Kabul in the Sixites and TodayThis is the same situation that President Nixon found himself in late 1971. The Vietnam War was dragging on without an end in sight, his party had come to power promising more social services, and he had become caught in a deficit spending trap. Unwilling to admit defeat in the war, unable to cut back on govt. social spending. The world could see the US was trapped and the value of US dollar started to sink as result. At the time the US$ was redeemable for gold (for international holders) at $35/oz and many countries, particually France rushed to convert their increasing worthless paper dollars into gold - the US literally had a run on its gold. As a result Nixon slammed the Gold Window shut on the world before the US Treasury's gold was completely exhausted.
Come forward to today. The US is in a war it can't win in Afghanistan that seems without end. As one commentator put it "Afghanistan, the place Empires go to die. The Greeks, The Mongols, The British, The Soviets and now the USA". Increasing burdens with Medicaid programs and the first wave of baby boomers retiring and drawing down on govt. backed but unfunded pensions has resulted in the US being trapped into ever increasing deficit spending. Sound familiar? What will the US default on this time, not its gold promise, but maybe its' foreign debt.
By Paul Craig Roberts: (former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal)
Does anyone remember the "cakewalk war" that would last six weeks, cost $50 - 60 billion, and be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues?
Does anyone remember that White House economist Lawrence Lindsey was fired by Dubya because Lindsey estimated that the Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion?
Lindsey was fired for over-estimating the cost of a war that, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, has cost 15 times more than Lindsey estimated. And the US still has 50,000 troops in Iraq.
Does anyone remember that just prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the US government declared victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan?
Does anyone remember that the reason Dubya gave for invading Iraq was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, weapons that the US government knew did not exist?
Are Americans aware that the same neoconservatives who made these fantastic mistakes, or told these fabulous lies, are still in control of the government in Washington?
The "war on terror" is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?
The bottom line answer is that the "war on terror" is about creating real terrorists. The US government desperately needs real terrorists in order to justify its expansion of its wars against Muslim countries and to keep the American people sufficiently fearful that they continue to accept the police state that provides "security from terrorists," but not from the government that has discarded civil liberties.
The US government creates terrorists by invading Muslim countries, wrecking infrastructure and killing vast numbers of civilians. The US also creates terrorists by installing puppet governments to rule over Muslims and by using the puppet governments to murder and persecute citizens as is occurring on a vast scale in Pakistan today......read on
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