Iran Internet Cut Off: Is It War Against Iran Oil Bourse?

Buzzing all over the net: 5 internet cables in the Middle East cut off, some only a few kilometers apart, interrupting internet connectivity to Egypt, India, Qatar, and mostly, yes, most completely, to Iran... although all this is in the fact-meets-speculation stage. One of many synopses:

A ship's anchor severed one undersea Internet cable damaged last week, it
was revealed on Thursday amid ongoing outages in the Middle East and South Asia,
but mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts.
There has been speculation that five cables being cut in almost as many days was too much of a coincidence and that sabotage must have been involved.

It's too early to really assess the situation, but the timing is definitely significant. Namely, Iran's announcement that it will not trade its oil in U.S. Dollars. The impact of such a move, especially if it's emulated by others, which is a real possibility, could bring disaster, as eloquently explained by Len Hart of Existentialist Cowboy:

Certainly, when oil is no longer traded in dollars, it is not only the
dollar that will collapse. It means that the US --on the bad end of a huge
balance of trade deficit --will no longer be able to afford to import goods or
services. For a nation that long ago (Reagan years primarily; See Vidal, cited)
gave up its role as a manufacturing nation, this collapse will be monumental,
catastrophic. The fact that oil had been traded in dollars was the only thing
propping up the dollar.

This, in turn, could lead to our overextended debtor nation still called America to an economic tragedy on an unprecedented scale. So cutting off the internet, in comparison, looks sort of like a desperate prelude to war. War on Iran's threat - its economic threat to our empire.

Monitoring the news today --it is clear that the Middle East cables were
deliberately sabotaged and the effect has been to cut Iran off the internet.
Isolating a nation by cutting off its systems of communication is a first step
preceding a military attack. Bush no longer cares about even the pretense of
pre-text! His charge that Iran has weaponized grade fuels is universally and
credibly debunked. The real threat is to the poohbahs of US empire --the
Military/Industrial complex.

The spectre of impending doom, however, will not just trickle down. It may just avalanche down.

That there was a demand for dollars because there was a demand for oil
meant that you could continue to buy imported goods with dollars. Now --imagine
a world in which no other country need "purchase" dollars in order to import
oil! What if oil producing nations agree to accept other currencies? What if
they refuse to accept dollars? Go to Wal-Mart or even your local supermarket.
Almost everything on the shelves is imported.

How are we going to afford our lifestyles if we have to import things we can't pay for? Will the dollar ultimately become worthless? And another issue: what will all the victims of our senseless wars fighting "monsters" like the bin Laden "Antichrist", all those millions of refugees, all those families robbed of their homes, what will they do to, or about, us - or shall I say, US?

With this hanging, unspoken, like a looming cloud overhead, an unknown possibility, and with all our money hanging on the petroleum trade, is there any question now why we are in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, fawning over Saudi Arabia while blindfolding everyone we can, in order to shore up an empire that collapsed decades ago by invading every oil-rich piece of earth we can manage to invade? Yet that only makes things much worse.

It's Republican mismanagement and squander on wars that devalued the dollar, and now when oil-producers don't want to trade in dollars they become Enemy Number One. It's sabotage time... But to the deluded Petrocorporate War machine, they're Hans Brinker putting his finger in the dam. Let's expose them before it's too late: it isn't even their dam.

Victory for Bush in Iraq! Here it is! But in "fine print"...

Bridgethought of the Day: The greatest triumphs of tyrants will ultimately be seen only as tyranny. (Even if that 'ultimately' is no more, or less, than Judgment Day.) How about this great lie? "We want the Iraqis to share their oil wealth - that is the most important thing." We say "share with each other". We mean "lion's share for us." And "us" means simply the U.S. & Big Oil. For Bush, it's a win-win. For the Iraqis, it's a lose-lose. Check this article out.

There's a little "appropriations package" attached to a bill touted as "fairness" for Iraqis, and giving them their own oil to share equitably with each other. It's all part of the spin that we are the Heroic Crusader fighting for the rights of the people to give them democracy and save them from the oppressive tyrant dictator, and save the world from Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Eliminate Terrorism, which is the Scourge of the Earth. But we, the Hero, are not gutting their resources, fomenting violent civil war, creating pockets of real terrorism and brutality where none of that ilk existed, and fueling anti-American sentiment worldwide, and making life itself in Iraq virtually impossible. We are not increasing instability and extremism in the Middle East by misguided and ill-conceived plans. This is all merely a side effect of our real goal: victory.

Congratulations! We've won the war! We're getting the oil! Isn't that all that really matters? After all, without oil, we will lose our way of life, and Exxon will lose its bottom line. Can you imagine anything worse? Bush can't. And if Bush can't, and he is the "leader of the planet", who can???

Oh, yeah, those wicked liberals can. That's why they're wicked and evil. Because they dare to stop the spin and look at what's been swept under the rug - like those rusty consciences that Barry Goldwater used to talk about. That went out when Rove began to swear on stacks of Machiavellis. Bibles? That's just a front. The real Book is called "The Prince." Read it and weep.

But even the liberals know how to play ball. This little tidbit is written into a bill they, too, espouse. Tacked on to the "bring the troops home earlier" bill, is just what Dr. Rove ordered - victory for Big Oil, and the Bush family staple.

They called it "Revenue Sharing." A must-have clause -'cause it's The Clause.

"Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially
trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.

If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil,
Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.

The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That’s the land mine: he will certify the American and British oil
companies have access to Iraqi oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr. Bush has sought for the better part of six years.

It is why we went to war."

Does it really help that someone else agrees with me? Not unless that person is President, has a mandate, an Administration, and the guts to implement an ethical agenda instead of these insidious empire-building strategies. Is there a chance? Are you with me, Mr. Obama? Ms. Clinton? Mr. Edwards? Who is ready to stop cowboying abroad and start getting our act together at home? Where did all those billions get us? Seems we're going to keep We The People on voice mail for a long time ... while we're "out of town."

High-Level Honesty

Bridgethought of the Hour: Just when you think the world is actually a holographic projection, and we are only two-dimensional characters on an invisible screen soon to be swallowed by dark matter, someone writes a letter like this:

The Truth Spin

Now the problem is, how to get them to actually read it...