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U.S. BALKS AT IRAQI INVASION - GLOBAL ECONOMIC OPPOSITION SUCCEEDING Risks of A Massive Global Conflict Increase with Each New Successful Economic Effort to Slow the Empire's Expansion by Michael C. Ruppert [© Copyright, 2002, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All rights reserved. May be copied, distributed or posted on the Internet for non-profit purposes only.] Dec. 19 2002, 1400 PST, (FTW) - O ver the last three months the world has successfully demonstrated that it can delay and obstruct U.S. plans to occupy the oil fields of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This is both good news and bad news. Today's UN developments regarding Iraq's statement on weapons of mass destruction have served to increase the stakes over U.S. plans to occupy that country. The Empire's feet of clay are rooted in monumental budget deficits, trade deficits, fraudulent financial markets, cheap oil and rigged gold prices. It is on these fronts that the battle for Iraq is now being fought. The fact that the planned invasion of Iraq did not occur as was originally planned in late September in no way diminishes the accuracy of FTW's prediction that it was planned for that time. In our lead essay for the November issue of FTW -"Wheels Come Off U.S. War Plans for Iraq" - we explained very clearly that resistance on a number of economic and political fronts around the world was having an impact on the Empire's agenda. This is a gratifying and positive development and a sign that there are tactics that are being successfully used to delay United States imperial aggression in violation of international law, basic American values, human rights and common sense. We believe that a clear example of the backstage economic "negotiations" has been a recent bust-out of world gold prices coupled with near panic buying on some Asian markets as reported today by Reuters. And with gold threatening $350 an ounce (a more than 25% increase this year) U.S. financial powerhouses like J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, which have for decades engaged in manipulation of gold prices, are seriously threatened. Their derivatives bubbles ($40 trillion in the case of Morgan alone) could pop as a result of demands for physical gold reconciliation with paper gold accounts and the U.S. economy could be devastated as a result. Another case in point is the ongoing Venezuelan crisis, artificially manipulated by the U.S. government which has resulted in what may be unjustified fears of oil price spikes as we enter what may be the worst winter in a decade. As we have previously reported, since World War II, oil price spikes invariably lead to recession and the U.S. economy is teetering at that point now. Recession may, in fact, be too mild a word. The market fundamentals leading to the economic warning we issued last July, just before the Dow Jones fell off a cliff, remain unchanged and the savviest world leaders understand the basic vulnerabilities in the U.S. economy. Just today, December 19, 2002, as UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix reported negatively to the UN Security Council on Iraqi compliance, we see continued evidence that behind-the-scenes diplomatic and economic pressures are continuing to slow down U.S. efforts to control the second largest oil reserves on the planet. FTW agrees strongly with former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter who spoke recently in San Francisco and with U.C. Berkeley professor and author Peter Dale Scott that a U.S. invasion of Iraq will - in addition to Iraq's 11% - see a near-simultaneous occupation of key oil fields in Saudi Arabia holding another 25% of all the oil reserves on the planet. Recent revelations that anticipated Caspian Basin reserves have been wildly overestimated only intensify Peak Oil issues for every nation and increase the tensions over what happens in Iraq. Each industrialized nation knows that unless it secures a piece of the Middle East oil pie its survivability in coming oil crises is in question. There are no more significant oil deposits left to find, especially where the Empire has not already marked them with its scent. Today, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer indicated that there would be no immediate move to invade Iraq or toward unilateral action on the part of the U.S. in spite of statements by U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte that Iraq was in material breach of UN resolution 1441. It now appears that no additional action will be taken in the Security Council until late January. That would indicate that the soonest that a U.S. invasion could occur would be sometime in February. That would also come perilously close to making it a certainty that U.S. military operations in the region could be continuing as temperatures rise to near-summer levels in the late spring. These delays are a mixed blessing. While providing evidence that there are strategies that can derail the unilateral plans of the American "hyperpower" and giving hope to those who are looking for performance and result-oriented strategies, the inherent dangers involved in an Iraqi invasion increase with each new delay. Throughout the region - as oil supply issues emerge dominant - smaller coalitions are forming to resist U.S. military plans and political and economic alliances shift as the rest of the world looks for alternatives to abject surrender to Imperial occupation. Just today Reuters announced that the U.S. intends to send an additional 50,000 troops to the region. Each additional delay only increases the likelihood that when it does move the U.S. will employ massive force - possibly even tactical nuclear weapons - resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties. Had the invasion occurred last September, as originally planned, it would likely have resulted in a quick occupation of Iraq because the rest of the world and various interests in the Middle East had not had time to organize military, economic and political resistance. Each new delay, while not preventing the invasion, only increases the certainty that the conflict will be bloody, prolonged, and will likely spread throughout the region - if not the entire planet. Sadly, it appears as though the Bush War Cabinet has anticipated these developments and is spoiling for a fight that it recognizes might unleash the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This is destructive madness of the highest order. At home, both popular and institutional resistance to mass smallpox vaccinations and the administration's heavy handedness with Homeland Security, Total Information Awareness and a glacially powerful erosion of civil liberties is also not going unnoticed by the global community. As I have predicted since January of 2001, this administration is reacting to each new challenge with the only set of coping tools it possesses: intimidation, deception, coercion and brutality. And these responses are provoking real resistance leaders to find ways to fight the Empire in ways that hurt it, by voting with their pocketbooks and withdrawing the consumer support that keeps the Imperial engine running. I wonder how long it will be before significant portions of the population start refusing to pay their taxes. That will be a key signal that the American people are finally psychologically prepared to do something that will make a difference. At that point, perhaps, the American people will have matured beyond the infantile belief that these problems can be solved from the comfort of an armchair or a pleasant weekend demonstration that goes totally ignored by the mainstream press. There is nothing at stake except tomorrow. Avec nous, le déluge. Michael C. Ruppert Publisher/Editor From The Wilderness http://www.fromthewilderness.com
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