In this new essay, John Pilger recalls the ‘electric’ opposition of writers and journalists to the coming war in the 1930s and investigates why today there is ‘a silence filled by a consensus of propaganda’ as the two greatest powers draw closer to conflict.
The United States seized an Iranian oil tanker just days before Tehran detained a tanker carrying American cargo in the Gulf of Oman, Reuters reported on Saturday.
The DEA has always been ridiculous when it comes to drugs. It overplays the downside, refuses to acknowledge any upside, and has been instrumental in ensuring people suffering from mental health issues are unable to access the drugs that might help them most.
This might have a decisive impact on the US currency as the drive to break with the petrodollar continues to grow and could produce something like a “perfect storm” impacting on the US economy. It threatens to drastically lower the standards of living of nearly all Americans within the next several years as the dollar loses value and purchasing power. As the US economy is heavily interconnected with many European economies, Europe is also likely to be a victim of the coming disaster.
The good news, of course, is that the United States will no longer be able to afford its endless wars and international interventions. Lacking its economic power, it will no longer be able to declare itself “exceptional” and the enforcer of a “rules based international order.” It would mean an ending of the funding of developments like the Ukraine proxy war and the troops will have to come home from places like Syria and Somalia. And it might even mark the ending of sending billions of dollars annually to a wealthy Israel.
Ending dollar supremacy would inevitably have an immediate impact on what passes for US foreign policy, making it more difficult for Washington to initiate and sustain Treasury Department sanctions on countries like Iran and North Korea. It could also create economic turmoil for many countries until the situation resolves itself by producing greater volatility in currency markets worldwide. The Federal Reserve Bank will no doubt respond to the unfolding crisis by acting as it always does by raising interest rates to astronomical levels, thereby hurting most the Americans who can least afford the shock therapy.
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered nearly $2 billion in assets of Iran’s state bank, frozen in the U.S., to be paid as compensation to relatives of victims of attacks linked to Iran.
ICJ judgments are legally binding, however, the court has no means of enforcing them. Previously, both the US and Iran have ignored the court’s judgments.
“The court’s decision today rejected the vast majority of Iran’s case, including notably Iran’s claims on behalf of Bank Markazi,” said acting legal adviser Rich Visek of the US State Department.
Guo Wengui, arrested March 15 on fraud charges, was known to have invested, but the extent of his influence on the site has not been previously reported.
You may have heard that the Biden administration has told TikTok that it must be divested from ByteDance or it will be banned in the US. At least that’s what TikTok said the administration has said. The end result of this might well be that ByteDance divests of TikTok, but we should be clear: the threat, and any potential block, would be a clear, blatant, dangerous violation of the 1st Amendment.
The criminal investigation undertaken by the federal government against hundreds of participants in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol is polarizing the country and shredding civil liberties.
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