Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Experts Claim Official 9/11 Story is a Hoax
Scholars for 9/11 Truth call for verification and publication by an international consortium.Duluth, MN (PRWEB) January 30, 2006
-- A group of distinguished experts and scholars, including Robert M. Bowman, James H. Fetzer, Wayne Madsen, John McMurtry, Morgan Reynolds, and Andreas von Buelow, have concluded that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11.
They have joined with others in common cause as members of "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" (S9/11T), because they are convinced, based on their own research, that the administration has been deceiving the nation about critical events in New York and Washington, D.C.
These experts suggest these events may have been orchestrated by elements within the administration to manipulate Americans into supporting policies at home and abroad they would never have condoned absent "another Pearl Harbor."
They believe that this White House is incapable of investigating itself and hope the possibility that Congress might hold an unaccountable administration accountable is not merely naive or wishful thinking.
They are encouraging news services around the world to secure scientific advice by taking advantage of university resources to verify or to falsify their discoveries.
Extraordinary situations, they believe, require extraordinary measures.If this were done, they contend, one of the great hoaxes of history would stand naked before the eyes of the world and its perpetrators would be clearly exposed, which may be the only hope for saving this nation from ever greater abuse.
They hope this might include The New York Times, which, in their opinion, has repeatedly failed to exercise the leadership expecedt from our nation's newspaper of record by a series of inexplicable lapses.
It has failed to vigorously investigate tainted elections, lies leading to the war in Iraq, or illegal NSA spying on the American people, major unconstitutional events.
In their view, The Times might compensate for its loss of stature by helping to reveal the truth about one of the great turning-point events of modern history.
Stunning as it may be to acknowledge, they observe, the government has brought but one indictment against anyone and, to the best of their knowledge, has not even reprimanded anyone for incompetence or dereliction of duty.
The official conspiracy theory--that nineteen Arab hijackers under control of one man in the wilds of Afghanistan brought this about--is unsupportable by the evidential data, which they have studied.
They even believe there are good reasons for suspecting that video tapes officially attributed to Osama bin Laden are not genuine.
They have found the government's own investigiation to be severely flawed.
The 9/11 Commission, designated to investigate the attack, was directed by Philip Zelikow, part of the Bush transition team in the NSA sector and the co-author of a book with Condoleezza Rice.
A Bush supporter and director of national security affairs, he could hardly be expected to conduct an objective and impartial investigation.
They have discovered that The 9/11 Commission Report is replete with omissions, distortions, and factual errors, which David Ray Griffin has documented in his book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions.
The official report, for example, entirely ignores the collapse of WTC7, a 47-story building, which was hit by no airplanes, was only damaged by a few small fires, and fell seven hours after the attack.Here are some of the kinds of considerations that these experts and scholar find profoundly troubling:
* In the history of structural engineering, steel-frame high-rise buildings have never been brought down due to fires either before or since 9/11, so how can fires have brought down three in one day? How is this possible?
* The BBC has reported that at least five of the nineteen alleged "hijackers" have turned up alive and well living in Saudi Arabia, yet according to the FBI, they were among those killed in the attacks. How is this possible?
* Frank DeMartini, a project manager for the WTC, said the buildings were designed with load redistribution capabilities to withstand the impact of airliners, whose effects would be like "puncturing mosquito netting with a pencil." Yet they completely collapsed. How is this possible?
* Since the melting point of steel is about 2,700*F, the temperature of jet fuel fires does not exceed 1,800*F under optimal conditions, and UL certified the steel used to 2,000*F for six hours, the buildings cannot have collapsed due to heat from the fires. How is this possible?
* Flight 77, which allegedly hit the building, left the radar screen in the vicinity of the Ohio/Kentucky border, only to "reappear" in very close proximity to the Pentagon shortly before impact. How is this possible?
* Foreign "terrorists" who were clever enough to coordinate hijacking four commercial airliners seemingly did not know that the least damage to the Pentagon would be done by hitting its west wing. How is this possible?
* Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, in an underground bunker at the White House, watched Vice President Cheney castigate a young officer for asking, as the plane drew closer and closer to the Pentagon, "Do the orders still stand?" The order cannot have been to shoot it down, but must have been the opposite. How is this possible?
* A former Inspector General for the Air Force has observed that Flight 93, which allegedly crashed in Pennsylvania, should have left debris scattered over an area less than the size of a city block; but it is scattered over an area of about eight square miles. How is this possible?
* A tape recording of interviews with air traffic controllers on duty on 9/11 was deliberately crushed, cut into very small pieces, and distributed in assorted places to insure its total destruction. How is this possible?
* The Pentagon conducted a training exercise called "MASCAL" simulating the crash of a Boeing 757 into the building on 24 October 2000, and yet Condoleezza Rice, among others, has repeatedly asserted that "no one ever imagined" a domestic airplane could be used as a weapon. How is this possible?
Their own physics research has established that only controlled demolitions are consistent with the near-gravity speed of fall and virtually symmetrical collapse of all three of the WTC buildings.
While turning concrete into very fine dust, they fell straight-down into their own footprints.
These experts and scholars have found themselves obliged to conclude that the 9/11 atrocity represents an instance of the approach--which has been identified by Karl Rove, the President's closest adviser--of "creating our own reality."
Friday, January 27, 2006
Bush once again playing on fears of U.S. public
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.lpitts@MiamiHerald.com
Karl Rove said in a speech last week that this year's midterm election will be about security. So you know it will be about fear.
It would be nice to be able to take President Bush's chief political advisor at his word. Consider where we stand 52 months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Hurricane Katrina has shown that the government could not effectively manage a catastrophe whose place and time it knew in advance.
The same storm revealed that first responders are still unable to communicate because their radios are incompatible, four years after the inability of emergency agencies to speak with one another emerged as one of the signature failings of Sept. 11.
Meanwhile, questions remain about the efficacy of airport security. And just last month, members of the Sept. 11 commission, five Republicans and five Democrats who were tasked with investigating the tragedy, gave the government failing grades in its response to the terror threat.
CODE WORD
So yes, a national conversation about security could hardly be more timely.
But it would be nave to think that's what Rove meant when he addressed the Republican National Committee in Washington Jan. 20.
Experience tells us that with this crew, ''security'' is just a code word for fear.
So this election will hinge on making people think terrorists are going to get 'em if they don't vote Republican.
In a sense, you can't blame Rove. With apologies to Garrett Morris, fear ''been beddy beddy good'' to the White House.
That's why Sept. 11 has become Team Bush's fallback position, its default reply to every hard question.
A ruinous war fought under false pretenses? Sept. 11.
Indefinite detention of alleged terrorists? Sept. 11.
Torture? Sept. 11.
The right of the people to dissent? Sept. 11.
Spying on Americans in violation of federal law? Sept. 11.
A growing record of incompetence and lies? Sept. 11.
Fear is the president's Get Out Of Jail Free card.
It works because panicked people are not thinking people.
If you can convince them Osama bin Laden is coming up the driveway and only you can save them, they'll turn a blind eye while you break the law, steal their rights, rape the Constitution itself.
LIKE SHEEP
So while this willingness to use fear as a tool of manipulation is distressing, what's more distressing is the willingness of some to be manipulated.
Consider the howls of outrage you don't hear as rights are abrogated and laws broken.
Fear makes us sheep. And as the campaign begins, you have to wonder if Democrats will challenge us to be more than that.
Or if they will again be caught with their pants down, playing Wile E. Coyote to the GOP's Roadrunner.
One recalls 2004 and the neat bit of political jujitsu by which surrogates for the presidential candidate who avoided combat in Vietnam managed to make a political liability of his opponent's voluntary service there, even though said service won him a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
The shamelessness of Team Bush is not to be underestimated.
Ultimately, though, my concern is not the Democrats. Because what is at stake this year is not the fortunes of a party but the character of a nation.
The choice is simple: remain true to the ideals that have guided us for 230 years or surrender them on the altar of expedience because we were too scared to live up to them.
Make no mistake: America is not for wimps.
It takes guts to be an American, to believe in the rule of law, the freedom of dissent, the dignity of woman and man even when -- especially when -- it is more expedient not to.
To be an American is to commit a daily act of faith.
Or as Colin Powell said, the day after the Sept. 11 attacks, ''We're Americans. We don't walk around terrified.''
Too bad his own party is so intent on proving him wrong.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Firearms Refresher...repudiated!
1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
I submit an unarmed man is a target, and that an armed man is a frightened dangerous animal. Have you ever heard gun owners talk about why they own guns? They seem to walk in a world where they’re constantly on the verge of being raped, robbed, beaten and shot at. I’ve never been afraid here one day of my life. Why are people in, say, Kodiak Alaska so fearful? Know what I’d be afraid of up there? All those skittish gun owners.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
This is what I’m talking about. There’s this feeling that if you don’t own a gun, you’re never going to be able to ward off the hordes of Mongol invaders, Viking pillagers and Visigoths that are clamoring to breach the walls of your three bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, split-level ranch which is packed to the ceiling with rent-to-own furniture and 40-pound bags of dog food. As powerless, unresponsive agents of the liberal courts, cops aren’t likely to protect you I guess.
3. Glock: The original point and click interface.
The cleverness of this one cracked me up. And then I remembered that at 10-cent a bullet... the 13-shot Glock.... a point-and-click interface is capable of taking 13 lives for under a $1.50.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
Yup. Pretty much.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
I’d prefer it if you didn’t feel you needed to arm yourself with anything.
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
Actually, I’m pretty sure an uneducated, impoverished, hopeless and morally bankrupt population figures prominently among lead causes to misspelled words, crime and gun ownership. But that’s just me.
7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
This is one of the few of these pieces with which I almost agree. The constitution, by most interpretations, guarantees our right to own a gun. But gun owners, from my perspective, seem to suggest that if you don’t own a gun then you are being irresponsible. I feel that gun ownership is a dangerous mistake. Constitutionally guaranteed or not, it is an enormous responsibility to own a gun. I feel that in order to hold owners accountable to that responsibility, and to protect those of us who believe that an armed public is a dangerous public, then we need, at the very least, the meager-but-inconsistent shield of background checks, concealed weapon bans, and other legislation against irresponsible use of firearms.
8. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
Couldn’t agree more. Which is why the writer(s) of this list have no rights.
9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
Now, this is an interesting point to make. I think gun owners say that they own guns for liberty and security. I have no statistics to back this up but I’m going to make a wild supposition here. It’s my feeling that gun owners tend to vote overwhelmingly Republican. Just a guess. If that’s true then they have supported a government that has done more to curtail freedom in the name of security than any other regime in the history of the United States of America.
10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791: All Rights reserved.
As originally ratified in 1787, the constitution made valid slavery and obviated a woman’s right to vote. So, I’m not sure all rights are reserved.
11. What part of "... shall not be infringed .." do you not understand?
Turns of phrase such as “shall not be infringed” and “shall make no law” in the Constitution make things seem inviolable. The Supreme Court has correctly ruled, however, that laws can limit the breadth of concepts like “shall not be infringed.” You have freedom of speech, for example, but you can’t lie about people in public without some pretty dire consequences. You can own a gun, but you can’t own a weapon of mass destruction. So, actually, I think I understand “shall not be infringed” better than you do.
12. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.
In 1791, the need for the states to form militias (which was the primary point to the Second Ammendment) was an absolute necessity. “Regular” armies were notoriously corrupt agents of kings at that time. Also, frequent attacks were common by gangs and Indians and even by armies from other states. So, that’s why the Second Ammendment was ratified. Here is a fascinating (and balanced) history of the Second Ammendment. The author of the site offers a proposal as a three section addendum to the Second Amendment. They are:
* Section 1. The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
* Section 2. The right of the people to keep arms reasonable for hunting, sport, collecting, and personal defense shall not be infringed.
* Section 3. Restrictions of arms must be found to be reasonable under Section 2 by a two-thirds vote of Congress in two consecutive sessions of Congress before they can be forwarded to the President for approval.
I encourage you to read the history and framing of the debate here. It’s really interesting. It takes a very centrist position.
13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
299,000 registered sex offenders raped no one yesterday. So your point is…?
14. Guns only have two enemies: rust and liberals.
Sand is pretty bad, too.
15. Know guns, know peace and safety. No guns, no peace and safety.
See numbers one and two.
16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
I don’t shoot and everyone stays healthy and happy.
17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
It’s also government-sponsored access to a group of people dedicated to plugging the holes made in our bodies by gun owners on a daily basis.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
And a deadly weapon is a deadly weapon is a deadly weapon.
19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.
Criminals love guns more...they make their jobs possible.
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
Actually, arsonists cause arson. Gun owners cause bullet wounds.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
Only a citizenry that is afraid of everything feels compelled to arm itself to the teeth. And the notion of government fearing its citizens in this case is laughable. If you believe that one of the primary roles of government is to protect its citizens, then that includes protecting citizens from themselves. Making murder a crime is a form of control. Would you abolish that too?
22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
So is that it? You own the guns so you can effectively fight for the right to own your guns?
23. Enforce the "gun control laws" we have, don't make more.
We wouldn’t need more than one if we simply outlawed guns. But that’ll never happen. I don’t know enough about the current “gun control laws” to say whether those are good laws, or whether they are enforced or not. The reason I don’t know about these laws is that they differ from state-to-state and from municipality-to-municipality. This makes it impossible to know or enforce with any consistency the current gun control laws. I think we need to Federalize gun control before anyone will understand what the law is. If I’m not mistaken, that’s the point to the “sections” listed on the website referenced in number 12 above.
24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
When you supersede Article I, section 2 with Article IV, section 2, you eliminate slavery. Sometimes a nation outgrows an idea.
25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
The Civil War would have never happened without the cotton gin. Which brings us to…
26. ".. a government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE..."
What is sadly missing from this quote is the entirety of its context from the Gettysburg Address. The full quote reads, “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Six hundred twenty thousand died fighting over a failed idea: that a race of people was inferior to another, that a race of people was property. The bulk of the dead came from the side that won. To co-opt Lincoln’s words as support for the anti-gun control movement is incongruous, antithetical and insulting.
You know the mullahs in Iran are more or less making the same argument as the gun lovers in this country; only the mullahs believe they have the right to bear nuclear arms.
And really, who is the U.S. or anyone else to tell them they can’t?
The clerics see it as a matter of national survival that they have the necessary firepower to ward off outside forces that threaten their way of life.
For Iran, nuclear arms are about being free—free to live their lives the way they want to and not the way the U.S. tells them.
That’s why if I were a gun-toting right-winger, I’d stand arm-and-arm, so to speak, with my Iranian brethren and raise our weapons in the air and let out a round or two in celebration of our mutual love of our personal liberty.
But That would be Wrong...wouldn't it?
Why are guns the only way for a person to protect him- or herself?
What about tanks?
Maybe everyone should go around in a tank?
Especially if the world really is as dangerous and threatening as gun supporters suggest.
Or how about bodyguards?
Maybe everyone should have his or her own bodyguards?
Or how about each person having his or her own standing army?
I mean, you can never have enough protection.
Isn’t that why gun owners always seem to own a lot more than one gun—because you not only have to match someone else’s firepower, you need to supercede it too?
So if one guy has a handgun, I want a machine gun.
And if someone has a machine gun, then I want a bazooka.
But if someone has a bazooka, then I want to be able to radio in a bomb hit by a squadron of F-14 Tomcats.
Then again, if someone comes at me with his or her Tomcats, then I want my own personal atomic weapon.
And some agent orange to dump all over the continental US so I can see all the bad guys and smote them with my hydrogen bomb before they try to deny me my individual freedom.
And really, who is the U.S. or anyone else to tell them they can’t?
The clerics see it as a matter of national survival that they have the necessary firepower to ward off outside forces that threaten their way of life.
For Iran, nuclear arms are about being free—free to live their lives the way they want to and not the way the U.S. tells them.
That’s why if I were a gun-toting right-winger, I’d stand arm-and-arm, so to speak, with my Iranian brethren and raise our weapons in the air and let out a round or two in celebration of our mutual love of our personal liberty.
But That would be Wrong...wouldn't it?
Why are guns the only way for a person to protect him- or herself?
What about tanks?
Maybe everyone should go around in a tank?
Especially if the world really is as dangerous and threatening as gun supporters suggest.
Or how about bodyguards?
Maybe everyone should have his or her own bodyguards?
Or how about each person having his or her own standing army?
I mean, you can never have enough protection.
Isn’t that why gun owners always seem to own a lot more than one gun—because you not only have to match someone else’s firepower, you need to supercede it too?
So if one guy has a handgun, I want a machine gun.
And if someone has a machine gun, then I want a bazooka.
But if someone has a bazooka, then I want to be able to radio in a bomb hit by a squadron of F-14 Tomcats.
Then again, if someone comes at me with his or her Tomcats, then I want my own personal atomic weapon.
And some agent orange to dump all over the continental US so I can see all the bad guys and smote them with my hydrogen bomb before they try to deny me my individual freedom.
The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
By Krassimir Petrov, Ph. D.January 17, 2006
Abstract: the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse will accelerate the fall of the American Empire.
I. Economics of Empires
A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states.
The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations.
The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military.
One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.
Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms - usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver.
Historically, imperial taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the economic goods directly to the empire.
For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation.
It did not enforce the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but distributed instead its own fiat currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of inflating and devaluing those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods - the difference capturing the U.S. imperial tax.
Here is how this happened.
Early in the 20th century, the U.S. economy began to dominate the world economy.
The U.S. dollar was tied to gold, so that the value of the dollar neither increased, nor decreased, but remained the same amount of gold.
The Great Depression, with its preceding inflation from 1921 to 1929 and its subsequent ballooning government deficits, had substantially increased the amount of currency in circulation, and thus rendered the backing of U.S. dollars by gold impossible.
This led Roosevelt to decouple the dollar from gold in 1932.
Up to this point, the U.S. may have well dominated the world economy, but from an economic point of view, it was not an empire.
The fixed value of the dollar did not allow the Americans to extract economic benefits from other countries by supplying them with dollars convertible to gold.
Economically, the American Empire was born with Bretton Woods in 1945.
The U.S. dollar was not fully convertible to gold, but was made convertible to gold only to foreign governments.
This established the dollar as the reserve currency of the world.
It was possible, because during WWII, the United States had supplied its allies with provisions, demanding gold as payment, thus accumulating significant portion of the world's gold.
An Empire would not have been possible if, following the Bretton Woods arrangement, the dollar supply was kept limited and within the availability of gold, so as to fully exchange back dollars for gold.
However, the guns-and-butter policy of the 1960's was an imperial one: the dollar supply was relentlessly increased to finance Vietnam and LBJ's Great Society.
Most of those dollars were handed over to foreigners in exchange for economic goods, without the prospect of buying them back at the same value.
The increase in dollar holdings of foreigners via persistent U.S. trade deficits was tantamount to a tax - the classical inflation tax that a country imposes on its own citizens, this time around an inflation tax that U.S. imposed on rest of the world.
When in 1970-1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payment on August 15, 1971.
While the popular spin told the story of "severing the link between the dollar and gold", in reality the denial to pay back in gold was an act of bankruptcy by the U.S. Government. Essentially, the U.S. declared itself an Empire.
It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods, and the world was powerless to respond - the world was taxed and it could not do anything about it.
From that point on, to sustain the American Empire and to continue to tax the rest of the world, the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever-depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those depreciating dollars.
It had to give the world an economic reason to hold them, and that reason was oil.
In 1971, as it became clearer and clearer that the U.S Government would not be able to buy back its dollars in gold, it made in 1972-73 an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia to support the power of the House of Saud in exchange for accepting only U.S. dollars for its oil.
The rest of OPEC was to follow suit and also accept only dollars.
Because the world had to buy oil from the Arab oil countries, it had the reason to hold dollars as payment for oil.
Because the world needed ever increasing quantities of oil at ever increasing oil prices, the world's demand for dollars could only increase.
Even though dollars could no longer be exchanged for gold, they were now exchangeable for oil.
The economic essence of this arrangement was that the dollar was now backed by oil.
As long as that was the case, the world had to accumulate increasing amounts of dollars, because they needed those dollars to buy oil.
As long as the dollar was the only acceptable payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world.
If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist.
Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars.
It also dictated that oil reserves were spread around various sovereign states that weren't strong enough, politically or militarily, to demand payment for oil in something else.
If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political pressure or military means, to change his mind.
The man that actually did demand Euro for his oil was Saddam Hussein in 2000.
At first, his demand was met with ridicule, later with neglect, but as it became clearer that he meant business, political pressure was exerted to change his mind.
When other countries, like Iran, wanted payment in other currencies, most notably Euro and Yen, the danger to the dollar was clear and present, and a punitive action was in order.
Bush's Shock-and-Awe in Iraq was not about Saddam's nuclear capabilities, about defending human rights, about spreading democracy, or even about seizing oil fields; it was about defending the dollar, ergo the American Empire.
It was about setting an example that anyone who demanded payment in currencies other than U.S. Dollars would be likewise punished.
Many have criticized Bush for staging the war in Iraq in order to seize Iraqi oil fields.
However, those critics can't explain why Bush would want to seize those fields - he could simply print dollars for nothing and use them to get all the oil in the world that he needs.
He must have had some other reason to invade Iraq.
History teaches that an empire should go to war for one of two reasons: (1) to defend itself or (2) benefit from war;
if not, as Paul Kennedy illustrates in his magisterial The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a military overstretch will drain its economic resources and precipitate its collapse.
Economically speaking, in order for an empire to initiate and conduct a war, its benefits must outweigh its military and social costs.
Benefits from Iraqi oil fields are hardly worth the long-term, multi-year military cost.
Instead, Bush must have went into Iraq to defend his Empire.
Indeed, this is the case: two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was terminated, the Iraqi Euro accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil was sold once again only for U.S. dollars.
No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with Euro.
Global dollar supremacy was once again restored.
Bush descended victoriously from a fighter jet and declared the mission accomplished - he had successfully defended the U.S. dollar, and thus the American Empire.
II. Iranian Oil Bourse
The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate "nuclear" weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire.
That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006.
It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro.
In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam's, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether.
If so, then it is likely that almost everyone will eagerly adopt this euro oil system:
The Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead pay with their own currencies.
The adoption of the euro for oil transactions will provide the European currency with a reserve status that will benefit the European at the expense of the Americans..
The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange, because it will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with Euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the dollar.
One portion of their dollars they will still want to hold onto; a second portion of their dollar holdings they may decide to dump outright; a third portion of their dollars they will decide to use up for future payments without replenishing those dollar holdings, but building up instead their euro reserves..
The Russians have inherent economic interest in adopting the Euro - the bulk of their trade is with European countries, with oil-exporting countries, with China, and with Japan.
Adoption of the Euro will immediately take care of the first two blocs, and will over time facilitate trade with China and Japan. Also, the Russians seemingly detest holding depreciating dollars, for they have recently found a new religion with gold.
Russians have also revived their nationalism, and if embracing the Euro will stab the Americans, they will gladly do it and smugly watch the Americans bleed..
The Arab oil-exporting countries will eagerly adopt the Euro as a means of diversifying against rising mountains of depreciating dollars.
Just like the Russians, their trade is mostly with European countries, and therefore will prefer the European currency both for its stability and for avoiding currency risk, not to mention their jihad against the Infidel Enemy.
Only the British will find themselves between a rock and a hard place.
They have had a strategic partnership with the U.S. forever, but have also had their natural pull from Europe.
So far, they have had many reasons to stick with the winner.
However, when they see their century-old partner falling, will they firmly stand behind him or will they deliver the coup de grace?
Still, we should not forget that currently the two leading oil exchanges are the New York's NYMEX and the London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), even though both of them are effectively owned by the Americans.
It seems more likely that the British will have to go down with the sinking ship, for otherwise they will be shooting themselves in the foot by hurting their own London IPE interests.
It is here noteworthy that for all the rhetoric about the reasons for the surviving British Pound, the British most likely did not adopt the Euro namely because the Americans must have pressured them not to: otherwise the London IPE would have had to switch to Euros, thus mortally wounding the dollar and their strategic partner.
At any rate, no matter what the British decide, should the Iranian Oil Bourse accelerate, the interests that matter-those of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, and Arabs-will eagerly adopt the Euro, thus sealing the fate of the dollar.
Americans cannot allow this to happen, and if necessary, will use a vast array of strategies to halt or hobble the operation's exchange:
Unilateral Total War - this is obviously the worst strategic choice.
First, the U.S. military resources have been already depleted with two wars.
Secondly, the Americans will further alienate other powerful nations.
Third, major dollar-holding countries may decide to quietly retaliate by dumping their own mountains of dollars, thus preventing the U.S. from further financing its militant ambitions.
Finally, Iran has strategic alliances with other powerful nations that may trigger their involvement in war; Iran reputedly has such alliance with China, India, and Russia, known as the Shanghai Cooperative Group, a.k.a. Shanghai Coop and a separate pact with Syria.
Whatever the strategic choice, from a purely economic point of view, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar.
The collapsing dollar will dramatically accelerate U.S. inflation and will pressure upward U.S. long-term interest rates.
At this point, the Fed will find itself between Scylla and Charybdis - between deflation and hyperinflation - it will be forced fast either to take its "classical medicine" by deflating, whereby it raises interest rates, thus inducing a major economic depression, a collapse in real estate, and an implosion in bond, stock, and derivative markets, with a total financial collapse, or alternatively, to take the Weimar way out by inflating, whereby it pegs the long-bond yield, raises the Helicopters and drowns the financial system in liquidity, bailing out numerous LTCMs and hyperinflating the economy.
The Austrian theory of money, credit, and business cycles teaches us that there is no in-between Scylla and Charybdis.
Sooner or later, the monetary system must swing one way or the other, forcing the Fed to make its choice.
No doubt, Commander-in-Chief Ben Bernanke, a renowned scholar of the Great Depression and an adept Black Hawk pilot, will choose inflation.
Helicopter Ben, oblivious to Rothbard's America's Great Depression, has nonetheless mastered the lessons of the Great Depression and the annihilating power of deflations.
The Maestro has taught him the panacea of every single financial problem-to inflate, come hell or high water.
He has even taught the Japanese his own ingenious unconventional ways to battle the deflationary liquidity trap. Like his mentor, he has dreamed of battling a Kondratieff Winter.
To avoid deflation, he will resort to the printing presses; he will recall all helicopters from the 800 overseas U.S. military bases; and, if necessary, he will monetize everything in sight.
His ultimate accomplishment will be the hyperinflationary destruction of the American currency and from its ashes will rise the next reserve currency of the world-that barbarous relic called gold.
A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states.
The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations.
The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military.
One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.
Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms - usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver.
Historically, imperial taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the economic goods directly to the empire.
For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation.
It did not enforce the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but distributed instead its own fiat currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of inflating and devaluing those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods - the difference capturing the U.S. imperial tax.
Here is how this happened.
Early in the 20th century, the U.S. economy began to dominate the world economy.
The U.S. dollar was tied to gold, so that the value of the dollar neither increased, nor decreased, but remained the same amount of gold.
The Great Depression, with its preceding inflation from 1921 to 1929 and its subsequent ballooning government deficits, had substantially increased the amount of currency in circulation, and thus rendered the backing of U.S. dollars by gold impossible.
This led Roosevelt to decouple the dollar from gold in 1932.
Up to this point, the U.S. may have well dominated the world economy, but from an economic point of view, it was not an empire.
The fixed value of the dollar did not allow the Americans to extract economic benefits from other countries by supplying them with dollars convertible to gold.
Economically, the American Empire was born with Bretton Woods in 1945.
The U.S. dollar was not fully convertible to gold, but was made convertible to gold only to foreign governments.
This established the dollar as the reserve currency of the world.
It was possible, because during WWII, the United States had supplied its allies with provisions, demanding gold as payment, thus accumulating significant portion of the world's gold.
An Empire would not have been possible if, following the Bretton Woods arrangement, the dollar supply was kept limited and within the availability of gold, so as to fully exchange back dollars for gold.
However, the guns-and-butter policy of the 1960's was an imperial one: the dollar supply was relentlessly increased to finance Vietnam and LBJ's Great Society.
Most of those dollars were handed over to foreigners in exchange for economic goods, without the prospect of buying them back at the same value.
The increase in dollar holdings of foreigners via persistent U.S. trade deficits was tantamount to a tax - the classical inflation tax that a country imposes on its own citizens, this time around an inflation tax that U.S. imposed on rest of the world.
When in 1970-1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payment on August 15, 1971.
While the popular spin told the story of "severing the link between the dollar and gold", in reality the denial to pay back in gold was an act of bankruptcy by the U.S. Government. Essentially, the U.S. declared itself an Empire.
It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods, and the world was powerless to respond - the world was taxed and it could not do anything about it.
From that point on, to sustain the American Empire and to continue to tax the rest of the world, the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever-depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those depreciating dollars.
It had to give the world an economic reason to hold them, and that reason was oil.
In 1971, as it became clearer and clearer that the U.S Government would not be able to buy back its dollars in gold, it made in 1972-73 an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia to support the power of the House of Saud in exchange for accepting only U.S. dollars for its oil.
The rest of OPEC was to follow suit and also accept only dollars.
Because the world had to buy oil from the Arab oil countries, it had the reason to hold dollars as payment for oil.
Because the world needed ever increasing quantities of oil at ever increasing oil prices, the world's demand for dollars could only increase.
Even though dollars could no longer be exchanged for gold, they were now exchangeable for oil.
The economic essence of this arrangement was that the dollar was now backed by oil.
As long as that was the case, the world had to accumulate increasing amounts of dollars, because they needed those dollars to buy oil.
As long as the dollar was the only acceptable payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world.
If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist.
Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars.
It also dictated that oil reserves were spread around various sovereign states that weren't strong enough, politically or militarily, to demand payment for oil in something else.
If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political pressure or military means, to change his mind.
The man that actually did demand Euro for his oil was Saddam Hussein in 2000.
At first, his demand was met with ridicule, later with neglect, but as it became clearer that he meant business, political pressure was exerted to change his mind.
When other countries, like Iran, wanted payment in other currencies, most notably Euro and Yen, the danger to the dollar was clear and present, and a punitive action was in order.
Bush's Shock-and-Awe in Iraq was not about Saddam's nuclear capabilities, about defending human rights, about spreading democracy, or even about seizing oil fields; it was about defending the dollar, ergo the American Empire.
It was about setting an example that anyone who demanded payment in currencies other than U.S. Dollars would be likewise punished.
Many have criticized Bush for staging the war in Iraq in order to seize Iraqi oil fields.
However, those critics can't explain why Bush would want to seize those fields - he could simply print dollars for nothing and use them to get all the oil in the world that he needs.
He must have had some other reason to invade Iraq.
History teaches that an empire should go to war for one of two reasons: (1) to defend itself or (2) benefit from war;
if not, as Paul Kennedy illustrates in his magisterial The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a military overstretch will drain its economic resources and precipitate its collapse.
Economically speaking, in order for an empire to initiate and conduct a war, its benefits must outweigh its military and social costs.
Benefits from Iraqi oil fields are hardly worth the long-term, multi-year military cost.
Instead, Bush must have went into Iraq to defend his Empire.
Indeed, this is the case: two months after the United States invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food Program was terminated, the Iraqi Euro accounts were switched back to dollars, and oil was sold once again only for U.S. dollars.
No longer could the world buy oil from Iraq with Euro.
Global dollar supremacy was once again restored.
Bush descended victoriously from a fighter jet and declared the mission accomplished - he had successfully defended the U.S. dollar, and thus the American Empire.
II. Iranian Oil Bourse
The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate "nuclear" weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire.
That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006.
It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro.
In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam's, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether.
If so, then it is likely that almost everyone will eagerly adopt this euro oil system:
The Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead pay with their own currencies.
The adoption of the euro for oil transactions will provide the European currency with a reserve status that will benefit the European at the expense of the Americans..
The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange, because it will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with Euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the dollar.
One portion of their dollars they will still want to hold onto; a second portion of their dollar holdings they may decide to dump outright; a third portion of their dollars they will decide to use up for future payments without replenishing those dollar holdings, but building up instead their euro reserves..
The Russians have inherent economic interest in adopting the Euro - the bulk of their trade is with European countries, with oil-exporting countries, with China, and with Japan.
Adoption of the Euro will immediately take care of the first two blocs, and will over time facilitate trade with China and Japan. Also, the Russians seemingly detest holding depreciating dollars, for they have recently found a new religion with gold.
Russians have also revived their nationalism, and if embracing the Euro will stab the Americans, they will gladly do it and smugly watch the Americans bleed..
The Arab oil-exporting countries will eagerly adopt the Euro as a means of diversifying against rising mountains of depreciating dollars.
Just like the Russians, their trade is mostly with European countries, and therefore will prefer the European currency both for its stability and for avoiding currency risk, not to mention their jihad against the Infidel Enemy.
Only the British will find themselves between a rock and a hard place.
They have had a strategic partnership with the U.S. forever, but have also had their natural pull from Europe.
So far, they have had many reasons to stick with the winner.
However, when they see their century-old partner falling, will they firmly stand behind him or will they deliver the coup de grace?
Still, we should not forget that currently the two leading oil exchanges are the New York's NYMEX and the London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), even though both of them are effectively owned by the Americans.
It seems more likely that the British will have to go down with the sinking ship, for otherwise they will be shooting themselves in the foot by hurting their own London IPE interests.
It is here noteworthy that for all the rhetoric about the reasons for the surviving British Pound, the British most likely did not adopt the Euro namely because the Americans must have pressured them not to: otherwise the London IPE would have had to switch to Euros, thus mortally wounding the dollar and their strategic partner.
At any rate, no matter what the British decide, should the Iranian Oil Bourse accelerate, the interests that matter-those of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, and Arabs-will eagerly adopt the Euro, thus sealing the fate of the dollar.
Americans cannot allow this to happen, and if necessary, will use a vast array of strategies to halt or hobble the operation's exchange:
1. Sabotaging the Exchange - this could be a computer virus, network, communications, or server attack, various server security breaches, or a 9-11-type attack on main and backup facilities..
Coup d'état - this is by far the best long-term strategy available to the Americans..
2. Negotiating Acceptable Terms & Limitations - this is another excellent solution to the Americans.
Of course, a government coup is clearly the preferred strategy, for it will ensure that the exchange does not operate at all and does not threaten American interests. However, if an attempted sabotage or coup d'etat fails, then negotiation is clearly the second-best available option..
3. Joint U.N. War Resolution - this will be, no doubt, hard to secure given the interests of all other member-states of the Security Council. Feverish rhetoric about Iranians developing nuclear weapons undoubtedly serves to prepare this course of action..
4. Unilateral Nuclear Strike - this is a terrible strategic choice for all the reasons associated with the next strategy, the Unilateral Total War. The Americans will likely use Israel to do their dirty nuclear job..
Coup d'état - this is by far the best long-term strategy available to the Americans..
2. Negotiating Acceptable Terms & Limitations - this is another excellent solution to the Americans.
Of course, a government coup is clearly the preferred strategy, for it will ensure that the exchange does not operate at all and does not threaten American interests. However, if an attempted sabotage or coup d'etat fails, then negotiation is clearly the second-best available option..
3. Joint U.N. War Resolution - this will be, no doubt, hard to secure given the interests of all other member-states of the Security Council. Feverish rhetoric about Iranians developing nuclear weapons undoubtedly serves to prepare this course of action..
4. Unilateral Nuclear Strike - this is a terrible strategic choice for all the reasons associated with the next strategy, the Unilateral Total War. The Americans will likely use Israel to do their dirty nuclear job..
Unilateral Total War - this is obviously the worst strategic choice.
First, the U.S. military resources have been already depleted with two wars.
Secondly, the Americans will further alienate other powerful nations.
Third, major dollar-holding countries may decide to quietly retaliate by dumping their own mountains of dollars, thus preventing the U.S. from further financing its militant ambitions.
Finally, Iran has strategic alliances with other powerful nations that may trigger their involvement in war; Iran reputedly has such alliance with China, India, and Russia, known as the Shanghai Cooperative Group, a.k.a. Shanghai Coop and a separate pact with Syria.
Whatever the strategic choice, from a purely economic point of view, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar.
The collapsing dollar will dramatically accelerate U.S. inflation and will pressure upward U.S. long-term interest rates.
At this point, the Fed will find itself between Scylla and Charybdis - between deflation and hyperinflation - it will be forced fast either to take its "classical medicine" by deflating, whereby it raises interest rates, thus inducing a major economic depression, a collapse in real estate, and an implosion in bond, stock, and derivative markets, with a total financial collapse, or alternatively, to take the Weimar way out by inflating, whereby it pegs the long-bond yield, raises the Helicopters and drowns the financial system in liquidity, bailing out numerous LTCMs and hyperinflating the economy.
The Austrian theory of money, credit, and business cycles teaches us that there is no in-between Scylla and Charybdis.
Sooner or later, the monetary system must swing one way or the other, forcing the Fed to make its choice.
No doubt, Commander-in-Chief Ben Bernanke, a renowned scholar of the Great Depression and an adept Black Hawk pilot, will choose inflation.
Helicopter Ben, oblivious to Rothbard's America's Great Depression, has nonetheless mastered the lessons of the Great Depression and the annihilating power of deflations.
The Maestro has taught him the panacea of every single financial problem-to inflate, come hell or high water.
He has even taught the Japanese his own ingenious unconventional ways to battle the deflationary liquidity trap. Like his mentor, he has dreamed of battling a Kondratieff Winter.
To avoid deflation, he will resort to the printing presses; he will recall all helicopters from the 800 overseas U.S. military bases; and, if necessary, he will monetize everything in sight.
His ultimate accomplishment will be the hyperinflationary destruction of the American currency and from its ashes will rise the next reserve currency of the world-that barbarous relic called gold.
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/petrov/petrov011706.html
Saturday, January 21, 2006
A Prayer Before We Go To War....Again!
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation
*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
