Fear and loathing on the Afghan Silk Road

Asia Times:

Will the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ever manage to cross the Hindu Kush?

Temerity is the name of the game. Even though strategically located astride the Ancient Silk Road, and virtually contiguous to the US$50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a key BRI node – Afghanistan is still mired in war.

Cont...   

The peculiar nationalism of Canada

The Week:



In the summer of 2003, in the wake of America's attack on Iraq, many passionate opponents of that war greeted the approach of Independence Day with ambivalence if not outright bitterness. I myself knew plenty of people who verbalized their fantasies about moving to Canada.



In fact, I had one friend who took the idea a step further, and moved Canada here. On July 1, he celebrated what he called "Temporary Canada Day." He decked out his Hudson Valley home in red and white bunting and maple leaf flags, and declared it temporarily part of our northern neighbor. Lastly, he set up a consular office on his front lawn where guests could fill out paperwork for visas or even receive a temporary Canadian passport. Then, once past customs, guests could drink Molsons and play uphill lawn bowling, and relax into their new identity, separated finally from their suddenly terrifying fellow Americans.



Cont....   

Shipwrecked in the Sands of Time: Lessons from History

The Toll Online.com:

Today, across the globe, there remains a clash of cultures as ancient as religion; as violent as tides crashing upon the shores of nations; islands separated within seas of humanity. Ongoing wars rage on in the middle-east as democracies fight theocracy, and waves of Islamic immigrants flood onto the shores of western nations like tsunamis. Although oil and water will not mix well, there are those who perennially hope to try; and, if history serves as any right measure, the blending will continue to roil and boil like ships on fire in perilous ports.

Will the captains in the Western nations lead us safely on our journey? I think not. To know where we’re going, we must first understand where we are, and where we’ve been.

Cont....   

Russia vs. America in Syria

The Unz Review:



The Internet has been buzzing with reactions to the latest Stratfor report about how a military confrontation between Russia and the United States would play out. I did not find the full text, I suppose it is behind a Stratfor paywall or for subscribers only (and, frankly, I have better use for my time and money than to subscribe to that rubbish), but since the same excerpts are quoted everywhere, I might as well list them here and assume that they form the highlights of the article. Here we go (taken from the Business Insider quoting and paraphrasing the original article):



Cont....   

Dissident Politics

The Z Blog:

To start the year, I made the rather obvious prediction that the coalition of weirdos that willed Donald Trump into the White House would succumb to infighting and begin to break apart and splinter. This was a no-brainer, as fringe politics tends to attract weirdos and weirdos tend not to get along with other weirdos. Often, people are attracted to these movements over one issue. They find out that their new friends have a whole list of other issues that don’t match up with everyone else. That breeds conflict.

There’s also a “giant among midgets” phenomenon, where someone can be a star in a small group and outgrow their hat. In the mass media age, it’s easy to start thinking you’re a big deal when you see your social media profile grow and the calls from media people start coming.This was obvious with Milo who started thinking he was bulletproof. He had gotten away with so much that he thought he could say anything. It did not take long before he pissed off the wrong people.

Cont....   

Washington Has Been At War For 16 Years: Why?

Paul Craig Roberts.org:

For sixteen years the US has been at war in the Middle East and North Africa, running up trillions of dollars in expenses, committing untold war crimes, and sending millions of war refugees to burden Europe, while simultaneously claiming that Washington cannot afford its Social Security and Medicare obligations or to fund a national health service like every civilized country has.

Considering the enormous social needs that cannot be met because of the massive cost of these orchestrated wars, one would think that the American people would be asking questions about the purpose of these wars. What is being achieved at such enormous costs? Domestic needs are neglected so that the military/security complex can grow fat on war profits.

Cont.....  

No, Dana Loesch Isn’t A Racist White Supremacist Calling For Civil War. Are You People High?

Town Hall - Matt Vespa:



Cortney grabbed this delicious thread on Twitter between Dana Loesch and liberal CNN contributor Sally Kohn, who accused the conservative commentator and Second Amendment supporter of inciting violence in her latest ad…that denounces violence. It’s comedic theater that’s going on here, folks. The ad features Loesch talking about the progressive left’s pervasive assault on our society and culture. They use the news media to peddle biased news, or in some cases—fake news. They use schools to tell students that President Trump is Hitler reincarnated. The Hollywood Left does their part with their cultural reach to spread left wing narratives. All of which reaches a boiling point when ex-presidents (cough—Obama—cough), a darling of the progressive left, join the anti-Trump resistance. That’s led to marches, chants of racism, homophobia, and other liberal nonsense that devolves into violence. It’s a powerful montage of liberals going wild in the streets, with police coming in to bring order to the situation. From setting dumpsters on fire to hitting pro-Trump demonstrators with bike locks, the left has gone nuts and uses violence in their political discourse. That’s wrong.



Cont....   

Capital Punishment and Abortion are Separate Issues

The American Conservative:

Forty-five years ago yesterday, capital punishment was effectively abolished in the United States.  In a contentious 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Furman vs. Georgia that arbitrary and inconsistent application of the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment, effectively invalidating state laws providing for the measure and reducing all existing death sentences to life imprisonment.

Of course, the decision was short-lived, as a mere four years later the Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment in Gregg vs. Georgia.  But the issue of capital punishment remains salient and controversial today, especially as it has become increasingly tied to another seminal cultural issue with roots in an early-1970s Supreme Court decision: abortion.  Indeed, in pro-life circles, it’s become fashionable lately to pair opposition to abortion with equal condemnation of capital punishment.  The tactical thinking, it seems, is that since these two life issues—abortion and capital punishment—are generally (but not always) opposed by partisans of different stripes, uniform opposition provides a shield against charges of partisanship.

Cont...   

Qatar May be Turning Its Back on the US Dollar

The Anti Media:

Late last week, Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that are involved in attempting to isolate Qatar sent the tiny Gulf nation a list of 13 demands. They are insisting that Qatar meet these demands within ten days or face unspecified further action.

The list of demands includes Qatar shutting down Al-Jazeera and its affiliate stations; shutting down other news outlets that Qatar funds, including Middle East Eye; curbing diplomatic ties with Iran and expelling members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard; terminating the Turkish military presence in Qatar; consenting to monthly audits for the first year following acceptance of the demands, and aligning itself entirely with the other Gulf and Arab countries militarily, politically, socially, and economically – to name but a few.

Cont....   

Fighting the War You Know (Even If It Won't Work)

Tomgram: Danny Sjursen, | TomDispatch:

In America's Afghanistan, it’s all history -- the future as well as the past, what’s going to happen, as well as what’s happened in these last nearly 16 years of war.  You’ve heard it all before: there were the various “surges” (though once upon a time sold as paths to victory, not simply to break a “stalemate”); there were the insider, or “green-on-blue,” attacks in which Afghans trained, advised, and often armed by the U.S. turned their weapons on their mentors (two such incidents in the last month resulted in three dead American soldiers and more wounded); there were the Afghan ghost soldiers, ghost police, ghost students, and ghost teachers (all existing only on paper, the money for them ponied up by U.S. taxpayers but always in someone else’s pocket); and there was that never-ending national “reconstruction” program that long ago outspent the famed Marshall Plan, which helped put all of Western Europe back on its feet after World War II.  It included projects for roads to nowhere, gas stations built in the middle of nowhere, and those Pentagon-produced, forest-patterned camouflage outfits for the Afghan army in a land only 2.1% forested. (The design was, it turns out, favored by the Afghan defense minister of the moment and his fashion statement cost U.S. taxpayers a mere $28 million more than it would have cost to produce other freely available, more appropriate designs.)  And that, of course, is just to begin the distinctly bumpy drive down America’s Afghan highway to nowhere.  Don’t even speak to me, for instance, about the $8.5 billion that the U.S. sunk into efforts to suppress the opium crop in a country where the drug trade now flourishes.

And considering those failed surges, those repeated insider attacks, those ghost soldiers and ghost roads and ghost drug programs in the longest conflict in American history, the one that most people in this country have turned into a ghost war (and that neither of the candidates for president in 2016 even bothered to discuss on the campaign trail), what do you suppose Donald Trump’s generals have in mind when it comes to the future?

For that, let me turn you over to a man who, in 2011, in one of those surge moments, fought in Afghanistan: TomDispatch regular Army Major Danny Sjursen, author of Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Let him remind you of how that war once looked from the ground up and of what lessons were carefully not drawn from such experiences. Let him consider the eagerness of the generals to whom our new president has ceded decision-making on U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to... well, let’s not say “surge,” since that word now has such negative connotations, but send thousands more U.S. troops into that country in a... well, what about a “resurge” in already vain hopes of... well... an American resurgence in that country. Tom

Tread Carefully 
The Folly of the Next Afghan “Surge”
By Danny Sjursen

We walked in a single file. Not because it was tactically sound. It wasn’t -- at least according to standard infantry doctrine. Patrolling southern Afghanistan in column formation limited maneuverability, made it difficult to mass fire, and exposed us to enfilading machine-gun bursts. Still, in 2011, in the Pashmul District of Kandahar Province, single file was our best bet.

The reason was simple enough: improvised bombs not just along roads but seemingly everywhere.  Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Who knew?

Cont....   

Decline of Empire: Parallels Between the U.S. and Rome, Part I

International Man:

As some of you know, I’m an aficionado of ancient history. I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss what happened to Rome and based on that, what’s likely to happen to the U.S. Spoiler alert: There are some similarities between the U.S. and Rome.

But before continuing, please seat yourself comfortably. This article will necessarily cover exactly those things you’re never supposed to talk about—religion and politics—and do what you’re never supposed to do, namely, bad-mouth the military.

There are good reasons for looking to Rome rather than any other civilization when trying to see where the U.S. is headed. Everyone knows Rome declined, but few people understand why. And, I think, even fewer realize that the U.S. is now well along the same path for pretty much the same reasons, which I’ll explore shortly.

Cont....   

The U.S. Navy Wants to Deploy Its New Flattop Without Vital Testing

War Is Boring:

The U.S. Navy is trying to dodge its responsibility to conduct a critical test of its new, $13-billion aircraft carrier. Language included in the a subcommittee mark for the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act that would strip the requirement for the Navy to complete explosives testing on USS Gerald R. Ford, CVN-78.

The Straus Military Reform Project and the Project on Government Oversight sent a letter to the U.S. Senate and U.S. House Armed Services Committees urging members to strike the language.

The provision would permit the Navy to delay shock trials until the second ship in the class is ready for testing in several years. Waiving this requirement for Ford would endanger the lives of the 4,300 sailors of the ship’s complement and risk massive cost overruns in the years ahead as the Navy continues building an untested design.

Cont....   

Is America Really Coming Apart, As Charles Murray Suggests?

Mises Wire:

A new Rasmussen poll reports that a majority of voters think so, and it certainly feels that way. Since Donald Trump’s election in November, the pace and intensity of deeply divisive rhetoric has accelerated. Antifa and the Alt-Right are literally fighting in the streets. Combative talking heads on cable news, vicious social media exchanges, riots at universities, a bitter special election in Georgia, and even the shooting of a congressman have both sides rethinking the entire political process and talking about abandoning the “rule of law.”

It is an uneasy time, a time for hard questions. Can politics really provide a solution to our problems, or is it the cause? Should we still abide by democratic processes when a significant portion of the country is enraged by the outcome? What if voting and elections simply weren’t anymore? These are the questions we need to ask and answer honestly.

Cont.....   

The Power Grid Is Far More Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks Than Most People Realize

Ready Nutrition:



In December of 2015, 230,000 people in Western Ukraine lost power after 30 substations were mysteriously shut off. Contrary to what most people assumed at the time, this wasn’t an innocuous power outage. The authorities would later admit that the loss of power was caused by a cyber attack, which marked the first time that malware was successfully used to attack a power grid. A similar, albeit more sophisticated cyber attack, occurred one year later just outside of Kiev. Given the current tensions between Russia and Ukraine, it’s widely believed that the Russian government was responsible for these incidents.



However, there’s more to this story than meets the eye. A computer security company has been investigating these attacks, and has discovered the malware that was used to take down the grid. They’ve found that it’s far more dangerous and easier to use than anyone realized before.



Cont.....   

NATO Chief Says Recent Cyber Attack Could Spark Mutual Defense Response

Planet Free Will:

A major global cyber attack which struck particularly hard in Ukraine on Tuesday could potentially trigger NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense commitment, according to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

On Tuesday, computer systems around the world were subjected to ransomware cyber attacks that spread from Ukraine and Russia, across Europe to the United States and then on to Asia.

The attack appeared to be a modification of the “WannaCry” cyber attack in May which hit more than 200,000 users in more than 150 countries.

Cont....   

The Firm That Created the Dossier Refuses to Produce Docs to Congress

Armstrong Economics:

The clandestine firm that created the false dossier on Trump is refusing to cooperate with Congress. They are refusing to turn over to congress information of not just how the report was crafted, but who paid for it.

The Senate Judiciary Committee threatened now to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS, after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel. They have been ordered to identify who financed the fake dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russian scandal now engulfing the White House cost untold millions so far in investigations.

The firm is clearly a partisan operation that is typical of Washington DC based research. They will turn out whatever they are told for big bucks. The firm has gotten caught with its hand in the cookie jar because the mainstream media has used the Russian scam to constantly bash Trump. Fusion GPS describes itself as a “research and strategic intelligence firm” founded by “three former Wall Street Journal investigative reporters.” You might as well say three cab drivers since being a journalist does not qualify as having experience in anything except English class.

Cont.....   

KEEP HER IN

Via Branco

The New York Times’ Curious Effort to Undermine Rex Tillerson

The American Conservative:

The New York Times, in a front page piece, took a journalistic machete to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson on Monday, portraying him as a hapless bureaucrat, slow of action, isolated in his office, lacking in expertise, at odds with his president. That may indeed be an accurate picture of the secretary, and I claim no knowledge or expertise on the subject that would put me in position to gainsay the thrust of the piece. But its timing was intriguing, and some elements seemed to suggest, in a purely journalistic sense, that the Times writers (David E. Sanger, Gardiner Harris, and Mark Landler) were stretching to bolster their central thesis.

Glancing merely at the front-page headline —“Tillerson Finds Role Undercut by Oval Office: Discord Emerges Over Middle East Policy”—the reader wouldn’t get the impression that the story below was a highly negative Tillerson profile. Rather, it seemed to be in the same vein as a piece in these spaces on Tuesday, entitled “Tillerson and Mattis Cleaning Up Kushner’s Middle East Mess.” That piece, by foreign policy analyst and author Mark Perry, portrayed Tillerson (and Defense Secretary James Mattis) as struggling to maintain a responsible Mideast policy in the face of impulsive actions by President Trump.

Cont....   

FBI Agent Indicted For False Statements in LaVoy Finicum Shooting Death

The Daily Sheeple:

An FBI agent has been indicted on federal accusations that he lied about firing shots at Robert “LaVoy” Finicum in 2016 when officers arrested leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation.

The charges stem from a federal investigation into “mystery bullets” fired before Finicum was killed by Oregon state troopers in Harney County.

The agent will face allegations of making a false statement with intent to obstruct justice, according to sources familiar with the case, Oregon Live reports:

Cont.....   

Mish’s Rule of Progress

Mish Talk:

No matter what your point of view or which side of the political aisle you are on, it’s a certainty that progress is being made.

Obamacare provides a perfect example.

On Tuesday, President Trump called a meeting of Republican senators to discuss Obamacare.

Heading into the meeting there were four Republican senators against the replacement bill.

Cont....   

It Is the Presstitutes, Not Russia, Who Interfered in the US Presidential Election

Paul Craig Roberts.org:

Unlike Oliver Stone, who knew how to interview Vladimir Putin, Megyn Kelly did not. Thus, she made a fool of herself, which is par for her course.

Now the entire Western media has joined Megyn in foolishness, or so it appears from a RT report. James O’Keefe has senior CNN producer John Bonifield on video telling O’Keefe that CNN’s anti-Russia reporting is purely for ratings: “It’s mostly bullshit right now. Like, we don’t have any big giant proof.” CNN’s Bonifield is reported to go on to say that “our CIA is doing shit all the time, we’re out there trying to manipulate governments.” https://www.rt.com/usa/394233-russia-cnn-ratings-veritas/

And, of course, the American people, the European peoples, and the US and European governments are being conditioned by the “Russia did it” storyline to distrust Russia and to accept whatever dangerous and irresponsible policy toward Russia that Washington comes up with next.

Cont....  

The Witch Hunters

The Z Blog:

One of the themes here is that the American Left is a different thing from the European Left in that it was not born out of the French Revolution. It was born out of the English Civil War and the religious radicalism of the prior century. American Progressives are the spiritual children of the Puritans and Public Protestantism. Their primary motivation is communal salvation. To that end, their focus is on rooting out sin and naming the sinner, rather than the material egalitarianism we associate with the European Left.

American liberals, even though they don’t always articulate it, operate from the assumption that the community is judged as a whole. It is why they obsessively use the word “community” whenever they are talking about public issues. For the Prog, the ideal for man is the community where members are in harmony, living fulfilled lives. It’s why they are endlessly going on about “building communities.” The community has agency and the members work together toward a common goal, that goal being a state of grace.

Cont...  

It’s Never Been More Important to Support Independent Content Creators

Liberty Blitzkrieg:

When I first started this website I didn’t have a plan for monetization. While I certainly believe people should be compensated for hard, useful work, all I wanted to do was read, write and think. The “business side” of running a blog felt like a nuisance and wasn’t something I had much passion or energy for. That hasn’t changed.

What has changed is passively putting third party code like Google Adsense on your website doesn’t really earn someone like me any money. While it was never a significant amount of cash in the first place, it wasn’t totally worthless. At this point it has become basically worthless, but that’s ok. I’m not going to complain about Google. Google doesn’t owe me anything and neither do the corporations that use the network. It was never a smart way for writers, particularly anti-establishment type writers highly critical of our economic system based on cronyism and fraud, to earn money. It never really made any sense, but I went down that road anyway because it was easy and allowed me to focus on what I really cared about, my work. But things have changed.

Cont....   

Nearly 850 Rape Kits Growing Mold at Austin Police Dept

The Daily Sheeple:

Mold has been found growing on the outside of hundreds of backlogged sexual assault kits sitting in a storage refrigerator at the Austin Police Department, raising concerns about the validity of test results from DNA samples.

On Monday, the Austin Police Department (APD) sent a memo to Austin Mayor Steve Adler and other Council members, informing them that Signature Science, a private forensics lab hired to help the city with their backlog, told them that they found mold in one of the samples they received from APD on April 25.

Cont....  

Dispatch From the Middle East: U.S. Buildup All About Iran

The American Conservative:

As the drive to push ISIS out of its remaining territories in Syria and Iraq rapidly advances, the U.S. and its allied forces have entrenched themselves in the southeastern Syrian border town of al-Tanaf, cutting off a major highway linking Damascus to Baghdad.

Defeating ISIS is Washington’s only stated military objective inside Syria. So what are those American troops doing there, blocking a vital artery connecting two Arab allied states in their own fight against terrorism?

“Our presence in al-Tanaf is temporary,” says Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the Combined Joint Task Force of Operation Inherent Resolve (CTFO-OIR), the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, via phone from Baghdad. “Our primary reason there is to train partner forces from that area for potential fights against ISIS elsewhere…and to maintain security in that border region.”

Cont....   

Many College Students are ‘Book Virgins’

The Burning Platform:

Guest Post by  Daniel Lattier

To gain admittance to college in the 17th century, students had to be able to read and translate various Latin authors on sight. 100 years ago, students were required to have read various classical works before being admitted.

Today, however, many American students are being admitted to colleges without ever having read a book from start to finish. They are part of a cohort of students known as “book virgins.”

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has pointed out this phenomenon in their recent report titled “Beach Books: 2014-2016. What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class?” The report offers a detailed assessment of the books that colleges across America recommend to their students before they begin classes in the fall.

The reading level of these books is oftentimes very low, meant to cater to the group of students who are “book virgins”:

Cont....   

Jim Hacker on Global Warming

Energy Matters:

Yes Prime Minister Global Warming etc Part 1 from Aris Motas on Vimeo.

These videos have been doing the rounds and came to me via Paul Homewood and Jo Nova. I think they are hilarious and through satire capture the reality of the global warming hysteria with chilling accuracy. I need a bit of a break off the treadmill and these videos provide some welcome light relief.

'Textalyzer' Allows Cops to Download All of Your Smartphone Activity

The Anti Media:

“Any person who operates a motor vehicle in the state shall be deemed to have given consent to field testing of his or her mobile telephone and/or personal electronic device for the purpose of determining the use thereof while operating a motor vehicle, provided that such testing is conducted by or at the direction of a police officer.”

That’s language from the text of a bill currently working its way through the New York state legislature. The legislation would allow cops to search through drivers’ cell phones following traffic incidents — even minor fender-benders — to determine if the person was using their phone while behind the wheel.

Most states have laws banning the use of mobile devices while driving, though such laws are rarely enforced. This is largely because it’s nearly impossible to catch someone in the act. What person would admit to an officer that they broke the law, the argument goes, particularly when it’s after the fact? After all, cops don’t show up until after the accident occurs.

Now, technology exists that would give police the power to plug drivers’ phones into tablet-like devices — being called “textalyzers” in the media — that tell officers exactly what they were doing on their phone and exactly when they were doing it. And if the readout shows a driver was texting while driving, for instance, the legal system will have an additional way to fine them.

“Recording your every click, tap or swipe, it would even know what apps you were using. Police officers could download the data, right on the spot,” Jeff Rossen of NBC News said in a video report on the technology.

Proponents of the legislation point to the rise in traffic fatalities associated with using mobile devices while driving. But rights activists, such as Rashida Richardson of the New York Civil Liberties Union, says it’s a societal issue and no excuse to violate an individual’s privacy:

“This is a concern because our phones have some of our most personal and private information — so we’re certain that if this law is enforced as it is proposed, it will not only violate people’s privacy rights, but also civil liberties.”

New York state isn’t alone. Currently, similar legislation is being considered in Tennessee and New Jersey.

Illinois Is Venezuela and the Solution Is Cryptocurrency

Observer:

The reason I’m so much fun at parties is that my idea of a good time is to lecture everyone on cryptocurrency. I can pretty much talk bitcoin and blockchain with Hamiltonian fervor all night.

Ever since I began writing about cryptocurrency in general in 2013—I believe this story I wrote for Esquire in fall of that year was the first ever mainstream media mention of Ripple (on whose board I now sit)— I have been making one point to anyone who will endure my “what is cryptocurrency” lecture. People are all wrong about the difference between cryptocurrency and “real money.”

Cont....   

Three-Fourths Of All US Energy Firms Were Hacked In 2016

Oil Price.com:

Hackers have targeted Russian oil giant Rosneft, the company said on Tuesday, just as Deloitte released a report on cyber-attacks targeting U.S. oil companies.

A “powerful hacker” attacked the company’s server in an assault that, according to TASS news agency, could be related to ongoing legal proceedings.

A Russian court recently froze assets of a holding company called Sistema as part of a suit lodged by Rosneft and Bashneft. The two companies are trying to recover $2.9 billion lost during Sistema’s 2014 restructuring.

Cont....   

It Begins: WalMart Warns Truckers It Will No Longer Work With Them If They Move Goods For Amazon

Zero Hedge:

The cold war between America's two largest retailers just turned hot.

In a note this morning from Deutsche Bank's freight and logistics analyst Amit Mehrotra, he notes that  the "WMT vs. AMZN battle is heating up" and points to a report by DV Velocity, according to which a well respected transportation industry consultant told attendees of a logistics conference that Walmart (WMT) is telling trucking companies that it will no longer do business with them if they continue moving goods for Amazon (AMZN).

This follows similar reports citing WMT’s “request” for its tech partners to stop using Amazon Web Services.

Cont.....   

The End of the (Petro)Dollar: What the Federal Reserve Doesn't Want You to Know

The Anti Media:

The United States’ ability to maintain its influence over the rest of the world has been slowly diminishing. Since the petrodollar was established in 1971, U.S. currency has monopolized international trade through oil deals with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and continuous military interventions. There is, however, growing opposition to the American standard, and it gained more support recently when several Gulf states suddenly blockaded Qatar, which they accused of funding terrorism.

Despite the mainstream narrative, there are several other reasons why Qatar is in the crosshairs. Over the past two years, it conducted over $86 billion worth of transactions in Chinese yuan and has signed other agreements with China that encourage further economic cooperation. Qatar also shares the world’s largest natural gas field with Iran, giving the two countries significant regional influence to expand their own trade deals.

Cont....