Ya hemos posteado declaraciones de Lawrence Wilkerson en Astroboy. Este ex militar y analista republicano dictó una interesante conferencia en Canadá el año pasado: "Tribulaciones del Imperio". Llegamos a ella a través del sitio web Caffé Americaine (http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com.ar/). No se la pierdan:
Título: Lawrence
Wilkerson: Travails of Empire - Oil, Debt, Gold and the Imperial Dollar
Epígrafe: "We are
imperial, and we are in decline... People are losing confidence in the
Empire."
Texto: This is the key
theme of Larry Wilkerson's presentation.
He never really questions whether empire is good or bad, sustainable or
not, and at what costs. At least he does
not so in the same manner as that great analyst of empire Chalmers Johnson.
It is important
to understand what people who are in and near positions of power are thinking
if you wish to understand what they are doing, and what they are likely to
do. What ought to be done is another
matter.
Wilkerson is a
Republican establishment insider who has served for many years in the military
and the State Department. Here he is giving about a 40 minute presentation to
the Centre For International Governance in Canada in 2014.
I find his point
of view of things interesting and revealing, even on those points where I may
not agree with his perspective. There
also seem to be some internal inconsistencies in this thinking.
But what makes
his perspective important is that it represents a mainstream view of many
professional politicians and 'the Establishment' in America. Not the hard right
of the Republican party, but much of what constitutes the recurring political
establishment of the US.
As I have
discussed here before, I do not particularly care so much if a trading
indicator has a fundamental basis in reality, as long as enough people believe
in and act on it. Then it is worth watching as self-fulfilling prophecy. And the same can be said of political and
economic memes.
At minute 48:00
Wilkerson gives a response to a question about the growing US debt and of the
role of the petrodollar in the Empire, and the efforts by others to 'undermine
it' by replacing it. This is his
'greatest fear.'
He speaks about
'a principal advisor to the CIA Futures project' and the National Intelligence
Council (NIC), whose views and veracity of claims are being examined closely by
sophisticated assets. He believes that
both Beijing and Moscow are complicit in an attempt to weaken the dollar.
This includes the
observation that "gold is being moved in sort of unique ways, concentrated
in secret in unique ways, and capitals are slowly but surely divesting
themselves of US Treasuries. So what you are seeing right now in the supposed
strengthening of the dollar is a false impression."
The BRICS want to
use oil to "force the US to lose its incredibly powerful role in owning
the world's transactional reserve currency." It gives the US a great deal of power of
empire that it would not ordinarily have, since the ability to add debt without
consequence enables the expenditures to sustain it.
Later, after
listening to this again, the thought crossed my mind that this advisor might be
a double agent using the paranoia of the military to achieve the ends of
another. Not for the BRICS, but for the
Banks. The greatest beneficiary of a
strong dollar, which is a terrible burden to the real economy, is the financial
sector. This is why most countries seek
to weaken or devalue their currencies to improve their domestic economies as a
primary objective. This is not so
far-fetched as military efforts to provoke 'regime change' have too often been
undertaken to support powerful commercial interests.
I am not sure how
much the policy makers and strategists agree with this theory about gold. But
there is no doubt in my mind that they believe and are acting on the theory
that oil, and the dollar control of oil, the so-called petrodollar, is the key
to maintaining the empire.
Wilkerson reminds
me very much of a political theoretician who I knew at Georgetown University.
He talks about strategic necessities, the many occasions in which the US has
used its imperial power covertly to overthrow or attempt to overthrow
governments in Iran, Venezuela, Syria, and the Ukraine. He tends to ascribe all
these actions to selflessness, and American service to the world in maintaining
a balance of power where 'all we ask is a plot of ground to bury our dead.'
A typical
observation is that the US did indeed overthrow the democratically elected
government of Mossadegh in 1953 in Iran. But 'the British needed the money'
from the Anglo-Iranian oil company in order to rebuild after WW II. Truman had
rejected the notion, but Eisenhower the military veteran and Republic agreed to
it. Wilkerson says specifically that Ike
was 'the last expert' to hold the office of the Presidency.
This is what is
meant by realpolitik. It is all about organizing the world under a 'balance of
power' that is favorable to the Empire and the corporations that have sprung up
around it.
As someone with a
long background and interest in strategy I am not completely unsympathetic to
these lines of thinking. But like most broadly developed human beings and
students of history and philosophy one
can see that the allure of such thinking, without recourse to questions of
restraint and morality and the fig leaf of exceptionalist thinking, is a
terrible trap, a Faustian bargain. It is the rationalization of every nascent
tyranny. It is the precursor to the will to pure power for its own sake.
The challenges of
empire now according to Wilkerson are:
1) Disequilibrium
of wealth - 1/1000th of the US owns 50% of its total wealth. The current
economic system implies long term stagnation (I would say stagflation. The
situation in the US is 1929, and in France, 1789. All the gains are going to
the top.
2) BRIC nations
are rising and the Empire is in decline, largely because of US strategic
miscalculations. The US is therefor pressing harder towards war in its
desperation and desire to maintain the status quo. And it is dragging a lot of
good and honest people into it with our NATO allies who are dependent on the US
for their defense.
3) There is a strong push towards regional
government in the US that may intensify as global warming and economic
developments present new challenges to specific areas. For example, the water has left the
Southwest, and it will not be coming back anytime soon.
This presentation
ends about minute 40, and then it is open to questions which is also very
interesting.
Lawrence
Wilkerson, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at
the College of William Mary, and former Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell.
La entrevista
puede verse acá:
https://youtu.be/YM_MH_Bfq5c
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