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bridges—in fact, 'all state enterprises'—to foreign operators". been inflated for some time now because of the monopoly position of This economy makeover plan, he claims, "goes boldly where no "petrodollars" in oil trades. With the level of national debt, the value invasion plan has gone before". One of the goals is to impose of the dollar has been held artificially high compared to other intellectual property laws favourable to multinationals. Palast currencies. says this is likely "history's first military assault plan appended to The vast majority of the world's oil is traded on the New York a program for toughening the target nation's copyright laws". NYMEX (Mercantile Exchange) and the London IPE (International Interviewed by Palast, Grover Norquist—the "capo di capi of the Petroleum Exchange). Both exchanges are owned by US lobbyist army of the right'"—makes the plan even more clear when he _ corporations and transact oil trades in US currency. However, the responds: "The right to trade, property rights, these things are not to euro has become a somewhat stronger and more stable trading be determined by some democratic election." No, these things were = medium than the US dollar in recent years. Perhaps this is why to be determined by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Russia, Venezuela and some members of OPEC have expressed Before he left his position, CPA administrator Paul Bremer "issued interest in moving towards a petro-euro system for oil transactions. exactly 100 orders that remade Iraq in the image of the Economy A shift away from US dollars to euros in the oil market would cause Plan". These orders effectively changed Iraqi law. the demand for petrodollars to drop, perhaps causing the value of the A good example of this business invasion involves agriculture. dollar to plummet. The details of this part of the "market make-over" are laid out in the Clark warns that "a unilateral US military strike on Iran would fur- Grain website article, "Iraq's New Patent Law: a declaration of war ther isolate the US Government, and it is conceivable that such an against farmers". Order 81 of the 100 is entitled "Patent, Industrial overt action could provoke other industrialized nations to abandon Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant the dollar en masse". Perhaps the US planners think that they can Variety". According to Grain staff writers, this order has "made it corner the market in oil militarily. But from Clark's point of view, "a illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties _ US intervention in Iran is likely to prove disastrous for the United registered under the law". Plant Variety Protection (PVP) "...is an States, making matters much worse regarding international terrorism, intellectual property right or a kind of patent for plant varieties which —_ not to mention potential adverse effects on the US economy". The gives an exclusive monopoly right on more likely outcome of an Iran inva- planting material to a plant breeder who sion would be that, just as in Iraq, claims to have discovered or developed Iranian oil exports would dry up, anew variety. So the ‘protection’ in " i i regardless of what currency they are PVP has nothing to do with conserva- Under the guise of helping denominated in, and China would be tion, but refers to safeguarding of the Iraq back on its feet, the US is compelled to abandon the dollar and commercial interests of private breed- A . A buy oil from Russia, likely in euros. ers (usually large corporations) claim- setting out to re: engineer the Clark points out: "World oil ing to have created the new plants". country's traditional farming production is now flat out, and a major Writing in The Ecologist, Jeremy . interruption would escalate oil prices to Smith explains: "Under the guise of system into a US-style a level that would set off a global helping Iraq back on its feet, the US corporate agribusiness.” depression." is setting out to re-engineer the coun- (Source: Centre for Research on try's traditional farming system into a Globalization, September 27, 2004, US-style corporate agribusiness." In http://www. globalresearch.ca) that traditional system, "97 per cent of Iraqi farmers used their own saved seed or bought seed from 10. Mountaintop Removal Destroys Ecosystems local markets". ountaintop removal (MTR) is a new form of coal mining in Smith continues: "Unfortunately, this vital heritage and knowl- which companies dynamite the tops of mountains to collect edge base is now believed lost, the victim of the current campaign the coal underneath. Multiple peaks are blown off and dumped and the many years of conflict that preceded it." onto highland watersheds, destroying entire mountain ranges. (Sources: TomPaine.com, October 26, 2004; Grain, October More than 1,000 miles of streams have been destroyed by this 2004, http://www.grain.org; The Ecologist, February 4, 2005) pra tice in West Virginia alone. MTR endangers and destroys "Under the guise of helping Iraq back on its feet, the US is setting out to re-engineer the country’s traditional farming system into a US-style eer ern Lean TD) 10. Mountaintop Removal Destroys Ecosystems ountaintop removal (MTR) is a new form of coal mining in which companies dynamite the tops of mountains to collect the coal underneath. Multiple peaks are blown off and dumped onto highland watersheds, destroying entire mountain ranges. More than 1,000 miles of streams have been destroyed by this practice in West Virginia alone. MTR endangers and destroys entire communities with massive sediment dams and non-stop explosions. According to Fred Mooney, an active member of the Mountain Faction of Katuah Earth First!: "MTR is an ecocidal mining practice in which greedy coal companies use millions of pounds of dynamite a day (three million pounds a day in southwest Virginia alone) to blow up entire mountain ranges in order to extract a small amount of coal." He goes on to say: "Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, they dump the waste into valleys and riverbeds. The combination of these elements effectively kills everything in the ecosystems." The coal industry has coined many less-menacing names for mountaintop removal, such as cross-range mining, surface mining and others. But regardless of the euphemism, MTR remains among the most pernicious forms of mining ever conceived. Blasting moun- taintops with dynamite is cheaper than hiring miners who belong to a union. More than 40,000 have been lost to MTR in West Virginia alone. 9. Iran's New Oil Trading System Challenges US Dollar lhe US media tell us that Iran may be the next target of US aggression. The anticipated excuse is Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. William Clark, at GlobalResearch.ca, says that economic reasons may have more to do with US concerns over Iran than any weapons of mass destruction. In mid-2003, Iran broke from tradition and began accepting euros as payment for its oil exports from its European Union and Asian customers. Saddam Hussein attempted a similar bold step back in 2000 and was met with a devastating reaction from the United States. Tran intends to set up an oil exchange (or bourse) in 2006 that would facilitate global trading of oil between industrialised and developing countries by pricing sales in the euro, or "petro-euro". To this end, it is creating a euro-denominated, Internet-based oil exchange system for global oil sales. This is a direct challenge to US-dollar supremacy in the global oil market. It is widely speculated that the US dollar has 16 = NEXUS corporate agribusiness.” www.nexusmagazine.com DECEMBER 2005 — JANUARY 2006