Why The Middle East Conflict Continues To Exist

by Joel Bainerman

For more than 75 years, western diplomats have been coming up with peace initiatives to solve the Arab Israeli conflict. Yet they always fail. Why? What keeps the Middle East conflict going?

If we are going to devise a solution, we must first understand why the conflict continues to exist. To do this, we have to view the situation from the top down, rather than from the bottom up. This is completely opposite to the way most Jews and Arabs have been conditioned to look at the situation. Jews focus on the damage Arab/Palestinians cause, and believe that damage to be the cause of the conflict, when it is really only a result of it. They view the conflict and its origins from the bottom up. Arabs/Palestinians concentrate on the damage Israel causes and believe this to be the cause of the conflict, when it is really only a result of it. They too relate to the situation from the bottom up

To understand what really causes the Middle East conflict to continue, one must look at the issue from the top down. To get a more accurate picture of what lies behind the continued existence of the conflict, lets acknowledge these five factors which serve to perpetuate rather than solve the problem:

1) The vested interests of the Foreign Elite (FE): There is a third entity in the conflict in addition to the Israelis and the Arabs: the foreigners (in order of importance, the US, Britain, Russia, China, France, Germany). Without them, there would be no Middle East conflict because it is the foreign influence that keeps the situation from being resolved. Unfortunately, both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews believe they are each others worst enemy without considering the third element the foreigners that is the enemy of both. The thing that Arabs and Jews have most in common is this common enemy, yet the leaders on both sides (not being legitimate or independent) tell their people that the other side is their number one enemy. Hence the conflict continues

2) Control of Middle East oil: The foreigners interfere in the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to exploit and control the vast petroleum resources in the region. If there were no oil, there would be no petrodollars to recycle; the foreigners would have no reason to dominate the region

3) Weapons sales: If there was a worldwide ban on arms sales to the Middle East, there would be no more radical Arab dictators with modern arms. If the foreigners stopped selling advanced weaponry to nations of the Middle East, the conflict would end

4) The mainstream media: If the mainstream media in the West stopped reporting on the "search for peace in the Middle East", peace would prevail. By keeping the regions unstable image alive, the media, as the sole source of information by which people can formulate their perceptions, provide an excuse for the foreigners to interfere, and at the same time serve to convince everyone that these western nations want peace, despite the fact that they have been seeking it for over 50 years, in vain. The media never question the intentions or agendas of the FE. The media thus provide the glue which keeps the conflict going. Without the mainstream media constantly reporting on the conflict, there would be peace, as everyone would forget that the Middle East is unstable and thus in need of stabilizing via new peace initiatives

5) Corrupt national leadership of Middle East nations: It isn't peace between Arabs and Jews that interests the FE, but rather the continuation of the conflict. The way they do that is by corrupting/controlling the national leaders of both sides. The reason why legitimate, popular leaders are not at the helms of countries in the Middle East is because the FE will topple any leader who doesn't cater to their desires before the needs of their own people. If Middle East leaders are selected and deemed popular by their own people, the FE will demonize them as radicals/extremists, terrorist leaders or enemies of peace, and thus de-legitimize them in the world arena. How can genuine co-existence take hold if the leaders of both sides are more interested in pleasing their foreign masters than their own peoples?

Unless these five basic factors are understood, the true causes that extend the conflict will never be understood. Instead, each side will go on blaming the other seeking to take the high moral ground and convince their own people and those from abroad that they are right, and the other side is wrong. This will lead only to more death and destruction. The technique is called divide and rule, and it has been a favorite of the FE for decades.

It needs to be understood that the reason why the Middle East conflict continues to exist is because foreign elements desire the conflict not to be solved. This conflict is not nearly as complicated to solve as they present it in the mainstream media and the think thanks/analyses world of "Middle East affairs" that exist worldwide. More than 50 years down the road we are still no nearer to a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict than we were in the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, or the 1990s.

So why does this regional conflict continue to exist? Who benefits the most by having the conflict remain unsolved? Let's deconstruct the Middle East conflict and look at all its parameters:

1) The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is how the pro-Arab camp refers to it. It claims Israel is oppressing the Palestinians and that, as a result, the entire Middle East remains unstable, and will continue to be unstable unless the Palestinians have their own state.

2) The Arab-Israeli conflict is how Israel defines the situation. Until the Oslo process began, Israel claimed the conflict existed because: "The Arabs don't recognize Israel's right to exist." Now Israel says the conflict continues because the Palestinian leaders "support terrorism."

These conclusions are fed to the Arab and Israelis peoples so as to enable them each to take the high moral ground and focus their hatred on each other. And this in turn directs their attention away from their number one enemy: the foreigners.

By having the Arabs believe Israel is at fault for "oppressing" the Palestinians, while having Israelis believe the conflict exists because the Arabs fail to recognize the Jewish state or seek its destruction (i.e. support terrorism) the foreign interests succeed in hiding the bigger picture: what the foreigners are doing when it comes to controlling the Arab nations' only natural resource, and how they are selling massive amount of weapons to the oil-producing regimes.

To keep up this fraud, the foreign elements must control the national leaders of both peoples, and ensure that the mainstream media don't stray too far from the cover stories: "Israel is acting immorally against the Palestinians" or "Palestinian leaders support terrorism.

Creating either a viable Palestinian state or peace between Arabs and Jews is not the goal of the foreigners. Whether stated publicly or not, their intention is to extend the Middle East conflict, not resolve it. Unless this basic truth is understood by Arabs and Jews, the foreign elements, via the mainstream media, will continue to manipulate the perception of both sides as to why the conflict continues.

The only way the foreigners can sustain the conflict is to have each side blame the other for its continuation. In this way neither side can discover the real causes, which are the oil and arms deals made between the rich oil states and the foreign powers. One aspect of the conflict serves as convenient camouflage for the other.

To keep this fraud in place, the "moral argument" is employed to have the world focus on the "morality" of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In this way, everyone is forced to take a side. The pro-Arab side claims Israel is morally flawed, while the pro-Israel side claims the Arabs are morally flawed.

Thus any public discussion is structured in such a way that the peoples in the region and those abroad are forced to believe one side's claim or the other. The pro-Israel version is that the Arabs want to destroy Israel and are employing terrorism to reach this goal. The pro-Arab side claims Israel's actions against the Palestinians are immoral because they violate the Palestinians' right to self-determination and their human rights and dignity. In short, the parameters of the debate consist of choosing sides. No other option is given. No other participant in the conflict is presented.

In spite of all the vested foreign interests at work in the region, namely oil and arms, the entire discussion of the conflict centers on one of these two positions: either you are pro-Israel or pro-Arab.

This moralizing is the way the foreigners control the debate so that the actual causes are never allowed to surface. Israel's national leaders can moralize about how inhumane Arab suicide bombers are; Palestinian leaders can moralize about how horrible Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is. The US State Department can moralize about Israel's human rights record. The Jews in America are morally aligned with Israel; the countries of the Third World identify with the Arabs. The Europeans are perceived to be anti-Israel. The Christian fundamentalists in the US support Israel for moral reasons. The Israeli Left takes the high moral ground when it publicly condemns its own government for its treatment of the Palestinians. The Israeli Right waves a finger at Yasser Arafat and proclaims: "Arafat is not doing enough to stop terrorism." The Palestinians claim Sharon is not serious about peace.

"The Palestinians must learn they will never achieve anything through violence," says one group. "The Palestinians deserve their own state," declares another. Yet with all this "morality" flying around, nobody ever points a finger at the foreign countries or accuses them of acting immorally by selling arms to Middle East dictators and exploiting the natural resources of the region.

Instead, people around the globe are told what to believe regarding the reason for the continuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as if their opinions and feelings are actually relevant to what is happening on the ground.

This long-distance exercise in morality is what the media focus on when nothing much is happening in the region, to point out how important "peace in the Middle East" is for everyone. Yet the only thing about such stories that can be believed is that the continuation of the conflict is important to the media.

Why the Middle East conflict never gets solved
Everyone in the world is morally bound up with the Arab Israeli conflict. Yet can it be possible that the entire conflict is based on the lack of morality of one side or the other? Can all that has happened in the region over the past half century be the result of one people not behaving nicely toward the other? What other regional conflicts are defined in this way? What other regional conflicts continue for more than a half a century, look like they are finally being solved, and then come roaring back in the way the Middle East conflict has?

Let's think for a moment, and ask: Do regional wars and conflicts continue for seven decades because one side isn't acting nicely toward the other? Is the conflict's existence merely due to the actions of each or both sides - the 5 million Jews and the 4 million Arabs - who simply don't like each other?

Can that really be the answer? That is certainly the way the mainstream press and the academic world present it. Oil and arms sales are never part of the explanation. How could so many newspapers and TV stations miss out on this side of the region's affairs and focus solely on "new peace initiatives"?

One could argue, with justification, that the Israelis are not acting nicely toward the Palestinians - that they oppress them, restrict their movements, blow up their houses, etc. But that alone still doesn't account for the continuation of the conflict. The Israelis are right when they argue that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and the Palestinian leadership hasn't done enough to crack down on terrorism, but that too doesn't explain why this 75-year-old conflict is still with us.

While it may even be true that the Arabs don't recognize Israel's right to exist, Israel doesn't stop existing because of that. The refusal of the Arabs to recognize Israel's existence is not the reason why the Middle East still festers.

So why has this conflict been going on for nearly a century? Not only does the Middle East conflict continue to exist, it actually gets worse decade after decade. What other regional conflict actually looks like it is being solved, and then, 10 years later, returns to a state much worse than before?

What is special about the Middle East?
One unique thing about the Middle East conflict is that it is institutionalized. Think of the annual budgets for all the organizations whose sole purpose is to do "Middle East moralizing." How much does it cost to fund all the activist organizations, the lobby groups, the news publications, the charities, the think tanks which exist solely to cast blame on either the Israeli or Arab side?

The Middle East conflict is a "cottage industry" in the US and Europe. It isn't that way with other regional conflicts. Why is it that way with this one?

The pro-Israel camp has its lobbies, organizations, think tanks, magazines, support groups, Internet user groups, etc. which put out one simple message: "The Arabs are wrong; we're right. We are more morally upstanding than them." The pro-Arab camp has its lobbies, organizations, think tanks, magazines, support groups, and Internet user groups which put out one simple message: "The Israelis are wrong; we're right. We are more morally upstanding than them."

Both sides are basically saying the same thing to the other side: "you're morally deficient, you're not acting nicely, and it is because of you that we don't have a solution." What is incredible is that each side is right, and for the most part, each side's argument is valid. Each side does do terrible things to the other, and both are morally deficient. Yet that still doesn't account for the continued existence of the conflict.

Consider. The Arabs say: "The media in America is controlled by the Zionists and our side never gets a proper hearing," while the pro-Israel camp says, "The media is anti-Israel." Both claims have a basis of truth, yet they cancel each other out. The same is also true when the Palestinians claim that Israel is "denying the Palestinians a state." The Israeli version is "The Arabs don't recognize the Jewish state." Two completely balanced arguments serve to keep the claims of both sides in perfect symmetry.

The media are responsible for promoting this "morality" aspect. If a politician in the US or Europe says: "I am disturbed by Israel's treatment of the Palestinians," that becomes a media item, even though the statement had nothing to do with what happens on the ground.

Thousands of kilometers away, in Europe and the US, the Middle East conflict has a life of its own. The obsession that the mainstream media have about anything and everything to do with the Middle East proves that the mainstream media are responsible for sustaining it. The conflict would have faded away long ago, if it weren't for this media attention.

This is important because, before we can look for a solution to the Middle East conflict, we need to determine why it exists in the first place.

Why should we support the establishment of a Palestinian state as a way to bring peace to the region if the lack of such a state is not the reason for the conflict? While it may be desirable to the Arabs to have a viable Palestinian state, and while the Palestinians certainly deserve their own national territory, we must ask ourselves: "Does the conflict exist just because the Palestinians don't have their own state?"

Perhaps all those on the pro-Arab side should think about what would happen if a Palestinian state is created, yet doesn't lead to prosperity and stability? The mere existence of a Palestinian state will not solve the regional conflict. Thus perhaps the absence of a Palestinian state is not the reason why peace does not exist today.

If the foreigners were truly interested in peace, and believed the creation of a Palestinian state would serve that goal, they would have forced Israel to accept it decades ago. They didn't, and not because Israel controls the US political process, as some Arab intellectuals believe, but because they don't want peace in the Middle East. That is why Arafat was allowed to funnel most of the $4 billion in foreign aid the Palestinian Authority received from 1993-2000 into 17 different security forces, rather than using the money for socio-economic development.

Compared to other regional conflicts caused by wrongs committed by one side on the other, the continued existence of the Middle East situation makes no sense. By now it should have either been resolved or have petered out.

Why does this problem never get solved?

The function of oil, weapons, and the US Dollar in the Middle East conflict
There is a view in the mainstream media that assumes the only concern the western nations have in the Middle East is for Arabs and Jews to kiss and make up. Yet after all their years of being involved in peace-making, how come there isn't any peace?

Because peace is not good business for the "Foreign Elite". What is important is maintaining the supremacy of the US dollar in world markets, recycling petrodollars to earn profits from the oil industry, and the sale of military products to the oil-rich Arab regimes. The unwritten agreement that the US has with the ruler of the oil states is that the oil will be priced in US dollars, and in return the US will protect them. While Fox, Time and CNN never discusses this issue, it is imperative for the strength of the US dollar that oil is priced only in US currency.

When oil is sold in US dollars, countries around the world need to maintain a certain level of US currency in the reserves of their central bank to finance their oil purchases. OPEC is a cartel created by the US specifically for this purpose. At the end of 2000, the Bank for International Settlements estimates world dollar reserves of $1.45 trillion, or 76% of the total world reserves of $1.09 trillion. If oil was priced in other currencies, most countries would have little need to stockpile dollars, and thus all the currency the US government has printed over the years would be of value only in the US. This would flood the country with dollars and cause huge inflation. In addition, current and future trade and current account deficits would no longer be financed by the foreigners who purchase American Treasury bills and other US-dominated debt instruments. In other words, the US would no longer be an economic superpower.

In a brilliant essay on this subject entitled "A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth," economist William Clark wrote in January 2003: The Federal Reserves greatest nightmare is that OPEC will switch from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq actually made this switch. The real reason the Bush administration wants a puppet government in Iraq or more importantly, the reason why the corporate-military-industrial network wants a puppet government in Iraq is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard.

Others have come to the same conclusion as this issue relates to other regions in the world. On June 18th, 2003, the publisher of the Venezuelan economic on-line journal, Veheadline.com, Roy Carson, wrote:

"A move by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias to replace the US$ with the Euro is seen as upsetting Washington more than when Iraq's Saddam Hussein started using the Euro for oil transactions last November ... precipitating the US-led action to invade Iraq. CIA and other intelligence organizations, including Britain's MI5, now fear that the next step is that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is about to switch to Euros ... the immediate effect would be a massive devaluation, perhaps sparking of domino-effect devaluations worldwide in US$-related foreign reserves and foreign debt calculations. With a massive budget deficit, the United States is running scared of latest intelligence that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on the brink of converting to the Euros and the opinion held by many OPEC ministers is that the conversion is an inevitability ... the only question left is WHEN? Arab sources claim that Euro conversion across the Middle and Far East is a rational step to counteract the United States' capacity to "wage further illegal wars (a.k.a. State-sponsored terrorism)" around the world. A significant step in this direction is that Iran is contemplating switching to the Euro and, as a result, is the latest object of United States undiplomatic interference ... an intelligence sources says "they are stimulating opposition forces, making covert threats ... the next step is destabilization and quasi-liberation warfare under the pretext of promoting US-style democracy but essentially aimed at maintaining the US dollar as a global transaction currency."

The goal of the "Foreign Elite" is to keep the oil flowing to western economies at a relatively low price so as not to harm the profits the elite oil companies earn from refining and marketing petroleum products, and ensuring that this oil remains priced in US dollars. To do that, foreigners have to prop up undemocratic and corrupt regimes (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain) so they will continue to serve foreign interests. In return, these countries keep the price of oil relatively low, keep the oil priced in US dollars, and never move upstream in the petroleum production process so as to compete with foreign oil companies.

The other unwritten law is that a certain amount of the oil revenues earned by the oil-rich states must be spent on the purchase of weapons. In 2002, Arab governments in the Middle East spent $52 billion on their military forces, of which $18 billion was for purchases from foreign countries. Arab countries devote 8%-11% of their national incomes to defense (23% of all government expenditures). (Yahya Sadowski, Guns or Butter, p.3). In the past decade, Saudi Arabia alone has spent over $100 billion on weapons.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, in the decade after the Gulf War (1991-2001) the US sold more than $43 billion worth of weapons, equipment and military construction projects to Saudi Arabia, and $16 billion more to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia alone imports about $15 billion worth of weapons each year. Instead of using this wealth for building an economic infrastructure throughout the region, it is wasted on arms. The rest of the oil revenues (after basic government expenditures are met) are deposited in western banks as the private property of the corrupted Arab leaders. This benefits both the leaders and the large western banking interests.

This process is called recycling petrodollars. As much of that wealth winds up in banks controlled by the foreign elite, this is another way that foreigners profit from the continued tension in the Middle East. Another activity of the foreigners is to sell massive amounts of military hardware and technology to Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein and then, years later, when the dictator doesn't do what the foreigners want, the dictator becomes a threat to regional stability and an expensive (to the public at large, not to the arms industry) military invasion is suddenly required to contain him. When the smoke clears, nobody points a finger at the foreigners, accusing them of arming the dictator in the first place.

As no Arab country has a military industry, all weapons in the region are imported. If the western nations were truly interested in bringing peace to the Middle East, they would have placed a moratorium on arms sales to the region decades ago. Instead, they sell tens of billions worth of military hardware every year to the unstable regimes of the region. So the entities that are sending special envoys to "help the two sides make peace" are at the same time the main providers of weapons to the region. Somehow, this contradiction is never exposed.

This is where the Palestinian-Israeli conflict serves its purpose. Keeping the conflict alive means a never-ending moral crusade can be carried out by both Arabs and Jews, each blaming the other for keeping the conflict festering, each pointing fingers at the other side rather than at the foreigners. Is it merely a coincidence that there is vast oil reserves in the Middle East, while at the same time the region is home to a seven-decade-long conflict? If there were no oil, would there have been an Arab-Israeli conflict? As long as the Arabs and Jews are blaming each other, the foreigners' role will go unnoticed–as will their profits.

Roadmap To Nowhere: A Layman's Guide to the Middle East Conflict

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©2006 Joel Bainerman has been writing about Israeli and Middle East economic and political subjects since he immigrated to Israel in 1983. His independent research covers a wide variety of topics on Israel and the Middle East conflict. He is the author of The Crimes of a President, which documents the covert side of American-Israel bi-lateral relations. An archive of more than 500 articles (including a 45-page report entitled "Why The Middle East Conflict Continues To Exist") is available at his website: www.joelbainerman.com. He lectures on the Middle East and may be reached at: isratech@netvision.net.il.

David Emory And Theory of The Underground Reich

David Emory is an American talk radio host and personality based in Ben Lomond, California.

Career overview

Self-described as an anti-fascist researcher, Emory has produced, written and hosted several series, namely The Guns of November, From the Archives, One Step Beyond and Anti-Fascist Archives (formerly Radio Free America). Currently his For the Record series airs every Tuesday on WFMU. Descriptions, summaries and recordings of his shows are archived and maintained by Spitfire Infotech and WFMU.

A typical program consists of an hour-long monologue by Emory, centered around a particular topic and primarily consisting of Emory reading various mainstream press articles and books and interjecting commentary in the voice of a trained radio announcer. It may take the listener repeated hearings to understand Emory's main conjecture—that there is an "underground reich" which has control over much of politics.

Since the 1980s, Emory's radio shows have covered a wide range of topics, focusing mainly on the various historical manifestations of Fascism, Corporatism and Cartelism, the Cold War, Global Capitalism as well as the Fascist and Totalitarian movements of the early 20th century. Emory has placed special emphasis on the Kennedy assassination, the Third Reich, German industry and banking, Islamic fascist groups, 9/11, the Bush family, international intelligence, Neo-Fascism and cults.

Kevin Coogan, author of a critical book about Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International, has been a frequent guest on Emory's show. Other guests include former U.S. Department of Justice special investigator, Nazi-hunter and author John Loftus, authors Sterling Seagrave and his wife Peggy and investigative journalists Lucy Komisar, Robert Parry and Daniel Hopsicker.

Theory of "The Underground Reich"

As his central thesis, Emory maintains that the combined interests of primarily German chemical and heavy industry, plus banking and finance of the early 20th century, having facilitated Hitler's rise to power and armed the Third Reich, survived the war as an increasingly well-moneyed part of the global capital elite. Just as individual German and Japanese war criminals, collaborators, businessmen and military and government officials had escaped retribution to find refuge and patronage under the U.S. mantle of anti-Communism during the Cold War, so had these interests regenerated and revitalized themselves within Western military and intelligence institutions, as well as in political parties and multinational corporations. Thus, as described by Emory, "The Underground Reich" represents an obscure, sinister, yet characteristic trait of global capitalism itself.

While critics of capitalism, conservativism, libertarianism and globalism often see a linear progression from those positions to fascism, Emory and his adherents regard many of the protaganists as literally Nazis, with the anti-Semitic, racial, and religious overtones that go with Nazism. Emory has discussed strong evidence that Nazi (and perhaps CIA) elements conspired with Palestinians to orchestrate the Munich Massacre. Emory decries the theory of peak oil, expressing scepticism about the analysis behind the theory, noting some of its proponents' advocacy of genocide, and the movement's historical and economic links with the Thyssen industrial empire and European royalists.

Paul Manning, Martin Bormann, and the "Bormann Organization"

"A decisively powerful network of corporate entities run by hardened SS veterans... the repository for the stolen wealth of Europe...."Martin Bormann and the flight of the German capital in the waning months of World War II feature prominently in Emory's work. Emory's primary source is the 1981 book Martin Bormann, Nazi in Exile by Paul Manning (ISBN 0-8184-0309-8), though a number of books published in the years following the war corroborate details of Manning's description of how German capital was spirited out and used by the postwar Nazi underground. This thesis postulates that the Bormann organization is a political and economic entity, perpetuated from the days of World War II in Mafia-like fashion, modeled on the historical fact that the Mafia began as a resistance movement to Norse and Saracen invaders of Sicily in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The Islamic-Fascist Axis

In a For the Record segment aired in July 2005, More on the History of the Islamic-Fascist Axis, Emory alleges that when U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff was in private law practice, he represented Dr. Magdy el-Amir, a financier of al-Qaeda. This connection is representative of a subject Emory has delved into in previous shows. He has also noted the historical connections between the Third Reich and the Muslim Brotherhood; between the C.I.A. and A. Q. Khan's nuclear arms acquisitions for Pakistan; between Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist, strategist Karl Rove and the Islamic Institute and between the George W. Bush administration and the government of Dubai.

Wikipedia.Org

The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art

Nazi Gold: The Real Story of How the World Plundered Jewish Treasures

When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%. The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted. One of the first actions was to destroy the trade unions and impose strict wage controls.

The government then expanded the money supply through massive deficit spending. However at the same time the government imposed a 4.5% interest rate ceiling, creating a massive shortage in borrowable funds. This was resolved by setting up a series of dummy companies that would pay for goods with bonds. The most famous of these was the MEFO company, and these bonds used as currency became known as mefo bills. While it was promised that these bonds could eventually be exchanged for real money, the repayment was put off until after the collapse of the Reich. These complicated maneuvers also helped conceal armament expenditures that violated the Treaty of Versailles.

According to economic theory, price control combined with a large increase in the money supply should have produced a large black market, but harsh penalties that saw violators sent to concentration camps or even shot prevented this development. Repressive measures also kept volatility low, reducing inflationary pressures. New policies also limited imports of consumer goods and focused on producing exports. International trade was greatly reduced remaining at about a third of 1929 levels throughout the Nazi period. Currency controls were extended, leading to a considerable overvaluation of the Reichsmark. These policies were successful in cutting unemployment dramatically.

Most industry was not nationalized, and businesses were still motivated by pursuing profits. However, industry was closely regulated with quotas and requirements to use domestic resources. These regulations were set by administrative committees composed of government and business officials. Competition was limited as major companies were organized into cartels through these administrative committees. Selective nationalization was used against businesses that failed to agree to these arrangements. The banks, which had been nationalized by Weimar, were returned to their owners and each administrative committee had a bank as member to finance the schemes.

While the strict state intervention into the economy and the massive rearmament policy led to full employment during the 1930s, real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938. Trade unions were abolished, as well as collective bargaining and the right to strike. The right to quit also disappeared: Labor books were introduced in 1935, and required the consent of the previous employer in order to be hired for another job.

The German economy was transferred to the leadership of Hermann Göring when, on 18 October 1936, the German Reichstag announced the formation of a Four-Year Plan. The Nazi economic plan aimed to achieve a number of objectives. Under the leadership of Fritz Todt, a massive public works project, the Reichsarbeitsdienst, was started, rivaling Roosevelt's New Deal in both size and scope. It functioned as a military-like unit, its most notable achievements being the network of Autobahnen and, once the war started, the building of bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe.

Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. In comparison, a military buildup had also been a part of the New Deal (regarding the Navy) and Stalin's First Five Year Plan. The Four-Year Plan was discussed in the controversial Hossbach Memorandum, which provides the "minutes" from one of Hitler's briefings. Some use the Hossbach Memorandum to show that Hitler planned a war in Eastern Europe in the pursuit of Lebensraum, believing that the Western powers of the United Kingdom and France would not intervene, leaving him free to take over the USSR, the "natural enemy" of Germany. However, this intentionalist view is disputed.

Nevertheless, the war came and although the Four-Year Plan technically expired in 1940, Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four-Year Plan" that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters by this point in time. In 1942, the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a full war economy under Albert Speer.

Nazi Gold

'Nazi gold' refers to the assets in gold transferred by Nazi Germany to overseas banks during the Second World War. The regime maintained a policy of looting the assets of its victims to finance the war, collecting the looted assets in central depositories. The occasional transfer of gold in return for currency took place in collusion with many individual collaborative institutions, whose identities and the precise extent of transactions have been unclear.

Acquisition

The draining of Germany's gold and foreign exchange reserves would prevent the acquisition of war materiel, and the Nazi economy, focused on militarisation, could not afford to run dry of the means to procure foreign machinery and parts. Nonetheless, nearing the end of the 1930s, Germany's foreign reserves were unsustainably low; by 1939, Germany had defaulted upon its foreign loans and most of its trade relied upon command economy barter.

However, this trend towards autarkic conservation of foreign reserves hides a trend of expanding official reserves, which occurred as a result of looting of assets in recently-occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia, and Nazi-governed Danzig. It is thought that these three sources boosted German official gold reserves by US$71m between 1937 and 1939. To mask the acquisition, the Reichsbank understated its official reserves (in 1939, by $40m relative to the Bank of England's estimate).

During the war, Nazi Germany continued this practice, only on a larger scale. Germany expropriated $550m of gold from foreign governments, of which, $223m from Belgium and $193m from the Netherlands. This does not reflect the quantity stolen from private citizens or companies, which would necessarily inflate the figure.

Disposal

The present whereabouts of the Nazi gold that disappeared into European banking institutions in 1945 has been the subject of several books, conspiracy theories, and a civil suit brought in 2001 against the Vatican Bank, the Franciscan Order and other defendants.

The Swiss National Bank, the largest gold distribution centre in continental Europe even before the war, was the logical avenue by which Nazi Germany could dispose of its gold. During the war, the SNB received $440m of gold, of which $316m is estimated to have been looted.

Croatia

Among Nazi puppet regimes, the Ustaše-controlled Independent State of Croatia also maintained concentration camps and confiscated the assets of its victims in the campaign of ethnic cleansing to clear 'Greater Croatia' of Serbs, Roma, and Jews. Victims' assets were deposited in the Croatian treasury. In 1948, U.S. Army Intelligence reports confirmed that 2,400 kilograms of Croatian gold were moved from the Vatican City to one of the Vatican’s numbered Swiss bank accounts.

At the time of the collapse of the Independent State of Croatia in 1945, Ustaše agents were found at the British-occupied Austro-Swiss border with gold valued at 350 million Swiss Francs. Intelligence reports also suggest that more than 200 million Swiss francs were eventually transferred to Vatican City and the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR) with the assistance of Roman Catholic clergy and the Franciscan Order. Such claims are denied by the IOR.

Nazi Gold: The Real Story of How the World Plundered Jewish Treasures

The Kennedy Curse

The Kennedy Curse refers to a series of unfortunate events that have happened to the Kennedy family. While these events could have happened to any family, some have referred to the continual misfortune of the Kennedy family as a curse. The improbability of so many repeated instances of misfortune within one family, especially two high-profile political assassinations, has raised questions as to whether the curse results from sheer bad luck or from coordinated violence against the Kennedy family.

There are several theories regarding the origin of the "curse". According to Kennedy detractor Edward Klein, there is a story that Joseph Kennedy made his way to the Court of St. James as ambassador in 1937. On a trip back to the United States, aboard an ocean liner that was also carrying a Lubavitcher rabbi named Israel Jacobson and six of his yeshiva students, who were fleeing the Nazis, Kennedy complained to the ship's captain about the distracting noises caused by the Jewish passengers praying on the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah. He demanded that they be forbidden to continue exercises so distracting to fellow passengers. "Rabbi Jacobson put a curse on Kennedy, damning him and all his male offspring to tragic fates."

There is another variation on this story where Joseph Kennedy was visiting Great Britain during World War II and a Jewish refugee came to him and begged him for assistance in getting his sons out of Europe and Joseph Kennedy ignored him. The refugee then placed a curse that involved Joseph Kennedy's sons facing the same fate that the refugee's sons did.

Another similar story claims that Joseph Kennedy sold weapons to Nazi Germany. Because of this, a Jewish town found out and all the towns people prayed for a curse on his family.

In Ireland, folklore tells that a Kennedy ancestor destroyed a fairy dwelling, thereby cursing all future generations.

Critics of the Curse theory argue that given the sheer size of the family the number of unfortunate events is not unusual. The "curse" may be seen less as a supernatural phenomenon than simply as an operation of the laws of probability. Such tragic events happen to a lesser or greater extent in all families but they just make headline news when they happen to a family so famous. It could also be argued that the Kennedy family due to their relative wealth have a lifestyle that is quite different from how most people live (for example, piloting a plane) and consequently they are more often in greater physical danger.

Believers in the "curse" generally cite the following core events as evidence of the family's misfortunes:

• 1941 - Rosemary Kennedy was believed to be mentally retarded but in fact suffered from mental illness due to the intense pressure of living in a competitive family. It is generally assumed that her intelligence was lower than average but that she was certainly not mentally retarded. She was a disappointment to her father and sent to live with a family aide. Thus isolated, she became increasingly violent and suffered severe mood swings. Subsequently, she underwent an experimental surgery with the intention of controlling her outbursts. The results of the lobotomy were disastrous, and she remained in an institution until her death in 2005. Due to this tragedy, several of the Kennedy family have been involved in advocacy on behalf of developmentally disabled people (founded Special Olympics and other organizations) and mental illness.
• 1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the eldest son of the Kennedy patriarch Joseph Kennedy, is killed over the English Channel while flying a mission during World War II.
• 1948 - Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, dies in a plane crash in France.
• 1955 - Jacqueline Kennedy suffers a miscarriage.
• 1956 - Jacqueline Kennedy gives birth to a stillborn daughter. (Although the daughter was unnamed and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery next to her parents with a marker reading "Daughter", later reports indicated that the Kennedys had intended to call her "Arabella Kennedy".)
• December 19, 1961 - Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch, suffers a greatly disabling stroke which makes movement and communication extremely difficult and limited until his death.
• August 7, 1963 - Patrick Bouvier Kennedy , the second son of John and Jacqueline Kennedy, dies two days after his birth, nearly six weeks premature.
• November 22, 1963 - President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas (see John F. Kennedy assassination).
• 1964 - Ted Kennedy is in a plane crash in which one of his aides and the pilot were killed. He was pulled from the wreckage by fellow senator Birch E. Bayh II (D-Ind.) and spent weeks in a hospital recovering from a severe back injury, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding.
• June 5, 1968 - Robert F. Kennedy, brother to both John and Ted, is shot multiple times in Los Angeles, immediately following his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary (see Robert F. Kennedy assassination). He died the next day. To say that he was assassinated on June 5, or June 6, 1968, is incorrect, for he lived slightly more than a day after he was shot.
• 1969 - "Chappaquiddick Incident" - A car driven by Ted Kennedy goes off a bridge. Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide to Robert Kennedy, dies in the accident.
• 1973 - Edward Kennedy, Jr. At the age of twelve loses his right leg due to bone cancer.
• 1973 - Joseph P. Kennedy II, son of Robert and Ethel, is the driver in a Cape Cod car accident that leaves one passenger permanently paralyzed.
• 1973 - Alexander Onassis, stepson of Jacqueline Kennedy, dies in a plane crash.
• 1984 - David A. Kennedy, a son of Robert, dies from a Demerol and cocaine overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida hotel room.
• 1994 - Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis dies after a brief battle with cancer.
• 1997 - Michael Kennedy, another son of Robert, dies in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado.
• 1999 - John F. Kennedy Jr.; his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy; and Carolyn's sister Lauren Bessette died when the private plane Kennedy was piloting crashes into the Atlantic Ocean on a hazy evening en route from Essex County Airport in Fairfield, New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard.

Secondary events

Despite being in the news, these events are not considered to be part of the "curse" by all believers.

• 1983 - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is arrested in South Dakota for heroin possession.
• 1986 - Patrick J. Kennedy, a son of Senator Ted Kennedy, begins treatment for cocaine addiction.
• 1988 - Christina Onassis, stepdaughter of Jacqueline Kennedy, dies of drug abuse-related heart failure.
• 1991 - William Kennedy Smith, son of Jean Kennedy, is accused of raping a woman in Palm Beach, Florida. He is tried and acquitted.
• 1997 - Michael Kennedy, son of Robert, becomes embroiled in an adultery scandal involving allegations of statutory rape.
• 2002 - Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, is convicted in the 1975 murder of a neighbor when he was a teenager.
• 2006 - Patrick J. Kennedy is involved in a single-car accident in Washington DC on 4 May. He plans to enter treatment for addiction to prescription pain medication.
• 2006 - Ted Kennedy was aboard a plane which was struck by lightning and had to be diverted to New Haven, Conn. Senator Kennedy had just delivered the commencement address at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams and was on his way to his Cape Cod home when the plane was struck.

Refutations of The "Cursed"

Some skeptics follow the belief that the Kennedy curse is to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy where the actions of the family members enhance their risk for tragic events. A few refutations of the "cursed" events:

• 1941 - Rosemary Kennedy underwent a surgery that was non-standard and still in its experimental stages.
• 1944 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. volunteered for a special mission piloting a plane loaded with explosives.
• 1948 - Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, flew in weather that initially caused the pilot to refuse to fly.
• 1961 - Joseph P. Kennedy was 73 years old; not an uncommon age for a stroke, especially in 1961.
• 1969 - "Chappaquiddick Incident" - Ted Kennedy may have been driving drunk.
• 1983 - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had illegal drugs in his car, and thus brought about his own arrest.
• 1984 - David A. Kennedy was a recreational narcotics user, and thus brought about his own death.
• 1986 - Patrick J. Kennedy was a recreational narcotics user, and thus brought about his own addiction.
• 1988 - Christina Onassis was a recreational narcotics user, and thus brought about her own death.
• 1997 - Michael Kennedy was playing ski football without proper safety equipment.
• 1999 - John F. Kennedy, Jr. was described by experts as a relatively inexperienced pilot, taking his plane into a situation with poor visibility.
• 2002 - Michael Skakel isn't a Kennedy by blood or law.
• 2006 - Patrick J. Kennedy suffered no physical injuries after the crash and was able to put the incident in a positive light, affirming publicly his resolve to get help for his substance abuse problems.

The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years

Katrina and the Politics of Disaster

The top U.S. disaster official waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers, internal documents show.

Part of the mission, according to the documents obtained by The Associated Press, was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

Acknowledging that such a move would take two days, Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29.

Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.

Brown's memo to Chertoff described Katrina as "this near catastrophic event" but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities." (No pagination)

Michael Brown is not the only one with a bull's eye on his chest. Former Clinton advisor Sydney Blumenthal also got in on the fun, placing blame squarely on the President's shoulders:

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war. (No pagination)

Many in the mainstream media have interpreted these revelations the same way: gross incompetence on the part of the government. Apparently, Uncle Sam cannot get a thing right these days. What the media has completely missed (or ignored) is how certain factions within government could use the Katrina catastrophe to introduce social changes previously unthinkable. There is a discomforting possibility that Americans must consider in light of the fact that there is no one else looking out for their best interest. It is the possibility that warnings were ignored and assistance was intentionally delayed to create a pretext for unprecedented government growth.

One supporter of this contention is Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. On the 5th September 2005 Alex Jones show, Roberts: "agreed that FEMA A has deliberately withheld aid, and cut emergency communication lines, and automatically made the crisis look worse in order to empower the image of a police state emerging to 'save the day'" (Watson and Jones, no pagination). Steve Watson and Alex Jones also report:

Roberts further commented "There is no excuse for this, we have never had in our history the federal government take a week to respond to a disaster...this is the first time ever that the help was not mobilized in advance. The proper procedure is that everything is mobilized and ready to go." (No pagination)

Roberts can hardly be called a conspiracy theorist. The former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury has recognized a certain game plan at work in the Katrina situation. This game plan has been used for centuries. Researcher Ralph Epperson elaborates:

The first step consisted of having the conspiracy's own people infiltrate the government (the "pressure from above.")

The second step was to create a real or alleged grievance, usually through either an action of government or through some situation where the government should have acted and didn't.

The third step consisted in having a mob created by the real or alleged grievance that the government or the conspiracy caused demand that the problem be solved by a governmental action (the "pressure from below.")

The fourth step consisted in having the conspirators in the government remedy the real or alleged situation with some oppressive legislation.

The fifth step is a repeat of the last three. The government does not solve the problem and the mob demand more and more legislation until the government becomes totalitarian in nature by possessing all of the power. (37)

If this method were fully implemented, it would be no exaggeration to describe the end result as being a Soviet-style America. One of the government agencies that have much to gain from the execution of this technique is FEMA.

Michael Brown may become a sacrificial lamb. However, the Agency he heads, FEMA, has much to gain from the Katrina catastrophe. The hurricane disaster may lead to calls for increasing FEMA's budget and power. In a hopes of silencing his critics, the President may favor such a move. America would then fall back to sleep, believing FEMA had its back covered in the event of another disaster. However, several researchers have recognized that FEMA has little to do with emergency relief. One such individual was deceased researcher Jim Keith. In his book, Black Helicopters Over America, Keith noted the following concerning FEMA:

FEMA is intended to assume the powers of government during "emergencies," even to the extent of taking over the powers of the President, if the situation is believed to warrant it. The organization is located in the top secret National Security Agency facility in Fort Meade, Maryland. In its more benign aspects, FEMA is seen as an "umbrella" agency that, during times of disaster or natural cataclysm, will step into to throw the stricken populace life preservers. But there are aspects of FEMA which have some worried, one being that only a small percentage, less than 10% of FEMA employees according to a Congressional investigation, is engaged in anything having to do with disaster relief. So what the hell is FEMA doing behind those closed doors at Fort Meade? Among other things, the agency is engaged in compiling computer records on millions of Americans, to provide a database for CAPS, Crisis Action Programs, to be deployed whenever the non-elected bureaucrats of FEMA anticipate something which might compromise almighty COG, what they term the "Continuity of Government." (108)

Was Keith merely being an alarmist when he penned these words? In his book The Triangle of Death, former DEA agent Michael Levine records a conversation he had with a CIA agent that reinforces Jim Keith's contention:

"How can you be so good at what you do and have so little understanding of what really pulls your strings? Don't you realize that there are factions in your government that want this to happen – an emergency situation too hot for a constitutional government to handle."

"To what end?" I asked.

"A suspension of the Constitution, of course. The legislation is already in place. All perfectly legal. Check it out yourself. It's called FEMA. Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'Turn in your guns, you antigovernment rabble rousers. And who would be king, Michael?" (353)

In an interview with William Norman Grigg, Levine made it clear that this account was not fictitious:

According to Levine, this shocking exchange is not the product of an imagination fed by alarmist. "That scenario…came from a specific conversation I had with a CIA officer in Argentina in 1979," Levine informed The New American. "There was a small group of us gathered for a drinking at the CIA guy's apartment. There were several Argentine police officers there as well; at the time, Argentina was a police state in which people could be taken into custody without warning, tortured, and then 'disappeared.'"

"At one point my associate in the CIA said that he preferred Argentina's approach to social order, and that America should be more like that country," Levine continues. "Somebody asked, 'Well, how does a change of that sort happen?' The spook replied that it was necessary to create a situation of public fear – a sense of impending anarchy and social upheaval…"(11)

The lack of response on the part of the government to hurricane Katrina created a situation just like that described by Levine's CIA acquaintance. An August 31, 2005 WWLTV news report seems to suggest that the situation had the desired effect:

Disgusted and furious with the lawlessness of looters who have put fear into citizens, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared Martial Law in the city and directed the city's 1,500 person police force to do "whatever it takes" to regain control of the city.

Nagin said that Martial Law means that officers don't have to worry about civil rights and Miranda rights in stopping the looters. (No pagination)

With the proper pretext now in place, FEMA could enter the scene. Lieutenant-general Carl A. Strock of the Army Corps of Engineers informed the press that FEMA was heading up the federal response: "Ultimately, the corps is directed, along with 15 other agencies, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'It is FEMA who is really calling the shots and setting priorities here,' General Strock said" (Revkin, no pagination).

Indeed, FEMA is calling all the shots in New Orleans. In the event of a larger crisis, the agency's powers could be further augmented by Executive Order 11051. This Executive Order would allow FEMA to enact other Executive Orders, extending the organization's control over numerous state and federal functions. This control would overarch education, welfare, and health services (Executive Order 11051, no pagination). In addition, FEMA would wield substantial authority over America's financial institutions. The agency would regulate wages, credit, salaries, and the flow of capital (Executive Order 11051, no pagination). The nation's means of production and distribution would also be commandeered (no pagination). In short, the infrastructure of the United States would be effectively controlled by one omnipotent governmental entity. FEMA is a dictator's wet dream, and with Katrina it is starting to be given teeth.

The lesson to be learned from Katrina is fairly obvious. In the event of a catastrophe, we cannot depend on the government to be our savior. The politics of disaster are not about relief for the victims. They are about the acquisition of power.

The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina--the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist

http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/