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Entry: What if We Leave the Middle East? (We Won't Be Missed) Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/what_if_we_leave_the_middle_east_we_wont_be_missed#31072 Post contents: Like it or not, the USA can't leave the Mideast, because our monetary/economic system is based on the Petro-dollar, propping up our "free market" economy. The US economy works something like this: we give China our paper dollars, and they give us manufactured goods. Since the US produces nothing that China wants, the Chinese have nothing to do with these paper dollars but lend them back to us to finance our occupation of the Mideast. The whole system is based on the willingness of China and our Asian neighbors to accept our paper dollars in exchange for their manufactured goods. Without the US dollar as the reserve currency, big corporations could'nt export our manufacturing base to China, and the American consumer couldn't enjoy the consumer "capitalist" treasures of cheap manufacturing goods that fill the gap between their declining wages and their "American Dream". Big trade deficits need big Federal Budget deficits to make the whole ponzi scheme work. To paraphrase Will Rogers, US foreign policy is an open book---a check book that is. The US desires only the good will of other nations---and their oil, their minerals, their manufactured goods, their gold, and anything else of value that the US might find useful. No, the "war for democracy" is actually a proxy war with China and Europe. We can't leave or our <snicker> "free market" economy would collapse. It's sort of ironic that the anti-war right is just proving that Marx and Lenin were right all along, Imperialism needs constant war to make it work. Of course, the message of the original "libertarian"--- Adam Smith--was proving that imperialism never works...the cost of military occupation always is more then the additional economic activity can generate in tax revenue to sustain it. Sent at: 2008 12 02