In case there are people who don't understand why we invaded Iraq, it is because in 1973 we got rid of the Bretton Woods banking system (aka gold standard) and switched to fractional reserve banking. When we did this, it made our currency no longer backed by anything (called a fiat currency that relies on faith of monetary policy). So then why would anybody want to buy a currency that has no gold or silver value behind it...? Because in the same year, OPEC passed a law making every country in the world that wants to buy oil from their member countries, would no longer be able to use their own currency, but would have to buy US Dollars first and then use those to purchase oil at one of two oil bourses in the world, London and New York. This gave the dollar a demand on the global market, and every country that buys oil from countries that are in OPEC must first purchase US Dollars. That was until the year 2000 when Saddam Hussein decided he would no longer accept US dollars for Iraq's oil. He paid off people in the UN and OPEC and was able to get approval to switch from the dollar to two forms of payment, food (oil for food) or Euros. At the time, Euros were worth 80 cents to the dollar. Over the next 2 years, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela would follow what Saddam had done and no longer accepted US Dollars but only the Euro. This caused countries that were buying oil from Iran, Iraq, & Venzuela to trade their US dollars in on the global currency market for Euros, dropping the demand (value) for the dollar and raising demand (value) for the Euro. It was right after this that George Bush got on the TV and gave his speech about the Axis of Evil and the need to get rid of Saddam Hussein because of Weapons of Mass Destruction (that Iraq DID have because Donald Rumsfeld's corpoation sold them chemical and biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980's that were used on the Kurds)... We went into Iraq, toppled the regime and the first thing we did was switch the currency of oil exchange back to the dollar. Iran recently opened the third oil exchange in the world and eliminated the dollar from the exchange. This article is on how much they have made by making this move...It is economic warfare and a counter move to the sanctions that we have placed on Iran to destroy their economy. Who suffers in this fight? The PEOPLE of both countries who now have to pay for soaring inflation because the value of the dollar has dropped so far and it has not been reflected in their paychecks!
