OPEN UP YOUR HEART TO WHAT YOU FEEL

America's War for Global Domination


by Michel Chossudovsky


12/15/03: (Global Research)
We are the juncture of the most serious crisis in modern history.
The Bush Administration has embarked upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.
The wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are part of a broader military agenda, which was launched at the end of the Cold War. The ongoing war agenda is a continuation of the 1991 Gulf War and the NATO led wars on Yugoslavia (1991-2001).
The post Cold War period has also been marked by numerous US covert intelligence operations within the former Soviet Union, which were instrumental in triggering civil wars in several of the former republics including Chechnya (within the Russian Federation), Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the latter, these covert operations were launched with a view to securing strategic control over oil and gas pipeline corridors.
US military and intelligence operations in the post Cold War era were led in close coordination with the "free market reforms" imposed under IMF guidance in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, which resulted in the destabilization of national economies and the impoverishment of millions of people.
The World Bank sponsored privatization programmes in these countries enabled Western capital to acquire ownership and gain control of a large share of the economy of the former Eastern block countries. This process is also at the basis of the strategic mergers and/or takeovers of the former Soviet oil and gas industry by powerful Western conglomerates, through financial manipulation and corrupt political practices.
In other words, what is at stake in the US led war is the recolonization of a vast region extending from the Balkans into Central Asia.
The deployment of America's war machine purports to enlarge America's economic sphere of influence. The U.S. has established a permanent military presence not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has military bases in several of the former Soviet republics on China's Western frontier. In turn, since 1999, there has been a military buildup in the South China Sea.
War and Globalization go hand in hand. Militarization supports the conquest of new economic frontiers and the worldwide imposition of "free market" system.
The Next Phase of the War
The Bush administration has already identified Syria as the next stage of "the road map to war". The bombing of presumed 'terrorist bases' in Syria by the Israeli Air Force in October was intended to provide a justification for subsequent pre-emptive military interventions. Ariel Sharon launched the attacks with the approval of Donald Rumsfeld. (See Gordon Thomas, Global Outlook, No. 6, Winter 2004)
This planned extension of the war into Syria has serious implications. It means that Israel becomes a major military actor in the US-led war, as well as an 'official' member of the Anglo-American coalition.
The Pentagon views 'territorial control' over Syria, which constitutes a land bridge between Israel and occupied Iraq, as 'strategic' from a military and economic standpoint. It also constitutes a means of controlling the Iraqi border and curbing the flow of volunteer fighters, who are traveling to Baghdad to join the Iraqi resistance movement.
This enlargement of the theater of war is consistent with Ariel Sharon's plan to build a 'Greater Israel' "on the ruins of Palestinian nationalism". While Israel seeks to extend its territorial domain towards the Euphrates River, with designated areas of Jewish settlement in the Syrian heartland, Palestinians are imprisoned in Gaza and the West Bank behind an 'Apartheid Wall'.
In the meantime, the US Congress has tightened the economic sanctions on Libya and Iran. As well, Washington is hinting at the need for a 'regime change' in Saudi Arabia. Political pressures are building up in Turkey.
So, the war could indeed spill over into a much broader region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian sub-continent and China's Western frontier.
The "Pre-emptive" Use of Nuclear Weapons
Washington has adopted a first strike "pre-emptive" nuclear policy, which has now received congressional approval. Nuclear weapons are no longer a weapon of last resort as during the cold War era.
The US, Britain and Israel have a coordinated nuclear weapons policy. Israeli nuclear warheads are pointed at major cities in the Middle East. The governments of all three countries have stated quite openly, prior to the war on Iraq, that they are prepared to use nuclear weapons "if they are attacked" with so-called "weapons of mass destruction." Israel is the fifth nuclear power in the World. Its nuclear arsenal is more advanced than that of Britain.
Barely a few weeks following the entry of the US Marines into Baghdad, the US Senate Armed Services Committee gave the green light to the Pentagon to develop a new tactical nuclear bomb, to be used in conventional war theaters, "with a yield [of up to] six times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb".
Following the Senate decision, the Pentagon redefined the details of its nuclear agenda in a secret meeting with senior executives from the nuclear industry and the military industrial complex held at Central Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The meeting was held on August 6, the day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 58 years ago.
The new nuclear policy explicitly involves the large defense contractors in decision-making. It is tantamount to the "privatization" of nuclear war. Corporations not only reap multibillion dollar profits from the production of nuclear bombs, they also have a direct voice in setting the agenda regarding the use and deployment of nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has unleashed a major propaganda and public relations campaign with a view to upholding the use nuclear weapons for the "defense of the American Homeland."
Fully endorsed by the US Congress, the mini-nukes are considered to be "safe for civilians".
This new generation of nuclear weapons is slated to be used in the next phase of this war, in "conventional war theatres" (e.g. in the Middle East and Central Asia) alongside conventional weapons.
In December 2003, the US Congress allocated $6.3 billion solely for 2004, to develop this new generation of "defensive" nuclear weapons.
The overall annual defense budget is of the order of 400 billion dollars, roughly of the same order of magnitude as the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Russian Federation.
While there is no firm evidence of the use of mini-nukes in the Iraqi and Afghan war theatres, tests conducted by Canada's Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC), in Afghanistan confirm that recorded toxic radiation was not attributable to 'heavy metal' depleted uranium ammunition (DU), but to another unidentified form of uranium contamination:
"some form of uranium weapon had been used (...) The results were astounding: the donors presented concentrations of toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times greater than in the Gulf War veterans tested in 1999." www.umrc.net
The Planning of War
The war on Iraq has been in the planning stages at least since the mid-1990s.
A 1995 National Security document of the Clinton administration stated quite clearly that the objective of the war is oil. "to protect the United States' uninterrupted, secure U.S. access to oil.
In September 2000, a few months before the accession of George W. Bush to the White House, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) published its blueprint for global domination under the title: "Rebuilding America's Defenses."
The PNAC is a neo-conservative think tank linked to the Defense-Intelligence establishment, the Republican Party and the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which plays a behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy.
The PNAC's declared objective is quite simple - to:
"Fight and decisively win in multiple, simultaneous theater wars".
This statement indicates that the US plans to be involved simultaneously in several war theaters in different regions of the World.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had commissioned the PNAC blueprint prior to the presidential elections.
The PNAC outlines a roadmap of conquest. It calls for "the direct imposition of U.S. "forward bases" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East "with a view to ensuring economic domination of the world, while strangling any potential "rival" or any viable alternative to America's vision of a 'free market' economy" (See Chris Floyd, Bush's Crusade for empire, Global Outlook, No. 6, 2003)
The Role of "Massive Casualty Producing Events"
The PNAC blueprint also outlines a consistent framework of war propaganda. One year before 9/11, the PNAC called for "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor," which would serve to galvanize US public opinion in support of a war agenda. (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NAC304A.html )
The PNAC architects seem to have anticipated with cynical accuracy, the use of the September 11 attacks as "a war pretext incident."
The PNAC's reference to a "catastrophic and catalyzing event" echoes a similar statement by David Rockefeller to the United Nations Business Council in 1994:
"We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order."
Similarly, in the words Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book, The Grand Chessboard:.
"…it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus [in America] on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter was one of the key architects of the Al Qaeda network, created by the CIA at the onslaught of the Soviet Afghan war (1979-1989).
The "catastrophic and catalyzing event" as stated by the PNAC is an integral part of US military-intelligence planning. General Franks, who led the military campaign into Iraq, pointed recently (October 2003) to the role of a "massive casualty-producing event" to muster support for the imposition of military rule in America. (See General Tommy Franks calls for Repeal of US Constitution, November 2003, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/EDW311A.html ).
Franks identifies the precise scenario whereby military rule will be established:
"a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur] somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event." (Ibid)
This statement from an individual, who was actively involved in military and intelligence planning at the highest levels, suggests that the "militarisation of our country" is an ongoing operational assumption. It is part of the broader "Washington consensus". It identifies the Bush administration's "roadmap" of war and "Homeland Defense." Needless to say, it is also an integral part of the neoliberal agenda.
The "terrorist massive casualty-producing event" is presented by General Franks as a crucial political turning point. The resulting crisis and social turmoil are intended to facilitate a major shift in US political, social and institutional structures.
General Franks' statement reflects a consensus within the US Military as to how events ought to unfold. The "war on terrorism" is to provide a justification for repealing the Rule of Law, ultimately with a view to "preserving civil liberties."
Franks' interview suggests that an Al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attack will be used as a "trigger mechanism" for a military coup d'état in America. The PNAC's "Pearl Harbor type event" would be used as a justification for declaring a State of emergency, leading to the establishment of a military government.
In many regards, the militarisation of civilian State institutions in the US is already functional under the facade of a bogus democracy.
War Propaganda
In the wake of the September attacks on the World Trade Center, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created to the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), or "Office of Disinformation" as it was labeled by its critics:
"The Department of Defense said they needed to do this, and they were going to actually plant stories that were false in foreign countries -- as an effort to influence public opinion across the world. (Interview with Steve Adubato, Fox News, 26 December 2002.)
And, all of a sudden, the OSI was formally disbanded following political pressures and "troublesome" media stories that "its purpose was to deliberately lie to advance American interests." (Air Force Magazine, January 2003, italics added) "Rumsfeld backed off and said this is embarrassing." (Adubato, op. cit. italics added) Yet despite this apparent about-turn, the Pentagon's Orwellian disinformation campaign remains functionally intact: "[T]he secretary of defense is not being particularly candid here. Disinformation in military propaganda is part of war."(Ibid)
Rumsfeld later confirmed in a press interview that while the OSI no longer exists in name, the "Office's intended functions are being carried out". (Quoted in Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Secrecy News,http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2002/11/112702.html , Rumsfeld's press interview can be consulted at:http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html ).
A number of government agencies and intelligence units --with links to the Pentagon-remain actively involved in various components of the propaganda campaign. Realities are turned upside down. Acts of war are heralded as "humanitarian interventions" geared towards "regime change" and "the restoration of democracy". Military occupation and the killing of civilians are presented as "peace-keeping". The derogation of civil liberties --in the context of the so-called "anti-terrorist legislation"-- is portrayed as a means to providing "domestic security" and upholding civil liberties.
The Central Role of Al Qaeda in Bush's National Security Doctrine
Spelled out in the National Security Strategy (NSS), the preemptive "defensive war" doctrine and the "war on terrorism" against Al Qaeda constitute the two essential building blocks of the Pentagon's propaganda campaign.
The objective is to present "preemptive military action" --meaning war as an act of "self-defense" against two categories of enemies, "rogue States" and "Islamic terrorists":
"The war against terrorists of global reach is a global enterprise of uncertain duration. …America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.
…Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction (…)
The targets of these attacks are our military forces and our civilian population, in direct violation of one of the principal norms of the law of warfare. As was demonstrated by the losses on September 11, 2001, mass civilian casualties is the specific objective of terrorists and these losses would be exponentially more severe if terrorists acquired and used weapons of mass destruction.
The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction- and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, (…). To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."12 (National Security Strategy, White House, 2002,http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html )
To justify pre-emptive military actions, the National Security Doctrine requires the "fabrication" of a terrorist threat, --ie. "an outside enemy." It also needs to link these terrorist threats to "State sponsorship" by the so-called "rogue states."
But it also means that the various "massive casualty-producing events" allegedly by Al Qaeda (the fabricated enemy) are part of the National Security agenda.
In the months building up to the invasion of Iraq, covert 'dirty tricks' operations were launched to produce misleading intelligence pertaining to both Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Al Qaeda, which was then fed into the news chain.
In the wake of the war, while the WMD threat has been toned down, Al Qaeda threats to 'the Homeland' continue to be repeated ad nauseam in official statements, commented on network TV and pasted on a daily basis across the news tabloids.
And underlying these manipulated realties, "Osama bin Laden" terrorist occurrences are being upheld as a justification for the next phase of this war. The latter hinges in a very direct way:
1) the effectiveness of the Pentagon-CIA propaganda campaign, which is fed into the news chain.
2) The actual occurrence of "massive casualty producing events" as outlined in the PNAC
What this means is that actual ("massive casualty producing") terrorist events are part and parcel of military planning.
Actual Terrorist Attacks
In other words, to be "effective" the fear and disinformation campaign cannot solely rely on unsubstantiated "warnings" of future attacks, it also requires "real" terrorist occurrences or "incidents", which provide credibility to the Washington's war plans. These terrorist events are used to justify the implementation of "emergency measures" as well as "retaliatory military actions". They are required, in the present context, to create the illusion of "an outside enemy" that is threatening the American Homeland.
The triggering of "war pretext incidents" is part of the Pentagon's assumptions. In fact it is an integral part of US military history.(See Richard Sanders, War Pretext Incidents, How to Start a War, Global Outlook, published in two parts, Issues 2 and 3, 2002-2003).
In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had envisaged a secret plan entitled "Operation Northwoods", to deliberately trigger civilian casualties to justify the invasion of Cuba:
"We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," "We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington" "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." (See the declassified Top Secret 1962 document titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba"16 (See Operation Northwoods athttp://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NOR111A.html ).
There is no evidence that the Pentagon or the CIA played a direct role in recent terrorist attacks, including those in Indonesia (2002), India (2001), Turkey (2003) and Saudi Arabia (2003).
According to the reports, the attacks were undertaken by organizations (or cells of these organizations), which operate quite independently, with a certain degree of autonomy. This independence is in the very nature of a covert intelligence operation. The «intelligence asset» is not in direct contact with its covert sponsors. It is not necessarily cognizant of the role it plays on behalf of its intelligence sponsors.
The fundamental question is who is behind them? Through what sources are they being financed? What is the underlying network of ties?
For instance, in the case of the 2002 Bali bomb attack, the alleged terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiah had links to Indonesia's military intelligence (BIN), which in turn has links to the CIA and Australian intelligence.
The December 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian Parliament --which contributed to pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war-- were allegedly conducted by two Pakistan-based rebel groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba ("Army of the Pure") and Jaish-e-Muhammad ("Army of Mohammed"), both of which according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) are supported by Pakistan's ISI. (Council on Foreign Relations at http://www.terrorismanswers.com/groups/harakat2.html , Washington 2002).
What the CFR fails to acknowledge is the crucial relationship between the ISI and the CIA and the fact that the ISI continues to support Lashkar, Jaish and the militant Jammu and Kashmir Hizbul Mujahideen (JKHM), while also collaborating with the CIA. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Fabricating an Enemy, March 2003,http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO301B.html )
A 2002 classified outbrief drafted to guide the Pentagon "calls for the creation of a so-called 'Proactive, Pre-emptive Operations Group' (P2OG), to launch secret operations aimed at "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction -- that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to 'quick-response' attacks by U.S. forces." (William Arkin, The Secret War, The Los Angeles Times, 27 October 2002)
The P2OG initiative is nothing new. It essentially extends an existing apparatus of covert operations. Amply documented, the CIA has supported terrorist groups since the Cold War era. This "prodding of terrorist cells" under covert intelligence operations often requires the infiltration and training of the radical groups linked to Al Qaeda.
In this regard, covert support by the US military and intelligence apparatus has been channeled to various Islamic terrorist organizations through a complex network of intermediaries and intelligence proxies. In the course of the 1990s, agencies of the US government have collaborated with Al Qaeda in a number of covert operations, as confirmed by a 1997 report of the Republican Party Committee of the US Congress. (See US Congress, 16 January 1997, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html ). In fact during the war in Bosnia US weapons inspectors were working with Al Qaeda operatives, bringing in large amounts of weapons for the Bosnian Muslim Army.
In other words, the Clinton Administration was "harboring terrorists". Moreover, official statements and intelligence reports confirm links between US military-intelligence units and Al Qaeda operatives, as occurred in Bosnia (mid 1990s), Kosovo (1998-99) and Macedonia (2001).(See See Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation, The Truth behind September 11, Global Outlook, 2003, Chapter 3, http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html )
The Bush Administration and NATO had links to Al Qaeda in Macedonia. And this happened barely a few weeks before September 11, 2001, Senior U.S. military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon, were fighting alongside Mujahideen in the terrorist attacks on the Macedonian Security forces. This is documented by the Macedonian press and statements made by the Macedonian authorities. (See Michel Chossudovsky, op cit). The U.S. government and the Islamic Militant Network were working hand in glove in supporting and financing the National Liberation Army (NLA), which was involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia.
In other words, the US military was collaborating directly with Al Qaeda barely a few weeks before 9/11.
Al Qaeda and Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI)
It is indeed revealing that in virtually all post 9/11 terrorist occurrences, the terrorist organization is reported (by the media and in official statements) as having "ties to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda". This in itself is a crucial piece of information. Of course, the fact that Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA is neither mentioned in the press reports nor is it considered relevant to an understanding of these terrorist occurrences.
The ties of these terrorist organizations (particularly those in Asia) to Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) is acknowledged in a few cases by official sources and press dispatches. Confirmed by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), some of these groups are said to have links to Pakistan's ISI, without identifying the nature of these links. Needless to say, this information is crucial in identifying the sponsors of these terrorist attacks. In other words, the ISI is said to support these terrorist organizations, while at same time maintaining close ties to the CIA.
September 11
While Colin Powell --without supporting evidence-pointed in his February 2003 UN address to "the sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network", official documents, press and intelligence reports confirm that successive US administrations have supported and abetted the Islamic militant network. This relationship is an established fact, corroborated by numerous studies, acknowledged by Washington's mainstream think tanks.
Both Colin Powell and his Deputy Richard Armitage, who in the months leading up to the war casually accused Baghdad and other foreign governments of "harboring" Al Qaeda, played a direct role, at different points in their careers, in supporting terrorist organizations.
Both men were implicated --operating behind the scenes-- in the Irangate Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration, which involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to finance the Nicaraguan Contra paramilitary army and the Afghan Mujahideen. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration,http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO303D.html )
Moreover, both Richard Armitage and Colin Powell played a role in the 9/11 cover-up. The investigations and research conducted in the last two years, including official documents, testimonies and intelligence reports, indicate that September 11 was an carefully planned intelligence operation, rather than a act conducted by a terrorist organization. (For further details, see Centre for Research on Globalization, 24 Key articles, September 2003)
The FBI confirmed in a report made public late September 2001 the role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence. According to the report, the alleged 9-11 ring leader, Mohammed Atta, had been financed from sources out of Pakistan. A subsequent intelligence report confirmed that the then head of the ISI General Mahmoud Ahmad had transferred money to Mohammed Atta. (See Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalization, op.cit.)
Moreover, press reports and official statements confirm that the head of the ISI, was an official visit to the US from the 4th to 13th of September 2001. In other words, the head of Pakistan's ISI, who allegedly transferred money to the terrorists also had a close personal relationship with a number of senior Bush Administration officials, including Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage, whom he met in the course of his visit to Washington. (Ibid)
The Antiwar Movement
A cohesive antiwar movement cannot be based solely on the mobilization of antiwar sentiment. It must ultimately unseat the war criminals and question their right to rule.
A necessary condition for bringing down the rulers is to weaken and eventually dismantle their propaganda campaign.
The momentum of the large anti-war rallies in the US, the European Union and around the world, should lay the foundations of a permanent network composed of tens of thousands of local level anti-war committees in neighborhoods, work places, parishes, schools, universities, etc. It is ultimately through this network that the legitimacy of those who "rule in our name" will be challenged.
To shunt the Bush Administration's war plans and disable its propaganda machine, we must reach out to our fellow citizens across the land, in the US, Europe and around the world, to the millions of ordinary people who have been misled on the causes and consequences of this war.
This also implies fully uncovering the lies behind the "war on terrorism" and revealing the political complicity of the Bush administration in the events of 9/11.
September 11 is a hoax. It's the biggest lie in US history.
Needless to say, the use of "massive casualty producing events" as pretext to wage war is a criminal act. In the words of Andreas van Buelow, former German Minister of Technology and author of The CIA and September 11:
"If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up behind bars."
Yet it is not sufficient to remove George W. Bush or Tony Blair, who are mere puppets. We must also address the role of the global banks, corporations and financial institutions, which indelibly stand behind the military and political actors.
Increasingly, the military-intelligence establishment (rather than the State Department, the White House and the US Congress) is calling the shots on US foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Texas oil giants, the defense contractors, Wall Street and the powerful media giants, operating discreetly behind the scenes, are pulling the strings. If politicians become a source of major embarrassment, they can themselves be discredited by the media, discarded and a new team of political puppets can be brought to office.
Criminalization of the State
The "Criminalization of the State", is when war criminals legitimately occupy positions of authority, which enable them to decide "who are the criminals", when in fact they are criminals.
In the US, both Republicans and Democrats share the same war agenda and there are war criminals in both parties. Both parties are complicit in the 9/11 cover-up and the resultant quest for world domination. All the evidence points to what is best described as "the criminalisation of the State", which includes the Judiciary and the bipartisan corridors of the US Congress. .
Under the war agenda, high ranking officials of the Bush administration, members of the military, the US Congress and the Judiciary have been granted the authority not only to commit criminal acts, but also to designate those in the antiwar movement who are opposed to these criminal acts as "enemies of the State."
More generally, the US military and security apparatus endorses and supports dominant economic and financial interests - i.e. the build-up, as well as the exercise, of military might enforces "free trade". The Pentagon is an arm of Wall Street; NATO coordinates its military operations with the World Bank and the IMF's policy interventions, and vice versa. Consistently, the security and defense bodies of the Western military alliance, together with the various civilian governmental and intergovernmental bureaucracies (e.g. IMF, World Bank, WTO) share a common understanding, ideological consensus and commitment to the New World Order.
To reverse the tide of war, military bases must be closed down, the war machine (namely the production of advanced weapons systems like WMDs) must be stopped and the burgeoning police state must be dismantled. More generally we must reverse the "free market" reforms, dismantle the institutions of global capitalism and disarm financial markets.
The struggle must be broad-based and democratic encompassing all sectors of society at all levels, in all countries, uniting in a major thrust: workers, farmers, independent producers, small businesses, professionals, artists, civil servants, members of the clergy, students and intellectuals.
The antiwar and anti-globalisation movements must be integrated into a single worldwide movement. People must be united across sectors, "single issue" groups must join hands in a common and collective understanding on how the New World Order destroys and impoverishes.
The globalization of this struggle is fundamental, requiring a degree of solidarity and internationalism unprecedented in world history. This global economic system feeds on social divisiveness between and within countries. Unity of purpose and worldwide coordination among diverse groups and social movements is crucial. A major thrust is required which brings together social movements in all major regions of the world in a common pursuit and commitment to the elimination of poverty and a lasting world peace.





Memo: Bush Made Intel Fit Iraq Policy
By WARREN P. STROBEL and JOHN WALCOTT
>05/06/05 "Knight Ridder" - - WASHINGTON - A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy.

The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.

The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war.

"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable," the MI-6 chief said at the meeting, according to the memo. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," weapons of mass destruction.

The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

The White House has repeatedly denied accusations made by several top foreign officials that it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of Iraq.

It has instead pointed to the conclusions of two studies, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and one by a presidentially appointed panel, that cite serious failures by the CIA and other agencies in judging Saddam's weapons programs.

The principal U.S. intelligence analysis, called a National Intelligence Estimate, wasn't completed until October 2002, well after the United States and United Kingdom had apparently decided military force should be used to overthrow Saddam's regime.

The newly disclosed memo, which was first reported by the Sunday Times of London, hasn't been disavowed by the British government. A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington referred queries to another official, who didn't return calls for comment on Thursday.

A former senior U.S. official called it "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during the senior British intelligence officer's visit to Washington. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on leaked British documents.

In July 2002, and well afterward, top Bush administration foreign policy advisers were insisting that "there are no plans to attack Iraq on the president's desk."

But the memo quotes British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a close colleague of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, as saying that "Bush had made up his mind to take military action."

Straw is quoted as having his doubts about the Iraqi threat.

"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran," the memo reported he said.

Straw reportedly proposed that Saddam be given an ultimatum to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors, which could help justify the eventual use of force.

Powell in August 2002 persuaded Bush to make the case against Saddam at the United Nations and to push for renewed weapons inspections.

But there were deep divisions within the White House over that course of action. The British document says that the National Security Council, then led by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with the U.N. route."

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats asking Bush for an explanation of the document's charges, an aide said.

Copyright Knight Ridder</span>


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06/12/05 "The Times" - See also: - June 12, 2005 Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action
Ministers Were Told Of Need For Gulf War ‘Excuse


Michael Smith
06/12/05 "The Times" - - MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.


The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.


The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.


This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.


“US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”.


The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times.


The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.


“It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed.


The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.


The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.


There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.


The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington.


The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”.


John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to “manufacture” the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.


He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme.


Frustrated at the refusal by the White House to respond to their letter, the congressmen have set up a website — www.downingstreetmemo.com — to collect signatures on a petition demanding the same answers.


Conyers promised to deliver it to Bush once it reached 250,000 signatures. By Friday morning it already had more than 500,000 with as many as 1m expected to have been obtained when he delivers it to the White House on Thursday.


AfterDowningStreet.org, another website set up as a result of the memo, is calling for a congressional committee to consider whether Bush’s actions as depicted in the memo constitute grounds for impeachment.


It has been flooded with visits from people angry at what they see as media self-censorship in ignoring the memo. It claims to have attracted more than 1m hits a day.


Democrats.com, another website, even offered $1,000 (about £550) to any journalist who quizzed Bush about the memo’s contents, although the Reuters reporter who asked the question last Tuesday was not aware of the reward and has no intention of claiming it.


The complaints of media self-censorship have been backed up by the ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio, who have questioned the lack of attention the minutes have received from their organisations.</span>




See also: - June 12, 2005 Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action<span> </span>
<span> </span>
<span>Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd



Dick Cheney’s Song of America
The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.</span>
By David Armstrong
<span>Harper's Magazine, 0017789X, Oct 2002, Vol. 305, Issue 1829</span>
Few writers are more ambitious than the writers of government policy papers, and few policy papers are more ambitious than Dick Cheney’s masterwork. It has taken several forms over the last decade and is in fact the product of several ghostwriters (notably Paul Wolfowitz and Colin Powell), but Cheney has been consistent in his dedication to the ideas in the documents that bear his name, and he has maintained a close association with the ideologues behind them. Let us, therefore, call Cheney the author, and this series of documents the Plan.
The Plan was published in unclassified form most recently under the title of Defense Strategy for the 1990s, (pdf) as Cheney ended his term as secretary of defense under the elder George Bush in early 1993, but it is, like “Leaves of Grass,” a perpetually evolving work. It was the controversial Defense Planning Guidance draft of 1992 – from which Cheney, unconvincingly, tried to distance himself – and it was the somewhat less aggressive revised draft of that same year. This June it was a presidential lecture in the form of a commencement address at West Point, and in July it was leaked to the press as yet another Defense Planning Guidance (this time under the pen name of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld). It will take its ultimate form, though, as America’s new national security strategy – and Cheney et al. will experience what few writers have even dared dream: their words will become our reality.
The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.
The Plan is disturbing in many ways, and ultimately unworkable. Yet it is being sold now as an answer to the “new realities” of the post-September 11 world, even as it was sold previously as the answer to the new realities of the post-Cold War world. For Cheney, the Plan has always been the right answer, no matter how different the questions.
Cheney’s unwavering adherence to the Plan would be amusing, and maybe a little sad, except that it is now our plan. In its pages are the ideas that we now act upon every day with the full might of the United States military. Strangely, few critics have noted that Cheney’s work has a long history, or that it was once quite unpopular, or that it was created in reaction to circumstances that are far removed from the ones we now face. But Cheney is a well-known action man. One has to admire, in a way, the Babe Ruth-like sureness of his political work. He pointed to center field ten years ago, and now the ball is sailing over the fence.
Before the Plan was about domination it was about money. It took shape in late 1989, when the Soviet threat was clearly on the decline, and, with it, public support for a large military establishment. Cheney seemed unable to come to terms with either new reality. He remained deeply suspicious of the Soviets and strongly resisted all efforts to reduce military spending. Democrats in Congress jeered his lack of strategic vision, and a few within the Bush Administration were whispering that Cheney had become an irrelevant factor in structuring a response to the revolutionary changes taking place in the world.
More adaptable was the up-and-coming General Colin Powell, the newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, Powell had seen the changes taking place in the Soviet Union firsthand and was convinced that the ongoing transformation was irreversible. Like Cheney, he wanted to avoid military cuts, but he knew they were inevitable. The best he could do was minimize them, and the best way to do that would be to offer a new security structure that would preserve American military capabilities despite reduced resources.
Powell and his staff believed that a weakened Soviet Union would result in shifting alliances and regional conflict. The United States was the only nation capable of managing the forces at play in the world; it would have to remain the preeminent military power in order to ensure the peace and shape the emerging order in accordance with American interests. U.S. military strategy, therefore, would have to shift from global containment to managing less-well-defined regional struggles and unforeseen contingencies. To do this, the United States would have to project a military “forward presence” around the world; there would be fewer troops but in more places. This plan still would not be cheap, but through careful restructuring and superior technology, the job could be done with 25 percent fewer troops. Powell insisted that maintaining superpower status must be the first priority of the U.S. military. “We have to put a shingle outside our door saying, ‘Superpower Lives Here,’ no matter what the Soviets do,” he said at the time. He also insisted that the troop levels be proposed were the bare minimum necessary to do so. This concept would come to be known as the “Base Force.”
Powell’s work on the subject proved timely. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, and five days later Powell had his new strategy ready to present to Cheney. Even as decades of repression were ending in Eastern Europe, however, Cheney still could not abide even the force and budget reductions Powell proposed. Yet he knew that cuts were unavoidable. Having no alternative of his own to offer, therefore, he reluctantly encouraged Powell to present his ideas to the president. Powell did so the next day; Bush made no promises but encouraged him to keep at it.
Less encouraging was the reaction of Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary of defense for policy. A lifelong proponent of the unilateralist, maximum-force approach, he shared Cheney’s skepticism about the Eastern Bloc and so put his own staff to work on a competing plan that would somehow accommodate the possibility of Soviet backsliding.
As Powell and Wolfowitz worked out their strategies, Congress was losing patience. New calls went up for large cuts in defense spending in light of the new global environment. The harshest critique of Pentagon planning came from a usually dependable ally of the military establishment, Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee. Nunn told fellow senators in March 1990 that there was a “threat blank” in the administration’s proposed $295 billion defense budget and that the Pentagon’s “basic assessment of the overall threat to our national security” was “rooted in the past.” The world had changed and yet the “development of a new military strategy that responds to the changes in the threat has not yet occurred.” Without that response, no dollars would be forthcoming.
Nunn’s message was clear. Powell and Wolfowitz began filling in the blanks. Powell started promoting a Zen-like new rationale for his Base Force approach. With the Soviets rapidly becoming irrelevant, Powell argued, the United States could no longer assess its military needs on the basis of known threats. Instead, the Pentagon should focus on maintaining the ability to address a wide variety of new and unknown challenges. This shift from a “threat based” assessment of military requirements to a “capability based” assessment would become a key theme of the Plan. The United States would move from countering Soviet attempts at dominance to ensuring its own dominance. Again, this project would not be cheap.
Powell’s argument, circular though it may have been, proved sufficient to hold off Congress. Winning support among his own colleagues, however, proved more difficult. Cheney remained deeply skeptical about the Soviets, and Wolfowitz was only slowly coming around. To account for future uncertainties, Wolfowitz recommended drawing down U.S. forces to roughly the levels proposed by Powell, but doing so at a much slower pace; seven years as opposed to the four Powell suggested. He also built in a “crisis response/reconstitution” clause that would allow for reversing the process if events in the Soviet Union, or elsewhere, turned ugly.
With these now elements in place, Cheney saw something that might work. By combining Powell’s concepts with those of Wolfowitz, he could counter congressional criticism that his proposed defense budget was out of line with the new strategic reality, while leaving the door open for future force increases. In late June, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Cheney presented their plan to the president, and within as few weeks Bush was unveiling the new strategy.
Bush laid out the rationale for the Plan in a speech in Aspen, Colorado, on August 2, 1990. He explained that since the danger of global war had substantially receded, the principal threats to American security would emerge in unexpected quarters. To counter those threats, he said, the United States would increasingly base the size and structure of its forces on the need to respond to “regional contingencies” and maintain a peacetime military presence overseas. Meeting that need would require maintaining the capability to quickly deliver American forces to any “corner of the globe,” and that would mean retaining many major weapons systems then under attack in Congress as overly costly and unnecessary, including the “Star Wars” missile-defense program. Despite those massive outlays, Bush insisted that the proposed restructuring would allow the United States to draw down its active forces by 25 percent in the years ahead, the same figure Powell had projected ten months earlier.
The Plan’s debut was well timed. By a remarkable coincidence, Bush revealed it the very day Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait.
The Gulf War temporarily reduced the pressure to cut military spending. It also diverted attention from some of the Plan’s less appealing aspects. In addition, it inspired what would become one of the Plan’s key features: the use of “overwhelming force” to quickly defeat enemies, a concept since dubbed the Powell Doctrine.
Once the Iraqi threat was “contained,” Wolfowitz returned to his obsession with the Soviets, planning various scenarios involved possible Soviet intervention in regional conflicts. The failure of the hard-liner coup against Gorbachev in August 1991, however, made it apparent that such planning might be unnecessary. Then, in late December, just as the Pentagon was preparing to put the Plan in place, the Soviet Union collapsed.
With the Soviet Union gone, the United States had a choice. It could capitalize on the euphoria of the moment by nurturing cooperative relations and developing multilateral structures to help guide the global realignment then taking place; or it could consolidate its power and pursue a strategy of unilateralism and global dominance. It chose the latter course.
In early 1992, as Powell and Cheney campaigned to win congressional support for their augmented Base Force plan, a new logic entered into their appeals. The United States, Powell told members of the House Armed Services Committee, required “sufficient power” to “deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging us on the world stage.” To emphasize the point, he cast the United States in the role of street thug. “I want to be the bully on the block,” he said, implanting in the mind of potential opponents that “there is no future in trying to challenge the armed forces of the United States.”
As Powell and Cheney were making this new argument in their congressional rounds, Wolfowitz was busy expanding the concept and working to have it incorporated into U.S. policy. During the early months of 1992, Wolfowitz supervised the preparation of an internal Pentagon policy statement used to guide military officials in the preparation of their forces, budgets, and strategies. The classified document, known as the Defense Planning Guidance, depicted a world dominated by the United States, which would maintain its superpower status through a combination of positive guidance and overwhelming military might. the image was one of a heavily armed City on a Hill.
The DPG stated that the “first objective” of U.S. defense strategy was “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival.” Achieving this objective required that the United States “prevent any hostile power from dominating a region” of strategic significance. America’s new mission would be to convince allies and enemies alike “that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.”
Another new theme was the use of preemptive military force. The options, the DPG noted, ranged from taking preemptive military action to head off a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack to “punishing” or “threatening punishment of” aggressors “through a variety of means,” including strikes against weapons-manufacturing facilities.
The DPG also envisioned maintaining a substantial U.S. nuclear arsenal while discouraging the development of nuclear programs in other countries. It depicted a “U.S.-led system of collective security” that implicitly precluded the need for rearmament of any king by countries such as Germany and Japan. And it called for the “early introduction” of a global missile-defense system that would presumably render all missile-launched weapons, including those of the United States, obsolete. (The United States would, of course, remain the world’s dominant military power on the strength of its other weapons systems.)
The story, in short, was dominance by way of unilateral action and military superiority. While coalitions – such as the one formed during the Gulf War – held “considerable promise for promoting collective action,” the draft DPG stated, the United States should expect future alliances to be “ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted, and in many cases carrying only general agreement over the objectives to be accomplished.” It was essential to create “the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S.” and essential that America position itself “to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated” or in crisis situation requiring immediate action. “While the U.S. cannot become the world’s policeman,” the document said, “we will retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends.” Among the interests the draft indicated the United States would defend in this manner were “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism.”
The DPC was leaked to the New York Times in March 1992. Critics on both the left and the right attacked it immediately. Then-presidential candidate Pat Buchanan portrayed candidate a “blank check” to America’s allies by suggesting the United States would “go to war to defend their interests.” Bill Clinton’s deputy campaign manager, George Stephanopoulos, characterized it as an attempt by Pentagon officials to “find an excuse for big defense budgets instead of downsizing.” Delaware Senator Joseph Biden criticized the Plan’s vision of a “Pax Americana, a global security system where threats to stability are suppressed or destroyed by U.S. military power.” Even those who found the document’s stated goals commendable feared that its chauvinistic tone could alienate many allies. Cheney responded by attempting to distance himself from the Plan. The Pentagon’s spokesman dismissed the leaked document as a “low-level draft” and claimed that Cheney had not seen it. Yet a fifteen-page section opened by proclaiming that it constituted “definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense.”
Powell took a more forthright approach to dealing with the flap: he publicly embraced the DPG’s core concept. In a TV interview, he said he believed it was “just fine” that the United States reign as the world’s dominant military power. “I don’t think we should apologize for that,” he said. Despite bad reviews in the foreign press, Powell insisted that America’s European allies were “not afraid” of U.S. military might because it was “power that could be trusted” and “will not be misused.”
Mindful that the draft DPG’s overt expression of U.S. dominance might not fly, Powell in the same interview also trotted out a new rationale for the original Base Force plan. He argued that in a post-Soviet world, filled with new dangers, the United States needed the ability to fight on more than one front at a time. “One of the most destabilizing things we could do,” he said, “is to cut our forces so much that if we’re tied up in one area of the world ..... and we are not seen to have the ability to influence another area of the world, we might invite just the sort of crisis we’re trying to deter.” This two-war strategy provided a possible answer to Nunn’s “threat blank.” One unknown enemy wasn’t enough to justify lavish defense budgets, but two unknown enemies might do the trick.
Within a few weeks the Pentagon had come up with a more comprehensive response to the DPG furor. A revised version was leaked to the press that was significantly less strident in tone, though only slightly less strident in fact. While calling for the United States to prevent “any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests,” the new draft stressed that America would act in concert with its allies – when possible. It also suggested the United Nations might take an expanded role in future political, economic, and security matters, a concept conspicuously absent from the original draft.
The controversy died down, and, with a presidential campaign under way, the Pentagon did nothing to stir it up again. Following Bush’s defeat, however, the Plan reemerged. In January 1993, in his very last days in office. Cheney released a final version. The newly titled Defense Strategy for the 1990s retained the soft touch of the revised draft DPG as well as its darker themes. The goal remained to preclude “hostile competitors from challenging our critical interests” and preventing the rise of a new super-power. Although it expressed a “preference” for collective responses in meeting such challenges, it made clear that the United States would play the lead role in any alliance. Moreover, it noted that collective action would “not always be timely.” Therefore, the United States needed to retain the ability to “act independently, if necessary.” To do so would require that the United States maintain its massive military superiority. Others were not encouraged to follow suit. It was kinder, gentler dominance, but it was dominance all the same. And it was this thesis that Cheney and company nailed to the door on their way out.
The new administration tacitly rejected the heavy-handed, unilateral approach to U.S. primacy favored by Powell, Cheney, and Wolfowitz. Taking office in the relative calm of the early post – Cold War era, Clinton sought to maximize America’s existing position of strength and promote its interests through economic diplomacy, multilateral institutions (dominated by the United States), greater international free trade, and the development of allied coalitions, including American-led collective military action. American policy, in short, shifted from global dominance to globalism.
Clinton also failed to prosecute military campaigns with sufficient vigor to satisfy the defense strategists of the previous administration. Wolfowitz found Clinton’s Iraq policy especially infuriating. During the Gulf War, Wolfowitz harshly criticized the decision – endorsed by Powell and Cheney – to end the war once the U.N. mandate of driving Saddam’s forces from Kuwait had been fulfilled, leaving the Iraqi dictator in office. He called on the Clinton Administration to finish the job by arming Iraqi opposition forces and sending U.S. ground troops to defense a base of operation for them in the southern region of the country. In a 1996 editorial, Wolfowitz raised the prospect of launching a preemptive attack against Iraq. “Should we sit idly by,” he wrote, “with our passive containment policy and our inept cover operations, and wait until a tyrant possessing large quantities of weapons of mass destruction and sophisticated delivery systems strikes out at us?” Wolfowitz suggested it was “necessary” to “go beyond the containment strategy.”
Wolfowitz’s objections to Clinton’s military tactics were not limited to Iraq. Wolfowitz had endorsed President Bush’s decision in late 1992 to intervene in Somalia on a limited humanitarian basis. Clinton later expanded the mission into a broader peacekeeping effort, a move that ended in disaster. With perfect twenty-twenty hindsight, Wolfowitz decried Clinton’s decision to send U.S. troops into combat “where there is no significant U.S. national interest.” He took a similar stance on Clinton’s ill-fated democracy-building effort in Haiti, chastising the president for engaging “American military prestige” on an issue” of the little or no importance” to U.S. interests. Bosnia presented a more complicated mix of posturing and ideologics. While running for president, Clinton had scolded the Bush Administration for failing to take action to stem the flow of blood in the Balkans. Once in office, however, and chastened by their early misadventures in Somalia and Haiti, Clinton and his advisers struggled to articulate a coherent Bosnia policy. Wolfowitz complained in 1994 of the administration’s failure to “develop an effective course of action.' He personally advocated arming the Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs. Powell, on the other hand, publicly cautioned against intervention. In 1995 a U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign, combined with a Croat-Muslim ground offensive, forced the Serbs into negotiations, leading to the Dayton Peace Accords. In 1999, as Clinton rounded up support for joint U.S.-NATO action in Kosovo, Wolfowitz hectored the president for failing to act quickly enough.
After eight years of what Cheney et al. regarded as wrong-headed military adventures and pinprick retaliatory strikes, the Clinton Administration – mercifully, in their view – came to an end. With the ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency, the authors of the Plan returned to government, ready to pick up where they had left off. Cheney of course, became vice president, Powell became secretary of state, and Wolfowitz moved into the number two slot at the Pentagon, as Donald Rumsfeld’s deputy. Other contributors also returned: Two prominent members of the Wolfowitz team that crafted the original DPG took up posts on Cheney’s staff. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who served as Wolfowitz’s deputy during Bush I, became the vice president’s chief of staff and national security adviser. And Eric Edelman, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush Administration, became a top foreign policy adviser to Cheney.
Cheney and company had not changed their minds during the Clinton interlude about the correct course for U.S. policy, but they did not initially appear bent on resurrecting the Plan. Rather than present a unified vision of foreign policy to the world, in the early going the administration focused on promoting a series of seemingly unrelated initiatives. Notable among these were missile defense and space-based weaponry, long-standing conservative causes. In addition, a distinct tone of unilateralism emerged as the new administration announced its intent to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in order to pursue missile defense; its opposition to U.S. ratification of an international nuclear-test-ban pact; and its refusal to become a party to an International Criminal Court. It also raised the prospect of ending the self-imposed U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing initiated by the President’s father during the 1992 presidential campaign. Moreover, the administration adopted a much tougher diplomatic posture, as evidenced, most notably, by a distinct hardening of relations with both China and North Korea. While none of this was inconsistent with the concept of U.S. dominance, these early actions did not, at the time, seem to add up to a coherent strategy.
It was only after September 11 that the Plan emerged in full. Within days of the attacks, Wolfowitz and Libby began calling for unilateral military action against Iraq, on the shaky premise that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network could not have pulled off the assaults without Saddam Hussein’s assistance. At the time, Bush rejected such appeals, but Wolfowitz kept pushing and the President soon came around. In his State of the Union address in January, Bush labeled Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an “axis of evil,” and warned that he would “not wait on events” to prevent them from using weapons of mass destruction against the United States. He reiterated his commitment to preemption in his West Point speech in June. “If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long,” he said. “We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge.” Although it was less noted, Bush in that same speech also reintroduced the Plan’s central theme. He declared that the United States would prevent the emergence of a rival power by maintaining “military strengths beyond the challenge.” With that, the President effectively adopted a strategy his father’s administration had developed ten years earlier to ensure that the United States would remain the world’s preeminent power. While the headlines screamed “preemption,” no one noticed the declaration of the dominance strategy.
In case there was any doubt about the administration’s intentions, the Pentagon’s new DPG lays them out. Signed by Wolfowitz’s new boss, Donald Rumsfeld, in May and leaked to the Los Angeles Times in July, it contains all the key elements of the original Plan and adds several complementary features. The preemptive strikes envisioned in the original draft DPG are now “unwarned attacks.” The old Powell-Cheney notion of military “forward presence” is now “forwarded deterrence.” The use of overwhelming force to defeat an enemy called for in the Powell Doctrine is now labeled an “effects based” approach.
Some of the names have stayed the same. Missile defense is back, stronger than ever, and the call goes up again for a shift from a “threat based” structure to a “capabilities based” approach. The new DPG also emphasizes the need to replace the so-called Cold War strategy of preparing to fight two major conflicts simultaneously with what the Los Angeles Times refers to as “a more complex approach aimed at dominating air and space on several fronts.” This, despite the fact that Powell had originally conceived – and the first Bush Administration had adopted – the two-war strategy as a means of filling the “threat blank” left by the end of the Cold War.
Rumsfeld’s version adds a few new ideas, most impressively the concept of preemptive strikes with nuclear weapons. These would be earth-penetrating nuclear weapons used for attacking “hardened and deeply buried targets,” such as command-and-control bunkers, missile silos, and heavily fortified underground facilities used to build and store weapons of mass destruction. The concept emerged earlier this year when the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review leaked out. At the time, arms-control experts warned that adopting the NPR’s recommendations would undercut existing arms-control treaties, do serious harm to nonproliferation efforts, set off new rounds of testing, and dramatically increase the prospectus of nuclear weapons being used in combat. Despite these concerns, the administration appears intent on developing the weapons. In a final flourish, the DPG also directs the military to develop cyber-, laser-, and electronic-warfare capabilities to ensure U.S. dominion over the heavens.
Rumsfeld spelled out these strategies in Foreign affairs earlier this year, and it is there that he articulated the remaining elements of the Plan; unilateralism and global dominance. Like the revised DPG of 1992, Rumsfeld feigns interest in collective action but ultimately rejects it as impractical. “Wars can benefit from coalitions,” he writes, “but they should not be fought by committee.” And coalitions, he adds, “must not determine the mission.” The implication is the United States will determine the missions and lead the fights. Finally, Rumsfeld expresses the key concept of the Plan: preventing the emergence of rival powers. Like the original draft DPG of 1992, he states that America’s goal is to develop and maintain the military strength necessary to “dissuade” rivals or adversaries from “competing.” with no challengers, and a proposed defense budget of $379 billion for next year, the United States would reign over all its surveys.
Reaction to the latest edition of the Plan has, thus far, focused on preemption. Commentators parrot the administration’s line, portraying the concept of preemptory strikes as a “new” strategy aimed at combating terrorism. In an op-ed piece for the Washington Post following Bush’s West Point address, former Clinton adviser William Galston described preemption as part of a “brand-new security doctrine,” and warned of possible negative diplomatic consequences. Others found the concept more appealing. Loren Thompson of the conservative Lexington Institute hailed the “Bush Doctrine” as “a necessary response to the new dangers that America faces” and declared it “the biggest shift in strategic thinking in two generations.” Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley echoed that sentiment, writing that “no talk of this ilk has been heard from American leaders since John Foster Dulles talked of rolling back the Iron Curtain.”
Preemption, of course, is just part of the Plan, and the Plan is hardly new. It is a warmed-over version of the strategy Cheney and his coauthors rolled out in 1992 as the answer to the end of the Cold War. Then the goal was global dominance, and it met with bad reviews. Now it is the answer to terrorism. The emphasis is on preemption, and the reviews are generally enthusiastic. Through all of this, the dominance motif remains, though largely undetected.
This country once rejected “unwarned” attacks such as Pearl Harbor as barbarous and unworthy of a civilized nation. Today many cheer the prospect of conducting sneak attacks – potentially with nuclear weapons – on piddling powers run by tin-pot despots.
We also once denounced those who tried to rule the world. Our primary objection (at least officially) to the Soviet Union as its quest for global domination. Through the successful employment of the tools of containment, deterrence, collective security, and diplomacy – the very methods we now reject – we rid ourselves and the world of the Evil Empire. Having done so, we now pursue the very thing for which we opposed it. And now that the Soviet Union is gone, there appears to be no one left to stop us.
Perhaps, however, there is. The Bush Administration and its loyal opposition seem not to grasp that the quests for dominance generate backlash. Those threatened with preemption may themselves launch preemptory strikes. And even those who are successfully “preempted” or dominated may object and find means to strike back. Pursuing such strategies may, paradoxically, result in greater factionalism and rivalry, precisely the things we seek to end.
Not all Americans share Colin Powell’s desire to be “the bully on the block.” In fact, some believe that by following a different path the United States has an opportunity to establish a more lasting security environment. As Dartmouth professors Stephen Brooks and William Woblforth wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, “Unipolarity makes it possible to be the global bully – but it also offers the United States the luxury of being able to look beyond its immediate needs to its own, and the world’s, long-term interests. ..... Magnanimity and restraint in the face of temptation are tenets of successful statecraft that have proved their worth.” Perhaps, in short, we can achieve our desired ends by means other than global domination.



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Hello. My name is Porter Stansberry.

A little over ten years ago I founded Stansberry & Associates Investment Research. It has become one of the largest and most recognized investment research companies in the world, serving hundreds of thousands of subscribers in more than 120 countries.

You may know of our firm because of the work we did over the last several years – helping investors avoid the big disasters associated with Wall Street's collapse.

We warned investors to avoid Fannie and Freddie, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and General Motors and dozens of other companies that have since collapsed. We even helped our subscribers find opportunities to profit from these moves by shorting stocks and buying put options. To my knowledge, no other research firm in the world can match our record of correctly predicting the catastrophe that occurred in 2008.

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I reference our success and experience with Wall Street's latest crisis because we believe there is an even bigger crisis lurking – something that will shake the very foundation of America.

And that is why I've spent a significant amount of time and money in the past few months preparing this letter.
In short, I want to talk about a specific event that will take place in America's very near future... which could actually bring our country and our way of life to a grinding halt.This looming crisis is related to the financial crisis of 2008... but it is infinitely more dangerous, as I'll explain in this letter.

As this problem comes to a head, I expect there to be riots in the streets... arrests on an unprecedented scale... and martial law, enforced by the U.S. military.

Believe me, I don't make this prediction lightly and I have no interest in trying to scare you.

I'm simply following my research to its logical conclusion.

I did the same when I tracked Fannie and Freddie's accounting. The same with General Motors. And Bear Stearns and the rest. And when I began giving this warning in 2006 no one took me very seriously... not at first. Back then, most mainstream commentators just ignored me.

And when I presented my case and exposed the facts at economic conferences, they got angry. They couldn't refute my research... but they weren't ready to accept the enormity of its conclusions either.

That's why, before I go any further, I have to warn you...
What I am going to say is controversial. It will offend many people... Democrats, Republicans, and Tea Partiers, alike. In fact, I've already received dozens of pieces of hate mail.

And... the ideas and solutions I'm going to present might seem somewhat radical to you at first... perhaps even "un-American."My guess is that, as you read this letter... you'll say: "There's no way this could really happen... not here."

But just remember:
No one believed me three years ago when I said the world's largest mortgage bankers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would soon go bankrupt.

And no one believed me when I said GM would soon be bankrupt as well... or that the same would happen to General Growth Properties (the biggest owner of mall property in America).But again, that's exactly what happened.

And that brings us to today...

The same financial problems I've been tracking from bank to bank, from company to company for the last five years have now found their way into the U.S. Treasury. I'll explain how this came to be. What it means is critically important to you and every American...

The next phase in this crisis will threaten our very way of life.

The savings of millions will be wiped out. This disaster will change your business and your work. It will dramatically affect your savings accounts, investments, and retirement.

It will change everything about your normal way of life: where you vacation... where you send you kids or grandkids to school... how and where you shop... the way you protect your family and home.

I'll explain how I know these events are about to happen. You can decide for yourself if I'm full of hot air. As for me, I'm more certain about this looming crisis than I've been about anything else in my life.

I know that debts don't just disappear. I know that bailouts have big consequences. And, unlike most of the pundits on TV, I know a lot about finance and accounting.

Of course, the most important part of this situation is not what is happening... but rather what you can do about it.

In other words: Will you be prepared when the proverbial $@*% hits the fan?
Don't worry, I'm not organizing a rally or demonstration. And I've turned down every request to run for political office.Instead, I want to show you exactly what I'm doing personally, to protect and even grow my own money, and how you can prepare as well.

You see, I can tell you with near 100% certainty that most Americans will not know what to do when commodity prices – things like milk, bread and gasoline – soar. They won't know what to do when banks close... and their credit cards stop working. Or when they're not allowed to buy gold or foreign currencies. Or when food stamps fail...

In short, our way of life in America is about to change – I promise you. In this letter I'll show you exactly what is happening.

You can challenge every single one of my facts and you'll find that I'm right about each allegation I make.

And then you can decide for yourself.

Will you act now to protect yourself and your family from the catastrophe that's brewing right now in Washington?

I hope so. And that's why I wrote this letter.

I'm going to walk you through exactly what I am doing personally, and what you can do as well. I can't promise you'll emerge from this crisis completely unharmed – but I can just about guarantee you'll be a lot better off than people who don't follow these simple steps.

But I'm getting ahead of myself just a bit.

Let me back up and show you in the simplest terms possible what is going on, why I am so concerned, and what I believe will happen in the next 12 months...

The Greatest Danger
America Has Ever Faced?
In short, I believe that we as Americans are about to see a major, major collapse in our national monetary system, and our normal way of life.

Basically, for many years now, our government has been borrowing so much money (very often using short-term loans), that very soon, we will no longer be able to afford even the interest on these loans.

Again... I say these things as an expert in accounting and financial research.

You may not think things are THAT BAD in the U.S. economy, but consider this simple fact from the National Inflation Association:

Even if all U.S. citizens were taxed 100% of their income... it would still not be enough to balance the Federal budget! We'd still have to borrow money, just to maintain the status quo.

That's absolutely incredible, isn't it?

Yet I've never seen this fact reported anywhere else.

Normally I study these kinds of numbers when I'm looking at a business to invest in or to recommend to my readers. But lately I've spent most of my time looking into our national balance sheet, because as the banking system collapsed in 2008, all of the bad debts were absorbed by the world's governments.

For example, when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed in the summer of 2008, the U.S. government responded by simply guaranteeing all of their outstanding debt.

Since then these companies have recorded hundreds of billions of losses – all of which were passed along to the government. Yes, you can still get mortgages today. And yes, Freddie and Fannie are still in business. But costs associated with these programs are piling up at the U.S. Treasury – and they are enormously expensive.

These losses and trillions in other private obligations are now the responsibility of the U.S. government.

The problem is, even before this crisis, our government was deeply in debt. With each additional commitment we sink further and further into debt... closing in upon the moment that we can simply no longer afford even the interest payments on our obligations.

According to even my most conservative calculations (using numbers provided by the Congressional Budget Office) a debt default by the U.S. government would be inevitable – were it not for one simple anomaly... the one thing that has saved the United States so far.

I'm talking about our country's unique ability to simply print more money.

You see, the U.S. government has one very important weapon to use in this crisis: It is the only debtor in the world who can legally print U.S. dollars. And the U.S. dollar is what's known as "the world's reserve currency."

The dollar forms the basis of the world's financial system. It is what banks around the world hold in reserve against their loans.

That's a secret that most politicians don't understand:
As things stand now, the U.S. government can't go broke in any ordinary sense of the word because it can simply print dollars to pay for its bad debts. (It's been doing so since March of 2009).That might sound pretty good at first. Since we can always just print more money, what is there to worry about...?

Well, let me show you...

You see, as things stand today, America is the only country in the world that doesn't have to pay for its imports in a foreign currency.

Let's say you're a German and you want to buy oil from Saudi Arabia. You can't just pay for your oil in German marks (or the new euro currency), because the oil is priced in dollars.

So you have to buy dollars first, then buy your oil.

And that means the value of the German currency is of great importance to the German government. To maintain the value of its currency Germans must produce at least as much as they consume from around the world, otherwise the value of its currency will begin to fall, causing prices to rise and its standard of living to decline.

But in America...?

We can consume as much as we want without worrying about acquiring the money to pay for it, because our dollars are accepted everywhere around the word. In short, for decades now, we haven't had to produce anything or export anything to get all the dollars we needed to buy all the oil (and other goods) our country required.

All we had to do was borrow the money.

And boy did we. Take a look at this chart...


Even as late as the 1970s, America was the world's largest creditor. But by the mid-1980s we'd become a debtor to the world. And since the late 1990s we've been the world's LARGEST debtor.

Today, our government owes more money to more people than anyone else in the world.

And that was before the financial crisis!

In short, with all of these bad debts piling up, we've had to begin repaying our debts by printing trillions of new dollars. The impact of this is only just now beginning to be felt.

And once our creditors figure out what's happening, they're going to be very angry.

I believe they will either completely stop accepting dollars in repayment... or greatly discount the value of these new dollars. I'm sure you think that sounds crazy, but as I'll show you, it is already happening.

And that will make our consumption-led way of life impossible to afford.

Just think about the price of oil...

Access to cheap oil has been America's #1 gift of owning the world's reserve currency.

This has made gas cheaper in the U.S. than almost anywhere else in the developed world. I know you may think gas prices have skyrocketed in recent years... but look at how much less we pay than other developed nations...
United States: $2.72 a gallon on average
Oslo, Norway: $7.41........ (172% higher)
Berlin, Germany: $6.82.... ( 151% higher)
London: $6.60................(143% higher)
Rome, Italy: $6.40............(135% higher)
Paris, France: $6.04...........(122% higher)
Tokyo, Japan: $5.40..........(98% higher)
Toronto, Canada: $3.81......(40% higher)And here's the thing...

If oil is no longer priced in dollars, the price of oil for Americans will skyrocket immediately. It will change our lives, overnight.

Airline travel will get much more expensive. The cost to ship goods by truck to grocery stores around the country will get much more expensive. Farming itself will get a lot more costly... so will commuting to work... taking a taxi... just about everything we do will suddenly get much more expensive.

And just remember: In order for prices to start skyrocketing, all that has to happen is that other countries start preferring payments in something besides U.S. dollars.

The U.S. dollar has been the world's currency for decades now... so most Americans don't have a clue about what the repercussions are of losing this status.

You might think this could never happen... but it happens all the time when countries get too far in debt or when they consume too much or produce too little.

In fact, the same thing happened to Great Britain in the 1970s.

Most people don't know this, but British Sterling was the reserve currency for most of the world for nearly 200 years... for most of the 18th and 19th centuries.

It continued to play this role until after World War II, when America was forced to prop up Britain's economy with foreign aid – remember the famous Marshall Plan, when we gave billions to help European countries rebuild?

Unfortunately though, Britain pursued a socialist national agenda. The government took over all of the major industries. Like Barack Obama, Britain's leaders wanted to "spread the wealth around." Pretty soon the country was flat broke.

The final straw for Britain came in 1967, when things got so bad the Labour Party (the socialists) decided to "devalue" the British currency by 14%, overnight. They believed this would make it easier for people to afford their debts.

In reality, what it did was make anyone holding British sterling 14% poorer, overnight, and it made everything in Britain, much, much more expensive in the coming years.
And for the country as a whole, it ushered in one of the worst decades in modern British history.Most Americans don't know about Britain's "Winter of Discontent" in the late 1970s, when the government put a freeze on wages. There were continuous strikes in nearly every sector... grave diggers, trash collectors... even hospital workers. Things got so bad at one point that many hospitals were reduced to accepting emergency patients only.

In 1975, inflation in Britain skyrocketed 26.9%... in a single year!

The government also imposed what was known as the "Three Day Week" in 1974. In short, businesses were limited to using electricity for only three specified consecutive days' each week and they were prohibited from working longer hours on those days. Television companies were required to cease broadcasting at 10.30pm... to save electricity.

The extreme problems in the economy led to Britain being nicknamed, "the sick man of Europe."

Just how bad were things, exactly?

Well, listen to several Brits tell of their experiences. Their stories were collected recently by the BBC television channel...
John Blackburn, from Wetherby said:
"I was a control engineer at Huddersfield Power Station at the time and part of my duty was to switch off the supply to various substations around the town, according to an official rota. On many an evening shift I would have to switch off the power to my own home before going back for a candle-lit supper!"

Richard Evans, from London, recalls:
"My mother had to cross a picket line to get into the maternity hospital (they told her she couldn't come in....). My Grandmother had to bring in food for her to eat, and clean towels and bedding."

David Stoker, Guildford, said:
"I lived in the North East near Newcastle and I vividly remember my grandmother and I walking from one shop to another in search of candles to buy. All were sold out. Innovatively, butchers placed string down cartons of drippings which we bought... These worked although the smell and risk of fire made them less practical than candles."Imagine... Britain was a global superpower for 150 years. But when they started intentionally devaluing their currency, things went straight down hill.

Maybe you don't think something similar can happen here... but I'm telling you... it's already underway!

In fact, the exchange value of the U.S. dollar has fallen about 8% so far this year. And its rate of decline is accelerating.
What happened to the British currency is now happening to the U.S. dollar.Not only will the price of gas, oil, and other commodities skyrocket in America, almost EVERYTHING we consume will immediately get more expensive. All the clothing, furniture, and household goods we import from China.

All the food we get from Central and South America... all the electronics, televisions, computers, and cars we get from Asia and Europe.

In fact, it's happening, right now before our eyes: The price of gold is up 85% since the financial crisis. Oil prices have doubled. Soy beans are way up. Copper prices are up more than 170% since 2009. Cotton prices are up 80%... in just the past few months, since July of this year!

As Wesley Card, the head of a clothing company that includes brands like Dockers and Anne Klein, recently said: "It's really a no-choice situation. Prices have to come up."

The chart below shows how much a few key commodities have skyrocketed in price, just since the beginning of 2009...


Of course, skyrocketing commodity prices are just the beginning.

There are other disastrous consequences to the U.S. dollar losing status as the world's currency...

For example, there would be much less demand for U.S. dollars around the globe, so interest rates will skyrocket. Instead of getting a mortgage at today's incredibly low rates of 4.5%, it might cost you 8% or even 10% or 15%.

Imagine what that would do to housing prices!

Stock prices will likely plummet by at least 40% in a matter of weeks as a result of this event in the currency markets.

It will cost every American business A LOT more money for supplies and materials. No one will be able to get a loan... and no bank will want to make loans.
In short, when the U.S. dollar loses its spot as the world's 'reserve currency,' it will cause a brutal downturn in the economy, which I expect will be about 10-times worse than the mortgage crisis of 2008.You see, what will also happen as a result of this currency crisis, and the end of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, will be massive inflation, the likes of which we have never seen before.

When everyone is trying to get rid of their dollars, the government is printing more and more to pay debts, and no one wants to own them, the crisis will reach epic proportions.

Just look for example, at what happened to one European country that faced this type of crisis in the 1990s...

This is what happens during a major hyperinflation in the real world.

By the early 1990s, the national government of one European nation had spent nearly all its savings. So what did they do next? Simple... they began to steal the savings of private citizens by limiting people's access to their money in government-controlled banks.

And of course, to finance the daily operations of maintaining their basic infrastructure, they started printing money, big time. Even so, the country's basic infrastructure began to fall apart. There were potholes in the street, broken water pipes... elevators that never got repaired... and entire construction projects that simply shut down, before being completed.

At this point, the unemployment rate was more than 30%.

Not too bad, right?

But it got worse... much worse.

You see, once you start down the dangerous road of printing money, things can get extremely bad, very quickly.

As San Jose State University Economics Professor Dr. Thayer Watkins, an expert on countries that try to inflate their way out of big debts, wrote on this particular disaster:

"The government tried to counter the inflation by imposing price controls. But when inflation continued, the government price controls made the price producers were getting so ridiculously low that they simply stopped producing. bakers stopped making bread... slaughterhouses refused to sell meat to the stores... other stores closed down"

So what did the government do next to try to curb inflation?

Well, one bright idea they had was to force stores to fill out government documents every time they increased prices. They thought that this would slow down price increases, because the paperwork would take so much time!

But like many government plans, this one had terrible, unintended consequences.

Since stores had to dedicate an employee to do nothing but register this paperwork, and since the process took so long, stores began to raise prices on basic goods at even higher rates, so that they didn't have to come back and file more paperwork!

Incredible, isn't it?

Then, of course the government did what all governments do during periods of hyperinflation: They created a new currency... which basically removed six zeroes from the old one. So 100,000,000 old units were soon worth 100 new units. Of course, this didn't work either... it never does.

Between October of 1993 and January 1995, prices increase by, get this: 5 quadrillion percent. That's...

5,000,000,000,000,000%
In other words, a loaf of bread that cost $1 in 1993, suddenly cost

$50,000,000,000,001
Yes, that's $50 TRILLION.

I know, it's laughable... but I can guarantee that the people of this once proud European country weren't laughing one bit, especially those living on a fixed income.

Of course, at this point, the country completely fell apart. As Dr. Thayer Watkins wrote:
"The social structure began to collapse. Thieves robbed hospitals and clinics of scarce pharmaceuticals and then sold them in front of the same places they robbed. The railway workers went on strike and closed down the country's rail system."

At this point, businesses and citizens across the country basically refused to take the local currency.

Instead, everyone started dealing in German Marks. Keep in mind, the daily rate of inflation was nearly 100%.

Can you imagine the panic in a society when the price of just about everything doubles... every single day? It was absolute pandemonium, and the economy basically came to a grinding halt. It was like living in a war zone. Truckers stopped delivering goods. Stores, restaurants, and gas stations all shut down.

In fact, the only way to get gas was to buy it on the side of the road, from someone selling it out of a plastic can.Steve Hanke, an Economics professor at Johns Hopkins, wrote that:
"People couldn't afford to buy food in the free market – they kept from starving by either waiting in long lines at state stores for irregularly supplied rations of low-quality staples, or by relying on relatives who lived in the countryside.

For long periods, all [the] gas stations were closed, with the exception of one station that catered to foreigners and embassy personnel. People also spent an inordinate amount of time at the foreign-exchange black markets, where they traded huge piles of near-worthless money for a single German mark or US dollar note."

The number of operating busses dropped by 60%... and busses were so crowded that drivers couldn't even collect fares. Government ordered blackouts left people without heat and electricity for long periods of time.

In another ridiculous government move, they actually made it illegal to NOT accept a personal check.

Imagine... you could write a check... and in the several days that it typically takes for a check to clear, inflation would wipe out almost all of the cost of covering your check.

Of course, as is typical, the government took none of the blame. As Dr. Thayer Watkins reported, the government's official position was that the hyperinflation occurred "because of the unjustly implemented sanctions against the people and state."Again... I know what you are thinking... "just because it happened in Europe doesn't it mean it can happen here, right"?

Well guess what...

The same thing that happened in this European country – Yugoslavia – also just happened in Iceland and Greece, but on a less dramatic scale. Of course, the only reason the situations in Greece and Iceland weren't worse is because of giant foreign bailouts. Yes... that's right... more debt to solve the problem of already existing, insurmountable debts.

It's all going to come to a head soon. Much sooner than most people think.

Remember too that in roughly the past 100 years this type of debt crisis has reared its ugly head in Germany, Russia, Austria, Poland, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Poland, the Ukraine, Japan, and China.

And I believe it will soon happen right here in the United States.

Don't believe me?

Well, the truth is that it's already happening at the local and state levels. Take a look...

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank, at least 46 states face huge budget shortfalls for 2011, on top of the deficits they still haven't completely figured out for 2010.

The center reports that the total state budget shortfall could reach $160 billion.

And although many states got federal help over the past year, that aid is now gone.

So what are these desperate governments trying to do?

You probably won't believe their proposals...
* SELL EVERYTHING: The state of Arizona, for example, announced earlier this year that it is selling $735 million worth of government-owned buildings, but will still occupy them by paying a 20-year lease. The government is selling the legislative buildings, the House and Senate, the State Capitol Executive Tower, the state fairgrounds, even prisons.

* RELEASE PRISONERS: In California, the state has taken the radical step of opening its prison doors and releasing thousands of inmates. About 11% of the state budget ($8 billion) goes to the penal system (more than they spend on higher education).

So California is slashing the number of inmates by 6,500 next year. In other words, they are cutting loose about 4% of the prison population.

Incredibly, other states, including New York, may soon do the same thing.

* LIFE INSURANCE: In Georgia, the government is proposing taking out "dead peasant" policies on state employees. When these folks die, the money won't go to the dead person's family... but to the state coffers, to help pay for more programs, insurance, and pension liabilities!It's simply incredible, isn't it?

State and municipal governments are so broke, and so desperate, that they are taking unprecedented steps to at least temporarily avoid bankruptcy. Nearly every state in the union is talking about legalizing some form of gambling, to boost tax revenue. California still wants to legalize marijuana, even though it was defeated in the recent election.

Of course, none of these ridiculous steps will work on the long run.

And the truly amazing thing is that the U.S. Federal government is in even worse shape than the local governments! The only reason we haven't seen the full brunt of this crisis yet on the federal level is because we've just continued to pile on more and more debt.

The states can't print money... but the Federal government can (at least for now). And for the moment, this is all that is preventing a currency collapse of unprecedented proportions.
And this is the important point: What most people don't realize is that the U.S. government can only continue printing dollars... as long as the U.S. dollar remains the world's reserve currency.In other words, this is all going to fall apart much sooner than people think. In fact, it's already happening...

The first steps are already well underway. It is happening right now... before our very eyes.

I can't stress this enough: You need to act now in order to protect your assets, and grow your savings in the next few years. In the next few minutes, I'm going to show you exactly how I'm protecting my own money, and what I recommend doing with your own.

But first, let me show you what exactly is going on right now...

"America... must be very worried"
Like I said, most Americans don't believe the U.S. dollar could ever lose its spot as the world's reserve currency.

But I am here to tell you... this process is already well underway.

For example, although it went almost completely unreported in the U.S. press, last fall, a group of the world's most powerful countries, including China, Japan, Russia, and France, got together for a secret meeting – WITHOUT the United States being present or even knowing about the meeting.

Veteran Middle East report Robert Fisk reported on this even in the Britain's Independent newspaper:
"In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese Yen, Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar."Fisk also interviewed a Chinese banker who said:
"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions. America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."And sure enough, after Fisk published the details of this secret meeting, U.S. officials and central bankers from around the globe denied these plans.

But as the old central banking adage goes... how do you know exactly when a currency will be devalued?
The answer: Right AFTER the head of the central bank goes on television to adamantly deny that any such transaction will occur. (And guess who just went public in recent weeks with a statement about how the U.S. will "not devalue its currency"? Yes, you guessed it... U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.)You see, the last thing a central banker wants to do in the midst of a devaluation is to give people a warning BEFORE he can devalue. So they have to deny, deny, deny. After the announcement is made, it's too late for citizens and investors to get out.

Like I said, what's incredible is that this story of a secret meeting among most of the major powers besides the U.S. was greatly under reported in the American press.

But you know what... the way I see it, it's much more telling to look at actions rather than government press releases.

For example, here is what is happening, right now in the real world.

When you read these facts, I think you'll agree with me that the U.S. dollar's days are numbered, as far as remaining the world's reserve currency.

China is getting out

Cheng Siwei, a former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee, said that China is going to stop putting so much money into U.S. dollars, and will instead look to the Japanese Yen and the Euro.

China holds more U.S. dollars than anyone else on the planet. But China is getting out of the U.S. dollar as fast as they can without crashing their own economy.

Look at this chart...


It shows that China's holdings of U.S. dollars peaked in 2009, but China is unloading as many dollars as they can, as quickly as possible.

And this is just one sign of the end of the U.S. dollar standard.

There are many more...

The dollar is no longer good here

As I am sure you are aware, for years the U.S. dollar has been accepted almost universally around the globe.

Heck, many times when I've traveled, I never even bothered to convert to the local currency, because I knew everyone would take my dollars.

Well, that's simply not the case anymore...

HSBC, one of the largest banks in Mexico, no longer allows you to deposit U.S. dollars into their banks. They've done this on the heels of money-laundering allegations, but we suspect they also simply don't want to be stuck with tons of U.S. dollars, as the currency continues to decline.

This move would have been unfathomable 10 years ago... that a big bank in Mexico would no longer accept U.S. dollars for deposit. But today it is the harsh reality.

And Mexico is not the only place this is occurring...

Reuters reports that the same thing has happened in 2008 in one of Europe's most popular tourist spots...

Currency exchange outlets in Amsterdam have been reportedly turning away customers who want to exchange their U.S. dollars for Euros.

As one traveling American told the Reuters news agency: "Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here," said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. "It's hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office."

In India, the country's tourism minister said in 2008 that U.S. dollars will no longer be accepted at the country's heritage tourist sites, like the Taj Mahal. And the U.S. dollar is no longer good anywhere in Cuba.

The New York Times reports that: "now, many shops in China no longer accept dollar-based credit cards issued by foreign banks... and foreigners cannot convert American dollars into renminbi beyond a given quota."

Iran, of course, has already moved all of its reserves out of U.S. dollars, and Kuwait de-pegged it's currency from the dollar a few years ago:

Bloomberg News recently reported that China and Russia plan to start trading in each other's currencies to diminish the dollar's role in global trade. "Given the risk to the dollar and U.S. assets from their fiscal position, they want to reduce their dependence on the dollar as an invoicing currency," said Bhanu Baweja, of UBS bank.

It's even happening here in the USA

Most Americans don't know that some states in the Mid-West are already using "alternative currencies"...

An NBC News affiliate in Michigan reports that

"new types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it's not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency. Right now, for example, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender."

What most Americans don't realize is that this is all totally legal.

The U.S. Treasury Dept web site says that, according to Coinage Act of 1965: "There is... no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services."

I saw one report that says there are now 150 of these alternative local U.S. currencies being accepted around the country!

USA Today reports that the largest of these local currencies is a currency called "Berkshares," which are being used in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts.

According to the paper:
"Since its start in 2006, the system, the largest of its kind in the country, has circulated $2.3 million worth of BerkShares."And even in places that do not yet have local currencies, store owners may now actually prefer foreign currencies rather than U.S. dollars...

In Washington, DC, just 25 miles from my office, some stores have begun accepting euros. Of course, the euro isn't much more stable than the dollar right now. But my point is that most people don't understand there is NO FEDERAL REQUIREMENT in the United States for a private store to accept dollars for non-debt transactions.

You see, no matter what the government decides, stores and businesses will accept whatever they believe is a strong currency.

As Texas Representative Ron Paul wrote recently:
"If you walk into a 7-11 to buy a soda, the clerk doesn't have to accept your dollars, he could demand euros, silver, or copper. But because legal tender laws backing the dollar have caused the dollar to drive other currencies out of circulation, [right now] it is easier for stores to accept dollars."Well, all that is quickly changing...

Many places in Texas now accept Mexican pesos for payment. "Euros Accepted" signs are popping up in of all places: Manhattan. And not only Manhattan, but in New York's favorite summer playground... the Hamptons.

There, an art gallery assistant was quoted by The Real Deal: "I wouldn't want to discourage a sale in any way because of a currency issue."

And it's not just small stores that are accepting other methods of payment besides U.S. dollars.

The Chicago mercantile exchange the world's largest futures and commodities exchange board), now accepts gold to settle futures contracts. Until recently, the exchange typically accepted only U.S. treasuries and bonds as payment.

These guys obviously see the writing on the wall.

This would have all been completely unthinkable 10 years ago, but today it's a reality. And this trend is going to keep moving incredibly fast.

That is why...

The smartest investors are taking action...

Bill Gross, who probably knows as much about currencies and debt as anyone in the world, runs the world's biggest bond fund. He was quoted by Bloomberg:
"We've told all of our clients that if you only had one idea, one investment, it would be to buy an investment in a non-dollar currency. That should be on top of the list."Jim Rogers, one of the world's most successful multi-millionaire investors writes:
"The dollar is not just in decline; it's a mess. If something isn't done soon, I believe the dollar could lose its status as the world's reserve currency and medium of exchange, something that would lead to a huge decline in the standard of living for U.S. citizens like nothing we've seen in nearly a century."I know... you probably still don't believe it can happen here in the United States. But think about it...

Are we as Americans really immune to the laws of economics and finance?

I don't think so.

And every circumstance I know of, in which a government has tried to inflate its debts away, has ended in disaster. It will happen here too.

As Jim Rogers says:
"History teaches us that such imprudent monetary and fiscal behavior has always led to economic disaster."This is why World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, in a speech at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, recently said: "The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency. Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar."

And this is why the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published a paper calling for a new global world currency.

A paper entitled "Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability," written by the Strategy, Policy and Review Department of the IMF, recommends that the world adopt a global currency called the "Bancor" with a global central bank to administer the currency.

The report is dated April 13, 2010... and no, unfortunately this is not just a bad rumor.

This is a deadly serious proposal in an official document from one of most powerful institutions in the world.

Do you see where this is all heading?

As Brazilian economist and strategist Ricardo C. Amaral wrote recently:
"The US dollar served its purpose since the end of WW II and became the major foreign exchange reserve currency... [but] the days of the US dollar playing that special role... has reached the end of the line, since today that system is very sick and it is dying a slow death...

Mr. Amaral added that we will soon see: "the major collapse of the US dollar creating the biggest international monetary crisis the world has ever seen..."This is why gold and silver prices are soaring:


It's not a matter of "if" the U.S. dollar will lose its status as the world's reserve currency... it's simply a matter of "when."

Investors know there are serious, serious problems with the U.S. dollar, so they are fleeing to precious metals, which have historically been very reliable when a country has major currency problems.

In short: It's not hard to see why people are no longer accepting U.S. dollars... and why many foreign countries are pushing for a new world reserve currency.

The good news is, no matter what happens, I've found several ways for you to protect your savings – and you could even make 3- to 5-times your money over the next few years.

I'll show you exactly what to do in a moment. But first let me explain why the collapse of the dollar as the world's reserve currency could happen much sooner than most people expect...

The REAL State
of the U.S. Economy
I know many of my friends, colleagues, and family members are still in serious denial.

In the world of psychology, they call this the "normalcy bias."

You see, the normalcy bias actually refers to our natural reactions when facing a crisis.

The normalcy bias causes smart people to underestimate the possibility of a disaster and its effects. In short: People believe that since something has never happened before... it never will. We are all guilty of it... it's just human nature.

The normalcy bias also makes people unable to deal with a disaster, once it has occurred. Basically... people have a really hard time preparing for and dealing with something they have never experienced.

The normalcy bias often results in unnecessary deaths in disaster situations. For example, think about the Jewish populations of World War II...

As Barton Biggs reports in his book, Wealth, War, and Wisdom:
"By the end of 1935, 100,000 Jews had left Germany, but 450,000 still [remained]. Wealthy Jewish families... kept thinking and hoping that the worst was over...

Many of the German Jews, brilliant, cultured, and cosmopolitan as they were, were too complacent. They had been in Germany so long and were so well established, they simply couldn't believe there was going to be a crisis that would endanger them. They were too comfortable. They believed the Nazi's anti-Semitism was an episodic event and that Hitler's bark was worse than his bite. [They] reacted sluggishly to the rise of Hitler for completely understandable but tragically erroneous reasons. Events moved much faster than they could imagine."This is one of the most tragic examples of the devastating effects of the "normalcy bias" the world has ever seen.

Just think about what was going on at the time. Jews were arrested, beaten, taxed, robbed, and jailed for no reason other than the fact that they practiced a particular religion. As a result, they were shipped off to concentration camps. Their houses and businesses were seized.

Yet most Jews STILL didn't leave Nazi Germany, because they simply couldn't believe that things would get as bad as they did. That's the normalcy bias... with devastating results.

We saw the same thing happen during Hurricane Katrina...

Even as it became clear that the levee system was not going to work, tens of thousands of people stayed in their homes, directly in the line of the oncoming waves of water.

People had never seen things get this bad before... so they simply didn't believe it could happen. As a result, nearly 2,000 residents died.

Again... it's the "normalcy bias."

We simply refuse to see the evidence that's right in front of our face, because it is unlike anything we have experienced before.

The normalcy bias kicks in... and we continue to go about our lives as if nothing is unusual or out of the ordinary.
Well, we're seeing the same thing happen in the United States right now.We have been the world's most powerful country for nearly 100 years. The U.S. dollar has reigned supreme as the world's reserve currency for more than 50 years.

Most of us in America simply cannot fathom these things changing. But I promise you this: Things are changing... and faster than most people realize.

For a moment, just look at a tiny fraction of the evidence around us....

** 13% OF POPULATION ON FOODSTAMPS

Did you know that there are now nearly 42 million Americans on food stamps? That's nearly 13% of the entire population. Those numbers are up 17.5% from last year... and the number of Americans on food stamps has gone up every month for 19 months.

Can a country really be in good shape when 13% of the population can't even afford to buy food?

Or how about this...

** SHANTY TOWNS COMING TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

Although it's gone almost completely unreported in the mainstream press, in a dozen or so cities across the nation (like Fresno, Sacramento, and Nashville), there are hundreds of people living in modern-day, Depression-era shanty towns.

The Fresno shanty town has received the most publicity, after a visit by Oprah Winfrey. There, about 2,000 residents are homeless. They even have a security desk at the shelter, because the encampment has gotten so large. City officials say they have three major encampments near downtown, and smaller settlements along two local highways.

Also...

** 43% OF AMERICAN FAMILIES ARE ESSENTIALLY BROKE

According to a recent article on MSN Money, about 43% of the American families spend more than they earn each year.

Look at this chart... it's unbelievable..


The average household carries $8,000 in credit card debt... and personal bankruptcies have doubled in the past decade.

How in the world can we possibly spend our way out of the current crisis?

We certainly can't do it with savings... the only answer is to print more money, which will hasten the fall of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency.

** THE MYSTERY OF DISAPPEARING JOBS

There's simply no one better at bending statistics than the U.S. government. Take the unemployment rate, for example. Back in the 1930s, anyone without a job but not retired was considered "unemployed."

Today, however, the government calculates unemployment mainly by counting the number of people receiving unemployment benefits. So when people's benefits expire, they are no longer counted... and the unemployment rate actually falls! Ridiculous... I know.

But the reality is, the true unemployment rate is much, much higher than what the government is reporting.


If you don't believe me, look at two recent job postings I read about last week..

In Long Island City, an estimated 2,000 people waited in line at the local employment office – some for as long as four days! – to apply for 100 elevator mechanic apprenticeship positions.

And in Massillon, Ohio, 700 people recently applied for a single janitorial job... paying $16 an hour, plus benefits!

The point is, our country is not growing jobs, because the government makes it harder and harder for businesses. With current regulations in place, our country will never experience the type of growth necessary to dig our government out of the hole they've put themselves in.

I'm sure you think I'm exaggerating, but just look at what the CEO of one of America's most important companies said just a few weeks ago..

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said in a recent speech: "I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip, and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States"

He said that 90% of the additional costs are not from higher labor rates... but from higher taxes and regulatory charges, which other nations simply don't impose.

Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers agreed that the problem is not higher U.S. wages, but anti-business laws. He was quoted in an interview with CNET News: "The killer factor in California for a manufacturer to create, say, a thousand blue-collar jobs is a hostile government that doesn't want you there and demonstrates it in thousands of ways."

Few Americans today realize that we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. And since Japan's new prime minister just announced that he plans to reduce the country's corporate tax rate by 15%... the U.S. will soon have THE highest corporate tax rate in the world.

Why would anyone want to start a business here, when they can do it for less money...and keep more of the money they make... by locating elsewhere?

It's just another good reason to avoid the U.S. dollar...

So is this:

** DEBT-RIDDEN U.S. COMPANIES

Did you know that in 1979, there were 61 American companies that earned a top-level AAA credit rating from Moody's?

Today, there are only four: Automatic Data Processing, Exxon, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft

Does this sound like an economic recovery to you... when only four companies in the entire country are stable enough to earn a triple-A credit rating?

Me neither. But it's nothing compared to what's going on in the housing sector...

** A CRAZY LAS VEGAS ECONOMICS STORY

You want to know how crazy things are in the U.S. right now...

Consider the bizarre state of the Las Vegas housing market, where The New York Times reports that building is booming again in a city where nearly 10,000 new houses are empty, thousands are in foreclosure, thousands of regular people have simply stopped paying their mortgages and average prices are down more than 60% since 2006.

What could possibly be driving this building mania?

Well, it turns are that buyers don't want homes that were built during the boom, because they sit in neighborhoods that look like ghost towns, and because many of these never-occupied houses are filled with cockroaches and other critters.

So local builders are doing the worst possible thing they could be doing in Las Vegas right now... building more homes! Similar scenarios are taking shape in Phoenix and other U.S. cities.

Of course, this might look good for economic numbers, but all it does is make the situation much, much worse in the long run.

Want to see another crazy trick some businesses are using to artificially boost their earnings numbers?

This is just incredible to me...

** OUR HOPE FOR THE FUTURE: NEW JERSEY'S HOMELESS

If you've been reading my work at all over the past few years, you know that I am extremely bearish on the "for profit" education sector, such as University of Phoenix.

What could possibly be wrong with these institutions that offer inexpensive education to tens of thousands of students across the country?

Well, to me it's just another symptom of how distorted and crazy our economy and country has become. Here's what I mean...

One of the crazy practices institutions employ is to actually enroll homeless people into their programs.

You probably think I'm making this up... but even Business Week recently ran a report on this practice.

Why would they do this?

Well, because these folks qualify for federal grants and loans used to pay for college tuition fees. According to reports I read, the University of Phoenix, for instance, relies on federal funds for more than 85% of its revenues.

At another for-profit school, Drake College of Business, almost 5% of the student body at its Newark, N.J., campus is homeless, Business Week recently reported.

Of course, the majority of these students will never be able to repay their loans. But the colleges certainly don't care... that's the government's problem... not theirs.

Once again, it's the taxpayers like you and me who will be left holding the bag.

And here's another good reason why investors are afraid of holding dollars right now...

** IN THE STOCK MARKET, IT'S 1937 ALL OVER AGAIN

One of the most worrisome problems in the stock market right now is that we are basically repeating the exact same situation that occurred from 1937 to 1942.

Most Americans think we've had this amazing stock market recovery since the financial crisis of 2008... and we have to a certain extent.

But we are by no means out of the woods.

In fact, during America's last real economic collapse, in the 1930s and 1940s, we saw a similar drop and recovery... before the markets crashed all over again.

In fact, the situation is eerily similar.

Look at this chart... it's one of the scariest I've seen in a long time. It shows an overlay of what happened in the stock market in 1937 compared to 2008.


In both situations, we saw big crashes, of about the exact same magnitude... then a big recovery, again of about the same size.

But what will happen next?

Well, if history is any guide, we could well have another big leg down in the stock market. That's exactly what happened 70 years ago.

And with all of the problems left unresolved in our economy today, it could certainly happen again, especially if the U.S. dollar loses its reserve status.

As The Wall Street Journal reported:
"Over the last year the stock market has followed a path eerily similar to 1937. First, a strong, rapid run to a recovery high – same pace, same magnitude. Then a correction – again, the same. Will we continue on the path that led the correction of 1937 into a collapse in 1938?The point is, the cards are seriously stacked against us.

This looming currency crisis is inevitable.

Almost every state in the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. We have borrowed an impossible amount of money, which we'll never be able to pay back.

Our economy is an absolute mess. Taxes are sky high already... and will certainly go much higher over the next few years. And nearly all of the world's major financial players are preparing for an alternative to the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency.
To me, it is so obvious that we are about to experience a serious currency crisis, that I can't believe people can deny this reality with a straight face.Again, if you don't believe a currency crisis is coming, just take another look at the price of gold and silver compared to the U.S. dollar over the past decade.


It's obvious that smart investors want to hold gold and silver, not U.S. dollars.

Anyone with any sense or basic understanding of economics can tell that the U.S. dollar is doomed. And it's going to have major repercussions, which the average American has not yet even considered.

So, what can you do?

Well, I've done a lot of research on this, and have found that there are a surprising number of simple things you can do to not only protect what you've currently got, but to also potentially make quite a bit of money as this currency crisis unfolds.

Here's what I recommend...

What You Can Do to Protect
Yourself and Actually Make Money
So what should you do... to protect and possibly even grow your wealth in the next few years?

Well, there's a series of pretty simple financial moves I believe you should begin making, immediately.

And here's something I want you to keep in mind: I'm really only going to talk about your finances here.

As far as protecting your family... well... it depends on your circumstances. If you live in an urban area, I recommend making sure you've got somewhere you can go in case there are riots or food and water shortages. I think there's a very good chance we'll see that in the next two years.

Wherever you're going to wait out the chaos, I recommend you have basic food, water, and medical supplies to last you for at least six months.

Remember, you won't be able to count on the government during this crisis. Think about it... if the government couldn't even save the city of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, how in the world will it save an entire country when all hell breaks lose?

And as I said earlier, the truth is, the government won't even try to save individual American citizens... the government will be much more concerned with saving itself.
As far as taking care of your money – to make sure you don't lose money and even use this situation to come out quite a bit ahead – well, that's where I can help you.All of the moves I recommend are simple and fairly straightforward to implement – at least right now. If you wait to do these things, however, they will almost certainly get very expensive, difficult, and even impossible to do.

If you do these things now, not only will you be better prepared to weather the coming storm, I believe you could also make quite a bit of money over the next few years.

And if I'm wrong... well... that's the best part... I think you'll still make very good gains.

Even if all we get out of this crisis is a mild inflation, you will still be set up to do very, very well.

So here are the specific steps you should take...
STEP #1. GET SOME OF YOUR MONEY BEYOND THE REACH OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT (it's perfectly legal, and a lot easier than you think)I know you probably don't believe me when I tell you that the U.S. government is going to implement policies to save itself, which are unimaginable right now.

But remember, desperate governments will do very desperate things. That's why they outlawed the ownership of gold 80 years ago.

That's why they are already talking about "nationalizing" automatic 401(k) and retirement plans... and it's why it might soon be against the law to open a foreign bank account, or to move your money overseas without paying outrageous taxes.

The good news is, I met recently with a man who is considered one of the top "asset protection" attorneys in America.

In short, I learned that there are four simple investments you can make right now, which you DO NOT have to report to the U.S. government.

Don't get me wrong...

When and if you ever sell these things, years down the road, you are still required to pay taxes on your gains. But the great thing is, while you are holding these investments, so long as you play by the rules, neither you nor anyone else is required to report them to the government.

And this benefit should be obvious...

The less the government knows about where you have your money, the better. They simply will have a very hard time taking what they don't know you have.

I am personally putting a fairly significant portion of my portfolio into one of these assets. And I plan to hold it for a long time. No matter what happens, I know I'll have a significant amount of money that is beyond the government's grasp.

I'm not going to tell you exactly what I'm doing here in this letter, but I will explain everything in full detail in my new report, called: The 4 Investment Assets You Do NOT Have to Report to the U.S. Government. And I will gladly give you access to a copy, free of charge.

In addition to explaining how I'm protecting my own money, I'll show you three other places you can put your money, which you legally do not have to report to the U.S. government.
Of course, normally it would cost you thousands of dollars to meet with my asset protection attorney, and to take advantage of his best strategies. But I'll reveal everything you need to know to get started in this report.Plus, I'd like to send you the information on...
STEP #2: HOW TO ACQUIRE THE WORLD'S SAFEST ASSETS, WHICH ARE LIKELY TO PERFORM BEST DURING THIS PERIOD.What I'm talking about here is buying as much gold and silver as you can reasonably afford. I know... gold has had a huge run, jumping more than 300% in the past decade.

But believe me, when the U.S. dollar loses its status as the world's reserve currency, this early run is going to be a mere afterthought.

I will be surprised if gold does not reach $5,000 or $6,000 an ounce in the next few years.

The smartest money managers in the world, people like George Soros, David Einhorn, and John Paulson, have all recently taken huge positions in gold. And I think you are crazy to not do the same.

How should you do it?

There are many options. And my research firm has recently published a great book, called The Gold Investors Bible, which details in full all of the best ways to own and hold gold bullion.

In this volume, we reveal dozens of secrets about the gold industry... specifically the best ways to buy, sell, and store your gold. It explains whey some gold coins are better than others. How to buy gold with ZERO dealer markup. How to easily and safely store some of your gold overseas, very cheaply... where to hide it... and so much more.

Not regularly available for sale, this book is valued at $24. I'd like to give you instant access to a copy, totally free of charge.

And what about silver?

Well, I believe silver will serve a unique role during this currency crisis.

Let me explain...

For most of recorded history, the price of gold has been around 16 times the price of silver. This ratio – the so-called "silver ratio" – has fluctuated from time to time based on silver discoveries and attempts by governments to regulate the silver-to-gold ratio. But... in a free market, where demand for silver as money exists, I'd expect the natural supply and demand balance to lead to a silver price around 1/16 times the price of gold.

Based on the historical ratio, with the price of gold around $1,400, the price of silver should be around $87. It's not, of course. Today, silver is trading around $27. Today then, gold is selling for more than 50-times the price of silver.

What explains the difference between hundreds of years of history and today? Why is silver still so cheap relative to gold?

When silver is "demonetized," as it is now (meaning it's not being used for money, but just for industrial purposes), supplies soar as people sell silver for gold and other currencies.

On the other hand, during periods of monetary crisis, demand for silver as money pushes the silver ratio heavily in silver's favor.

For example, the ratio returned to its historic range (16) during World War I. It happened again in the early 1970s, when Nixon abandoned the gold standard. It also happened most famously in 1979-1980, when it seemed as if America was really entering a serious money crisis

Most people don't know this, but silver is actually the best-performing asset of this century... not gold.

As my friend Chris Weber pointed out in his November 1st newsletter, Gold has risen from $256 to $1,365 since 2000. That is a rise of 433%. Silver has risen from $4.02 to $24.96. That is a rise of 521%.

And in the days that Chris has written this, silver has jumped another 7%!

In short, silver is the best hedge against a money crisis.

As the dollar fails, silver will once again be in demand as money.

And as this demand materializes, the free market price of silver will likely return to around 1/16 the price of gold. When gold hits $2,000 an ounce, and assuming the price of gold is 16 times the price of silver, silver should be worth about $125. My multimillionaire friend and currency expert, Chris Weber, believes silver will likely hit $187 an ounce.

If that happens, you could make gains of around 600% if you invest at today's prices.

So what are the best ways to buy silver?

Well, my firm has done a ton of research on this precious metal. We have found great ways to hold the metal personally... to have it stored in a secure location in the United States or overseas... and more. We've put everything we know into a valuable guide called: Secrets of the Silver Market.

I'd like to give you this valuable resource, also free of charge. I'll show you how to get it in a second.

But first let me get to the 3rd financial step I recommend you take right now:
STEP #3: LEARN THE 100% SECRETIf you want the opportunity to make a lot of money during the coming crisis, one sure way to do it is to learn the intricacies of an unusual investment strategy that is now making some investors an absolute fortune.

At my research firm, we have been teaching readers this method for several years.

And get this: You don't have to buy a single stock to begin using this strategy... and it has nothing to do with "shorting."

In a nutshell, this is an approach that could enable you to safely extract gains of exactly 100% from the market... without ever owning or touching a stock.

Keep in mind: this strategy can play out in two very different ways. Though you'll always be able to keep the initial cash you extract from the market, there is a chance you will be required to purchase the underlying stock, at a price less favorable that its current market value. So please understand, there is risk involved with this strategy, and it probably won't be right for everyone.

But this can be such a sound market strategy, especially in times of financial uncertainty, that once you learn how it works, you might decide to never invest the old-fashioned way again.

That's why I call this the 100% Secret.

For example, look at how it has worked for a few of the folks I taught this secret to in recent years...

Last March, for example, Peter Kos of Boise, ID began using this strategy. He says he now makes an average of $10,000 per month. And Randy Bowman of Annapolis, MD told me he's made over $87,500 with this technique. Bernard Henderson of Carmel, IN, now collects an average of $100 a day. Another, Harold Welchik of New Brunswick, NJ, has made over $20,000.

Tim Hewitt from Sacramento probably put it best when he wrote me and said: "This has saved my portfolio."

That's why financial author Lee Lowell writes: "I've been a professional trader for 17 years... but many people have never heard of a [this investment], let alone used this strategy. This is a great way to get your hands on instant cash."

Pulitzer Prize winning author James Stewart learned this technique recently and said: "[These payouts] are so rich I consulted a colleague to make sure they were real."

This seldom-understood strategy is how we've helped dozens of people make incredible gains, even in a terrible stock market. And in all likelihood, when the stock market gets really bad, as I expect it soon will, this will be incredibly lucrative and safe strategy.

Everything you need to know is in my new report called: The 100% Secret � The Easiest Way to Make Money When Stocks are Risky.

I'll explain exactly how this investment strategy works so you can decide if its something that might be right for you. And I'll show you how you could begin to take advantage of it, starting immediately..

Believe me, this is something you want to learn about now. Because as the stock market begins to unravel, this incredible technique will likely get more and more lucrative.

And that brings me to:
STEP #4: MAKE SURE YOU OWN THE ONE ASSET THAT CAN HELP SAVE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, NO MATTER HOW BAD THINGS GETThere's no telling exactly how bad things are going to get as this crisis unfolds.

I firmly believe there could be riots, marches in the streets, bank runs, massive arrests, and periods of uncontrollable mayhem... at least for several months as things begin to unravel.

But the good news is that there is one asset you can own (now widely available in America), which should help protect you and your family from this chaos... and could also likely make you a fortune in the years to come.

I'm not talking about guns or bonds or gold or other precious metals... or anything like that. And of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the stock market.

What I'm talking about is a very powerful asset that wealthy families have used for centuries to protect themselves... and preserve and build their fortunes.

An index tracking this asset has absolutely crushed the stock market between 1991 and 2009, by returning about 430% more than stocks during that period.

Best of all, it provided these gains with almost no volatility. Just look at the chart below.

See how that blue line goes straight up, without any hiccups?


Multimillionaire investor Barton Biggs wrote that this type of asset, throughout history, "protected both your wealth and your life."

During World War II, for example, when millions of families lost their entire life savings through inflation or government seizure, this was the one asset that enabled some families to protect, preserve, and grow their money.

What the average American doesn't realize is that many of the richest people in the United States have a significant ownership stake in this asset: The Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame), Bill Gates, Ted Turner, the Hilton family, Charles Schwab, Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, the Hunt family (of Texas oil fame), the Hearst family, the Ford family, and more

As I mentioned, you can easily make this investment today, here in America. Probably less than 1% of the population owns it today... but it is readily available, and fairly inexpensive.

I've written up all of the details on everything you need to know. My full report is called: The World's Most Valuable Asset in a Time of Crises.

There are several ways to make this investment. I'll show you what they are.

Like I said, this has nothing to do with stocks, bonds, precious metals, guns, medicine, or anything like that. Yet it could save your family... and make you very wealthy in the coming years.

As my multi-millionaire friend Doug Casey says, it's the ONE THING you should own in the years to come.

I don't want to say any more about it than that, here in this letter. The truth is, the fewer people who know about this investment secret, the better.

So how can you begin taking these simple steps, right away?

Well, my company, Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, is a financial research firm.

We have a staff of about 50 people, and our main objective is to find safe and profitable investment ideas that you are not likely to hear about anywhere else.

Since we started this business a decade ago, we have helped a lot of people make a lot of money...

Harold Thiessen from Montana wrote recently to say: "My IRA has gone from a low of $315,000.00 to the present high of $952,000.00. I can only thank [you] for changing my life so much."

Dan Koffin, from San Diego, also contacted us recently to say: "Since joining, my portfolio has grown by several hundred thousand dollars. I look forward to a long and prosperous relationship."

We even got an interesting note recently from a reader named Ulysses Reuter, who says he has been making a "small killing" – enough to buy a nice-sized boat and a house in Mexico. Here's the photo he sent (below). He writes:


Mr. Reuter added: "We took delivery of her 3 weeks ago and are cruising the Bahamas. In October we will take her through the Panama Canal over to the Pacific side since I just bought a home in Mexico..."

Then there was the nice note from Mitchell Donavan, from Ithaca, New York. He said: "I was working long hours with overtime to make a living when I joined you. The excellent results have allowed me to retire early."

Believe me, nothing makes me feel better than receiving notes like these.

But I have to tell you, right now, I am really worried that a lot of our subscribers and many, many hard-working Americans are going to get caught totally by surprise when this inevitable crisis hits.

That's why I created this letter, and that's why I'd like to send you the full details on exactly how I believe this is all going to unfold... and exactly how to protect yourself and even prosper during this crisis.

Remember: The government is not going to save you:

If the government couldn't save one small city from the disastrous news coming, then how is it going to save all of us when the [beep] really hits the fan?

You can either let things happen to you... or you can take a few simple steps and take charge of your family's fate.

Please, just give the work I've done a look... and I believe you will have all the information you need at your disposal.

The best part is, you can take a look at my research, and receive everything I've mentioned here, at absolutely no risk or obligation.

Simply let me know you'd like to take a trial subscription to my monthly newsletter, called Stansberry's Investment Advisory, and I will immediately give you access to:
Research Report #1: The 4 Investment Assets You Do NOT Have to Report to the U.S. Government

Research Report #2: The Gold Investor's Bible

Research Report #3: Secrets of the Silver Market

Research Report #4: The 100% Secret - The Easiest Way to Make Money in a Risky Stock Market

Research Report #5: The World's Most Valuable Asset in a Time of CrisesAlso, on the first Friday of each month, I'll send you my monthly newsletter,Stansberry's Investment Advisory. I'll keep you up to date on exactly what's going on regarding this financial crisis, and I'll show you some unusual and incredible ways to make money now and as it begins to unfold.

We have found some great ways to make a fortune as the government continues to try to bail out one failing industry after another.

I'll also keep you up to date on what I am doing to protect myself. I'll make sure you stay abreast of changes to the laws and government interventions.

And... every day the markets are open, I'll send you my paid-subscribers-only e-mail called the Stansberry & Associates Digest.

In short, I report on all the work my firm is doing... the most interesting investment ideas... what we're researching now... and what we expect to happen in the months to come.

So how much does my work cost... and how can you get started?

Well, a one-year subscription, including everything I mentioned here, normally costs $99 per year – that's what many others have paid.

But right now, you can try my research, for HALF-OFF the normal rate. You'll pay just $49.50 for an entire year.

Why so cheap?

Well, to be honest, our business really only works if our subscribers stick with us for the long-term. But we realize you've got to try our work first, to see if it's right for you.

And that's why, through this letter, we're making it so cheap, and essentially risk-free to try. What I mean is, you'll have the next four months to take a look at the Research Reports I've just described, plus the next four issues of my newsletter... and the next four months of my daily Digest reports.

If you decide for any reason my work is not right for you, just let us know and you can receive a full refund... and keep everything you've received so far.

In other words, by taking me up on this offer, you are agreeing only to TRY my work to see if you like it.

I hope you'll consider this offer seriously. I know in my heart it will be one of the best financial moves you ever make.

To get started, simply click on the link below, which will take you to a secure order form. Your order will be processed immediately, and you'll have access to all of my work in a matter of minutes.

Sincerely,



Porter Stansberry
Founder, Stansberry & Associates Investment Research
December 2010











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