Charles Pierce: There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS

[CRH]

94. Very good thread, with a lot of different perspectives of history,

I would add for consideration, the following.

Kennedy was preparing to pull advisers from Viet Nam shortly before his assignation. This all changed when Johnson replaced him as President, Viet Nam escalated through Johnson's six years and the four years of Nixon. During this period the national debt exploded and the money collected from social security was used to service the debt, for political buy now pay later treachery. The country was bankrupt with war deficits and in the worst recession since the depression.

Then Nixon trashed Breton Woods removing the dollar from the gold standard in favor of a fiat currency and economy based of promises rather than commodities and production. This devalued the Middle East oil producing monarchies holdings in US investments. The reaction was the oil embargo that incidentally, destroyed any hope for the Carter administration to start rebuilding the economy. US Government bonds were paying double digit interest, inflation was rampant. During this turmoil the dollar was resuscitated with an OPEC agreement making the dollar the only currency oil could be purchased, and the reserve currency of nearly every country in the world. The petro dollar had supplanted the gold standard.

This gave the US tremendous credit as a government, society and economy. This credit allowed the infrastructure both physical and economic to be built out benefiting not just the standard of living of the society but gave new legs and funding to the MIC in pursuit of global hegemony.

All of this was possible because the OPEC petro dollar arrangement, and the largest supplier in OPEC was and is Saudi Arabia.
Every time we have found the House of Saud financing terrorism it has weathered the news cycle and the American three day span of attention, then escaped consequence in the US corporate congress that tables in committee any attempt of redress. 'National Security' shouts down all investigations, the United Nations security council emasculates any global solutions with a veto, and status quo is protected.

To seriously go after terrorism the US would have change the way we govern, our foreign policy, and our methods of business. Terrorism is a state sponsored strategy and effect, used by many countries, but none more than the US hegemonic MIC and economy.

Try out Pogo for a solution. I have seen the enemy, and he is us.