Posted on 02/22/2017 8:26:58 PM PST by Tours
Obama pulled out his veto pen 12 times during his presidency.
Congress only overrode him once…
In late 2016, Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). The bill would allow 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in US courts.
With only months left in office, Obama wasn’t worried about the political price of opposing the bill. It was worth protecting Saudi Arabia and the petrodollar system, which underpins the US dollar’s role as the world’s premier currency.
Congress didn’t see it that way though. Those up for reelection couldn’t afford to side with Saudi Arabia over US victims. So Congress voted to override Obama’s veto, and JASTA became the law of the land.
The Saudis, quite correctly, see this as a huge threat. If they can be sued in US courts, their vast holdings of US assets are at risk of being frozen or seized.
The Saudi foreign minister promptly threatened to sell all of the country’s US assets.
Basically, Saudi Arabia was threatening to rip up the petrodollar arrangement, which underpins the US dollar’s role as the world’s premier currency.
Donald Trump and the Saudis Unlike every president since the petrodollar’s birth, Donald Trump is openly hostile to Saudi Arabia.
Recently he put this out on Twitter:
Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected.
The dopey prince that Trump is referring to is Al-Waleed bin Talal, a prominent member of the Saudi royal family. He’s also one of the largest foreign investors in the US economy, particularly in media and financial companies.
The Saudis openly backed Hillary during the election. In fact, they “donated” an estimated $10 million–$25 million to the Clinton Foundation, making them the most generous foreign donors.
Besides Hillary Clinton, the single biggest loser from the US presidential election was Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis did not want Donald Trump in the White House. And not because of some bad blood on Twitter. There are real geopolitical issues at stake.
At the moment, Trump seems determined to walk back on US support for the so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria.
The Saudis are furious with the US for not holding up its part of the petrodollar deal. They think the US should have already attacked Syria as part of its commitment to keep the region safe for the monarchy.
Toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a longstanding Saudi goal. But a President Trump makes that unlikely. That’s not good for Saudi Arabia’s position in the Middle East, nor its relationship with the US.
This is just one of the ways President Trump will hasten the death of the petrodollar.
Saudi Arabia, Islam, and Wahhabism I loathe quoting a neoconservative historian like Bernard Lewis, but even a broken clock is right twice a day:
Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation obtained total control of Texas and had at its disposal all the oil revenues, and used this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom peddling their particular brand of Christianity.
This is what the Saudis have done with Wahhabism. The oil money has enabled them to spread this fanatical, destructive form of Islam all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the West. Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe in a marginal country.
This is actually an apt description of Wahhabism, a particularly virulent and intolerant strain of Sunni Islam most Saudis follow. ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and a slew of other extremists also follow this puritanical brand of Islam. That’s why Saudi Arabia and ISIS use the same brutal punishments, like beheadings.
Many Wahhabis consider Muslims of any other flavor—like the Shia in Iran, the Alawites in Syria, or non-Wahhabi Sunnis—apostates worthy of death.
In many ways, Saudi Arabia is an institutionalized version of ISIS. There’s even a grim joke that Saudi Arabia is simply “an ISIS that made it.”
After living in the Middle East for three years, it’s clear to me that many people in the region despise everything about Wahhabism. Yet it flourishes in certain Sunni communities, among people who feel they have nowhere else to turn.
It’s also widely believed in the Middle East that Western powers deliberately fostered Wahhabism, to a degree, to keep the region weak and divided—and as a weapon against Shia Iran and its allies. That includes Syria and post-Saddam Iraq, which has shifted its allegiance towards Iran.
Thanks to WikiLeaks we know the Saudi and Qatari governments, which are also the two largest foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation, willfully financed ISIS to help topple Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Julian Assange says the email revealing this is the most significant among the Clinton-related emails his group has released.
Here’s an excerpt of the relevant interview with Assange:
Interviewer: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
Julian Assange: Yes.
Interviewer: That’s extraordinary…
With all this in mind, Vladimir Putin opened an unusual conference of Sunni Muslim clerics recently. It took place in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, a Sunni Muslim region within Russia’s southwestern border.
The conference, which included 200 of the top non-Wahhabi Sunni Muslim clerics, issued an extraordinary statement labeling Wahhabism “a dangerous deformation” of Sunni Islam.
These clerics carry serious weight in the Sunni world. The imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar mosque, one of the most important Islamic theological centers, was among them. (Egypt is the Arab world’s most populous Sunni country.)
Basically, Putin gathered the world’s most important non-Wahhabi clerics to “excommunicate” the Saudis from Sunni Islam. In other words, Putin is going for the jugular of the petrodollar system.
Russia and Saudi Arabia have been enemies for decades. The Russians have never forgiven Saudi Arabia (or the US) for supporting the Afghan mujahedeen that drove the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan. And they haven’t forgiven the Saudis for supporting multiple Chechen rebellions.
As far as I know, the British writer Robert Fisk was the only Western journalist to cover this extraordinary conference.
Here’s Fisk:
Who are the real representatives of Sunni Muslims if the Saudis are to be shoved aside? And what is the future of Saudi Arabia? Of such questions are revolutions made.
If the Saudis are shoved aside, it could strike a fatal blow to the petrodollar system.
The truth is, the petrodollar system is in its death throes. It doesn’t matter if the Saudis willfully abandon it, or if it crumbles because the kingdom implodes. The end result will be the same.
Right now, the stars are aligning against the Saudi kingdom. This is its most vulnerable moment since its 1932 founding.
That’s why I think the death of the petrodollar system is the No. 1 black swan event for 2017.
I expect the dollar price of gold to soar when the petrodollar system crumbles in the not-so-distant future. You don’t want to find yourself on the wrong side of history when that happens.
But that brings up another crucial point. There’s also likely to be severe inflation.
The petrodollar system has allowed the US government and many Americans to live way beyond their means for decades.
The US takes this unique position for granted. But it will disappear once the dollar loses its premier status.
This will likely be the tipping point…
Afterward, the US government will be desperate enough to implement capital controls, people controls, nationalization of retirement savings, and other forms of wealth confiscation.
I urge you to prepare for the economic and sociopolitical fallout while you still can. Expect bigger government, less freedom, shrinking prosperity… and possibly worse.
It’s probably not going to happen tomorrow. But it’s clear where the trend is headed.
It is very possible that one day soon, Americans will wake up to a new reality.
Once the petrodollar system kicks the bucket and the dollar loses its status as the world’s premier reserve currency, you will have few, if any, options.
The sad truth is, most people have no idea how bad things could get, let alone how to prepare…
Yet there are straightforward steps you can start taking today to protect your savings and yourself from the financial and sociopolitical effects of the collapse of the petrodollar.
This recently released video will show you where to begin. Click here to watch it now.
I agree. I’m sure Soros is positioned for it.
Trump needs to get us to a break even point, eliminating our deficit spending.
If he can do that, we’re looking fairly good.
We do have a massive amount of natural resources too.
If we had to, we could liquidate some of it.
In late 2016, Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). The bill would allow 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in US courts.
This was the *only* time the GOPe congress opposed Obama on anything.
The next day, they expressed regret:
http://fortune.com/2016/09/30/obama-veto-lawmakers-doubts-911-lawsuit-bill/
The doomsday scenario for the dollar should this bill become law is just a pile of BS. The dollar won’t be harmed if the Saudi government is allowed to be sued in US courts.
But US trial lawyers will get rich and it will be open season on the US in the courts of other countries. Plus how much more compensation will the family of these victims collect? They were killed in what amounts to an act of war. None of my family has been compensated in such sums for our war deaths.
If the Saudis truly are guilty then declare war and settle the score.
The USA got in bed with the Saudis in the first place because of our debt-based monetary system and fiat currency.
Our progressive nanny-state, supported by the Federal Reserve, creates massive amounts of debt, which have to go somewhere.
So they Saudis were enlisted to buy it, because of their oil. In turn, all this printed money can support a huge, kick-ass military which has protected the Saudis and even helped advance their interests for the last 60 years or more.
The gold and silver we’ve already minted and circulated to an equal or greater proportion than that which existed prior to 1933, and they’re still being minted.
“The inherent constitutional stability of the United States”
...Under siege from within as never before, and from saboteurs firmly seated in the constitutional government. Trump can’t stop this on his own and doesn’t seem to have much support, even among so-called Republicans, who do not seem to realize the chance they’ve been given to save the republic, or don’t want to.
Wonder what happened to Libya’s gold after Hillary took out Quadaffi?
The fundamental geopolitical question in the world today is whether the U.S. is going to continue the deficit spending and trade deficits funded by so-called petrodollars.
The U.S. (or, more precisely, the global financial cartel currently operating through the U.S. military and Central Bank) essentially owns all the OPEC oil, because it can only be sold for US dollars.
For reasons I won’t go into now, THE SYSTEM REQUIRES U.S. Deficits. They have been PART OF THE GLOBALIST FINANCIAL PLAN ALL ALONG.
The primary geopolitical weapon, the weapon that destroyed both Japan in WWII and the USSR in the late 80s is the U.S. ability to interdict oil, or to use Saudi to underprice the world market.
If the ultimate conflict with China, ability of the U.S. navy (backed by air and space assets) to interdict oil to China will be our primary weapon short of nuclear.
That is what the South China Sea is all about.
I could go on at great length on this topic, but the bottom line is that Trump is not going to consider up-ending the system until U.S. economy and military have been rebuilt, AND China under control.
Anyone buying gold in anticipation of this “Black swan” is going to have a very long wait.
If you were an enemy of America, intent upon causing us economic harm, is that something you would really care about?
#20. If the Saudis did collapse, either partially or totally in economic terms, would the US going all out for oil and natural gas production keep the world and the dollar relatively stable?
After all, Japan needs oil and coal, esp. since the major nuclear plant at Fukishima is out of commission.
The same for England and even Germany. If I remember correctly the French rely heavily on nuclear power while the Germans cut back on it and coal, preferring to get Soviet/Russian oil. The same for smaller European countries.
Just imagine the economic power the US would have if it opened up safe, productive old coal mines and newer ones in the West. The same for oil production and processing from the Alaskan fields to newer ones in Texas and perhaps the Gulf of Mexico.
No sane Democrat would oppose this, even on environmental grounds, esp. if their unemployment rates in their districts started to rise.
Also, I wonder if we can stop the Hillary Clinton treasonous sell-out of the uranium mines to Russian companies? This is something that should not only be investigated but the greedy pig should be prosecuted and jailed for economic crimes against America.
And remember, we literally feed much of the underdeveloped world so keeping the U.S. economy healthy and growing in terms of energy and food is in the best interests of a lot of countries who know that food riots can bring them down.
If we become energy independent our dollar will be the petrodollar
The Dollar doesn’t have to be replaced. It could be restabilized by tying it to petroleum production secured under an alliance between the USA and Russia.
And the Wahhabi terrorists can go pound sand.
Seems like the Saudis are upset, in part, because Trump isn’t their pawn like Obama was....
Some sort of accommodation would have to be worked out, and whose to say something like that wouldn’t come about?
I don’t know the total output of Saudi oil, but it does go beyond that. Saudi Arabia was a moderating force on OPEC. If OPEC went South, that could destabilize things.
I’m not sure if OPEC is still operating as it used to, and that may be because things have run relatively smoothly for so long.
If the oil interests around the world became unstable, it would be a serious problem.
(1) the size, strength, and transparency of the US economy and the attractiveness of the American way of life;
(2) the support for the dollar by key international institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and the BIS bank;
(3) that in a crisis, the US provides essential economic and military backing to countries that rely on the dollar; and,
(4) because no other currency would make a plausible reserve and trade currency for the world.
As for the Middle East, although Russia can be useful at times, she is neither powerful nor reliable as an ally, and Iran's current alignment with Russia is contrary to what her preference would be under a democratic government. Just as in the 19th Century, autocratic Russia often finds common cause with anti-Western dictatorships and autocracies.
Given Russia's relative weakness and limited ability to project power, her scope of action faces inherent constraints. It is the US, not Russia, that can put a naval fleet with one or more large aircraft carriers off most anyone's coast. Thus, if Saudi Arabia collapses, it is the US and not Russia who will be called on to contain and clean up the mess.
Drivelous tripe
JASTA is disasta
The author seems to imply that without the money that brings the Wahhabis influence, Islam would be peaceful and friendly. Having watched the Iranian mullahs for many years, among others, I find this questionable.
Agreed.
The Saudi role declines precisely because the US is pumping more oil and appears to be making Saudi oil increasingly insignificant.
So if oil control shifts from Saudis to the US, how does that weaken the petrodollar? The article doesn’t explain that. It isn’t as if Saudi oil is being replaced by Venezuelan oil or Iranian oil.
That's what I thought as I got toward the end of the article.
a + b + c + d + e + f = buy gold!
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