America is doing is running up this historic debt and stock piling weapons of mass destruction and intimidation.

Perhaps the reason is that we are through the bankers and the CIA and our military running the worlds biggest extortion racket.

The United States is not even in the top ten in per capita debt so perhaps we are not the poorest nation on the Earth as I postulated in my previous post but the US is certainly the most hostile nation on Earth.

The US is the only nation on Earth to attack another nation with Nuclear Weapons and this nation Japan is now one of the largest holders of US public debt. The United States attacked and largely defeated Germany during the second world war and now Germany also ranks among the top holders of US public debt. The Chinese are under direct targeting by US nuclear weapons as well and they are the top holder of US debt so perhaps there is some truth to the notion that the US is running a global extortion racket and the citizens of the US just do not realize the scope of this activity.

We do not as citizens get to see or really to ever know what the CIA does in other nations. We are for the most part not aware of what the world bank does and how many nations are extorted into accepting American military protection.

What do you think? Is the US running a global protection and extortion racket?

I think that at one time buying U.S. debt was a good way for China and Japan to clear a little revenue. That isn't working out too good for them now. I do not think we are holding them hostage with weapons of mass destruction. I think we are holding them hostage by the debt they already hold. If they do not buy more debt, the debt they currently own isn't worth jack.

Also, U.S. is the largest holder of U.S debt...

Edit because I forgot the word debt after U.S. in the sentence above

[edit on 8-8-2009 by tamusan]

reply to post by tamusan


But what is the real reason for the United States to have some 700 bases around the world encircling many of our present and past enemies. We still have bases in Germany even though they are not a threat to us. We have large navel bases in the area around Japan and again they present no threat to us militarily.

The list goes on and on. The US holds the big stick and we have demonstrated time and again that we will use it when ever the heck we want and damn the cost or the collateral damage.

I think that most of us are insulated to the reality on the ground. We do not see what the CIA is doing. We do not hear what goes on in state meetings we we in fact do not know if there is not some outright extortion going on.

We can see the results and it looks like they provide us as in the case on China and Mexico cheap labor and cheap money and we in turn to not start shooting them or assassinating their leaders or hiring terrorists or mercenaries to cause regime change on them. The results of US actions are visible but the underlying cause is not so how do you know that we are not running an extortion racket?

reply to post by wayouttheredude


We have bases in Germany and the UK to have a presence in Europe. it gave us a place to keep the USSR in check. Now those bases are stopping points for many assets going to the middle east. When I was in in the Air Force, I spent 1990-1994 in Mildenhall, UK. Many aircraft stopped there on it's way to the middle east. When I was wounded in 2004, I was sent to Landstuhl, Germany from Iraq for medical care. Germany is an important hub for aircraft on their way to the middle east.

Now to Japan. To start, the U.S. is moving many Marines from Okinawa to Guam. Another thing is that we are basically the military of Japan. We have lil Kim over in NK to keep an eye on currently, and Japan was very important strategically during the cold war. We do not have troops in Japan to insure that they buy U.S. debt. They can ask us to leave at anytime now. Truth be told, they want us there.

One last thing. They can't close down all the bases in Japan. Where else would I buy cheap alcohol and cigarettes to bribe my father in law into keeping my spouse visa current?

Probably a number of you are familiar with this speech by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, delivered in 1933, but it is quite germaine to the topic.

WAR is a racket. It always has been

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In [World War I], a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.

More (including audio clip of speech) at tthe source:
www.informationclearinghouse.info...

Ooops double post, my bad.

[edit on 8/9/09 by silent thunder]

A History Of CIA Coups And Atrocities
www.abovetopsecret.com...

History says "yes"



[edit on 9-8-2009 by warrenb]

Originally posted by wayouttheredude
reply to post by tamusan

 

But what is the real reason for the United States to have some 700 bases around the world encircling many of our present and past enemies. We still have bases in Germany even though they are not a threat to us. We have large navel bases in the area around Japan and again they present no threat to us militarily.

My country (Philippines) also used to have the biggest US base outside of USA. But since we kicked you out, you started bombing us (in collusion with our government) and blaming it on Islamic terrorists. Now the Americans are back. I guess you really need to have a base south of China/Russia. They're really surrounded now.

reply to post by eldard

you started bombing us (in collusion with our government) and blaming it on Islamic terrorists

Kumusta ka, eldard? While I am prone to consider just about anything about the U.S., I would wager that it really was islamic terrorists.

I would agree that America is the poorest Nation right now, in real economic dollars, that is, hidden assets are a lot more, and they are not recorded or counted. Debt has been pushed off on other Nations for many years now, and deals were made with these Nations, and if the deal didn't come off, then "things happened" (Like CIA operated insurrection, rebellion and coups) in the country. Billions are sent to various Nations for different reasons. Saudi Arabia is paid to prop up the House of Saud, and America is in collusion with OPEC, and Egypt, I am told, gets a few million each year not to attack Israel. Of course, whenever America sends dollars, the receiving Nation must also buy weapons. Weapons are placed around the world in preparation for war. I will tell you another thing too, Russia and America are in business together, and have been since the early 50s. The whole Cold War was a farce to generate billions of military dollars for the Secret Space Program you don't know about yet. Have you taken a really good look at the International Space Station? There are now weapons in space, folks, and some of them are not pointed inward, they are pointed outward. Meanwhile the economy runs on like a house of cards, ready to fall down at any time, probably when the 4th. Dimensional Beings deem it so, to enact a fear factor, for fear and anger feeds these beings, and give them power. All we need do is expose all this to everyone in the world. Thanks for listening. Love and Light.

The "master plan" is so obvious it hurts.

Hoard our oil.
Use the middle easts oil along with developing 3rd world countries.
Develop alternative fuel technologies.
When China and the rest of the 3rd world catches up, we will have all of the oil in the world for our military complex, and all the next generation tech to sell to the rest of the world.

reply to post by jprophet420


I think you figured the game out. Look out!!! Here comes the men with the big erasers...

The only thing I will not agree with from your post is China. See. We are playing a card game with the jokers wild, and China is probably the one holding both of them in their hand. I don't even think those whose business is to know really have an idea of what is going on within their borders.

reply to post by tamusan


I am not really claiming to know what is going on there, other than they will need lots of oil to power cars and such.

reply to post by jprophet420


And like the U.S., they are buying their oil (and other natural resources) the world over right now, and probably saving their domestic for the future.