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purplecthulhu at 02:22pm on 11/09/2003
purplecthulhu at 02:22pm on 11/09/2003An outfit called 'Project Censored' has published its top 25 under-reported news stories of the last year. Its an interesting list!
The US (and UK, France, Russia and China, among others) censored the WMD report delivered by the Iraqi government in the run up to the war. 8000 of the original 11800 pages were removed before the report was released to the UN, but this was to no avail, as those sneaky Iraqis sent extra copies of the report to governments that weren't interested in censoring it. Much of the missing information covered the sale of arms to Iraq by those same censoring nations, including WMD materials. Seems that Rumsfeld was up to his arms in this activity.
Plans for the US to set up a special operations team whose goal is to provoke terrorist organisations into violent attacks so that massive US counterattacks can be made. I have to say that the logic of this idea defies me, but then so does a lot that the DoD plans these days. This report is especially apposite given that I saw the movie Collatoral Damage last night...
US Dollar vs the Euro. Seems that another reson why the US might've wanted to invade Iraq is that it was the first OPEC county to sell its oil in Euros. Apparently the US economy is being partly propped up by the fact that the dollar is the standard currency for the oil business. If this was to change to, say, the Euro then a lot would change, especially since the doller is estimated to be overvalued by 40%. The report's author says "one of the dirty little secrets of today's international order is that the rest of the globe could topple the United States from its hegemonic status whenever they so choose with a concerted abandonment of the dollar standard. This is America's preeminent, inescapable Achilles Heel." So the war in Iraq was an object lesson in what happens if you sell your oil in Euros...
The full set of stories makes interesting reading and can be found here:
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/index.html
The US (and UK, France, Russia and China, among others) censored the WMD report delivered by the Iraqi government in the run up to the war. 8000 of the original 11800 pages were removed before the report was released to the UN, but this was to no avail, as those sneaky Iraqis sent extra copies of the report to governments that weren't interested in censoring it. Much of the missing information covered the sale of arms to Iraq by those same censoring nations, including WMD materials. Seems that Rumsfeld was up to his arms in this activity.
Plans for the US to set up a special operations team whose goal is to provoke terrorist organisations into violent attacks so that massive US counterattacks can be made. I have to say that the logic of this idea defies me, but then so does a lot that the DoD plans these days. This report is especially apposite given that I saw the movie Collatoral Damage last night...
US Dollar vs the Euro. Seems that another reson why the US might've wanted to invade Iraq is that it was the first OPEC county to sell its oil in Euros. Apparently the US economy is being partly propped up by the fact that the dollar is the standard currency for the oil business. If this was to change to, say, the Euro then a lot would change, especially since the doller is estimated to be overvalued by 40%. The report's author says "one of the dirty little secrets of today's international order is that the rest of the globe could topple the United States from its hegemonic status whenever they so choose with a concerted abandonment of the dollar standard. This is America's preeminent, inescapable Achilles Heel." So the war in Iraq was an object lesson in what happens if you sell your oil in Euros...
The full set of stories makes interesting reading and can be found here:
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/index.html