June 9, 2004
WHAT GAP?:
A "Good Soldier" for the Left: Leftist media star Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski bridges the gap between the Hate America Left and the Lyndon LaRouche Right. (Anthony Gancarski, 6/09/04, FrontPage)
The Left has finally found a soldier it can support: Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, formerly of the Department of Defense. Of course, she's a crackpot who claims George W. Bush toppled Saddam Hussein, because Hussein's trade under the abused Oil-for-Food program was conducted in Euros, rather than dollars. This move by Saddam could cause "almost glacial shifts in confidence in trading on the dollar...(so) one of the first executive orders that Bush signed in May (2003) switched trading on Iraq's oil back to the dollar." She also circulates Lyndon LaRouche's tripe to the credulous, Hate America Left...and carved a handy (and, no doubt, profitable) niche for herself on the domestic left-wing, as a result.Who is this Karen Kwiatkowski, this pundit who came seemingly out of nowhere to elicit praise and collaboration from the elite media organs of the Left? She first became prominent for saying what Donald RumsfeldÃs critics believed all along: that forces of appeasement in the DOD (the "non-violent lobby," as the Left would have it) were thwarted by the nefarious forces clustered around the Office of Special Plans, whose policies are designed only to defend Israel.
A recently retired USAF lieutenant colonel, Kwiatkowski is making a name for herself in the media, writing for the American Conservative, Salon, LewRockwell.com, MilitaryWeek.Com and a growing list of leftist publications. Left-wing organs pass her off as the quintessential "good soldier," a Pentagon staffer who was so appalled by the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom that she resigned in protest. Kwiatkowski spent her last four-and-a-half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. Her active service closed with a stint from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Near East/South Asia and Special Plans. Kwiatkowski's popularity shows the growing confluence between the Old Right and the Hate America Left.
Kwiatkowski began as a columnist for LewRockwell.com, a website devoted to the legacy of libertarian economist Murray Rothbard and other vanity political concerns. The pairing seemed odd from the start. Kwiatkowski deriving the bulk of her reported income by working for the army. Her other credentials were earned working for the federal government, yet she feels at home on a site whose intellectual forebears have written about the dangers of large standing armies and long to dissolve entire sectors of the government. It's strange that someone who worked to defend foreign nations ended up on a website with articles like "Socialism and Foreign Aid." And her parroting of the site's claim that the current war is the work of Zionist hustlers would seem opposed to the detachment necessary for military planning.
It's almost comforting to know that no matter what psychoses each of us may develop, we can all blame the Jews. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 9, 2004 10:45 AM
Reminds me of that Tom Leher song lyric:
Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews.
Personally, I'm waiting for the day when Lyndon LaRouche, Pat Buchanan, Ramsey Clark, Al Gore, and George Soros all realize to their mutual horror that they agree on nearly everything. 'T'will be fun to watch.
Posted by: Mike Morley at June 9, 2004 11:28 AM
I've heard this charge several times before, and I've tried to point out that: a) It would simply result in Americans buying less oil from Iraq, and more from countries selling dollar-denominated oil contracts, and b) Even if the trend spread to all OPEC nations, it would have been a short-term negative for the US, but a long-term GOOD, since it's far more likely that the US will economically outperform Europe in the coming decade, than not. Although currency exchange rates don't directly mirror such relative performances, they do broadly reflect them, and so eventually oil prices would be LOWER in Euros than in dollars.
Further, Mr. Javad Yarjani, who at the time was Head of the Petroleum Market Analysis Dept, and OPEC Secretary General, had this to say on April 14, 2002 to participants in a seminar entitled 'The International Role of the Euro', hosted by the Spanish Minister of Economic Affairs, His Excellency Rodrigo Rato Figueredo.
" The question that comes to mind is whether the euro will establish itself in world financial markets, thus challenging the supremacy of the US dollar, and consequently trigger a change in the dollar’s dominance in oil markets. As we all know, the mighty dollar has reigned supreme since 1945, and in the last few years has even gained more ground with the economic dominance of the United States, a situation that may not change in the near future. By the late 90s, more than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions, and half of all world exports, were denominated in dollars. In addition, the US currency accounts for about two thirds of all official exchange reserves. [...]
Oil is a globally traded commodity and the present pricing system is one in which OPEC crude oil prices are calculated based on formulas derived from marker crudes like Brent, WTI or Dubai, all of which are denominated in dollars in international oil markets. The whole system of global oil trading and hedging is built around the dollar, and there appears to be little chance of change to another currency in the near future. [...]
So what is the OPEC position on this critical questions? Can the Organization consider switching its crude oil pricing from dollars to euros? Or will a basket of currencies be used?
Because crude oil contracts are currently traded in dollars, and the prices of OPEC crudes are determined by using complex formulas derived from marker crudes, such as Brent and WTI, there is not much the Organization can do unilaterally until, and unless, there is a switch of denomination in these markets. OPEC has no control over the quotations of these marker crudes, whereas, in the past the Organization did set the official selling prices. That has all changed with the introduction of market-related prices which saw the system change from a seller’s to a buyer’s market, or at least where market forces now dictate prices. Moreover, the entire infrastructure of the oil market has been based around the dollar, and that will be hard to displace."
(Emphasis added).
Why does this woman remind me of Gens. Jack Ripper and Buck Turgidson?
Posted by: jim hamlen at June 9, 2004 11:57 AMCome now, jim, they were patriots.
Posted by: oj at June 9, 2004 12:06 PMShe's more like Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, only without the charm and good looks.
Posted by: Mike Morley at June 9, 2004 12:47 PMI'll grant you George C. Scott, but Sterling Hayden was just plain nuts. General Ripper was almost beyond satire.
Posted by: jim hamlen at June 9, 2004 1:44 PMjim:
But he was right--we should have juked it out and they did drain our precious bodily fluids.
Posted by: oj at June 9, 2004 1:49 PMI think the problem is that people get to retire from the military too young.
It isn't that people in uniform are nuttier than than civilians. It's just that they're turned loose with enough money that they don't have to work and still enough energy that they have to do something.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at June 9, 2004 3:07 PMHarry:
No, the problem is that people think they must have superior insight because they served.
Posted by: oj at June 9, 2004 3:20 PMOJ:
"No, the problem is that people think they must have superior insight because they served."
You say that as if it is wrong ;-)
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at June 9, 2004 9:56 PMIt's wrong in every walk of life, not just the military, if that's any consolation. Ex-players generally make very bad broadcasters.
Posted by: oj at June 9, 2004 10:56 PM