Financial Warfare As The New Regime Change Instrument

[Lauren Johnson]

from Moon of Alabama:

Just two weeks ago some idiot published this on "War Is Boring":

After six years of massive expenditures and lurid propaganda, on Jan. 9 Tehran shut down its troubled space program. The unceremonious cancellation occurred without notice in the Iranian press. Authorities are spreading the space agency's manpower and assets across four ministries including the telecoms ministry and the ministry of defense.

That story was likely planted to instigate some riffs within Iranian politics. That did not work well. Here is notice in the Iranian press:

Tehran, Feb 2, IRNA - Manager of Electronic Industries Space Projects Mehdi Sarvi on Monday declared that Fajr satellite has established its contact with ground station, hours after it was launched and put into the orbit.
...
During the ceremony, Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said the project was accomplished only thanks to the sincere endeavors of the Iranian scientists. Developed by indigenous technology and know-how, he noted, the satellite which is called 'Fajr' indicated the high capabilities of Iran's satellite-carriers.
...
The minister referred to the chance to develop and design a new generation of satellite-carriers and also enter the world market of space services, using domestic potential and planning complicated space missions as some of the achievements of the project.

Congrats to Iran for this successful launch.

The above just demonstrates again that one can not trust any "news" on countries not liked by Washington. Consider this headline by NBC: Ex-Los Alamos Scientist Gets 5 Years in Venezuelan Nuclear Bomb Plot. A headline fitting the story would be something like "Crazy old scientist falls for FBI sting". The story has nothing to do with Venezuela and the whole "nuclear bomb" stuff was just phantasies an FBI agent used to entrap some poor old person. But Venezuela is on Washington's shit list and the CIA is currently busy instigating another coup against the elected Venezuelan government.

The CIA and the State Department are also involved in instigating the current demonstrations in Hungary. Another attack on an elected government that does not walk the line the U.S. administration orders it to walk. Next in line is likely the new government of Greece.

But instigating color revolutions, protests and coups is often not enough to destroy a government that the U.S. dislikes. In a recent interview Alastair Crooke points to the newest weapon in Washington's regime change arsenal - financial warfare:

The International Order depends more on control by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve than on the UN as before. It started principally with Iran and it has been developed subsequently. In a book, "Treasury's War," the tool of exclusion from the dollar-denominated global financial system is described as a "neutron bomb." When a country is to be isolated, a "scarlet letter" is issued by the US Treasury that asserts that such-and-such bank is somehow suspected of being linked to a terrorist movement -- or of being involved in money laundering. The author of "Treasury's War" [Juan Zarate], who was the chief architect of modern financial warfare and a former senior Treasury and White House official, says this scarlet letter constitutes a more potent bomb than any military weapon.

This system of reliance on dollar hegemony no longer requires American dependency on the UN and hands control to the US Treasury overseen by Steve Cohen -- a reflection of the fact that the military tools have become less available to the US administration, for domestic political reasons.

Crooke believes that the drop in the Russian ruble a few weeks ago was engineered by the U.S. Treasury. He is not completely right though about David S. Cohen, the U.S.Treasury man who has implemented the financial warfare instruments against Iran and Russia. That man is no longer with the U.S. Treasury but is the new number 2 in the CIA. That tells you all you need to know about the intensity with which the U.S. plans to use these new weapons.

Any country that does not do do what Washington wants is now threatened with financial ruin. China and Russia are preparing defenses against such a threat but smaller countries have little chances to escape such attacks.

The media though will not delve into that. Should some country's economy drown (see Venezuela) because of U.S. financial marked manipulations all blame will be put on the foreign government and its "irresponsible economic policies" and the media will again call for and support "regime change".

[David Guyatt]

The International Order depends more on control by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve than on the UN as before. It started principally with Iran and it has been developed subsequently. In a book, "Treasury's War," the tool of exclusion from the dollar-denominated global financial system is described as a "neutron bomb." When a country is to be isolated, a "scarlet letter" is issued by the US Treasury that asserts that such-and-such bank is somehow suspected of being linked to a terrorist movement -- or of being involved in money laundering. The author of "Treasury's War" [Juan Zarate], who was the chief architect of modern financial warfare and a former senior Treasury and White House official, says this scarlet letter constitutes a more potent bomb than any military weapon.

Virtually every major western bank has been found guilty of money laundering -- more often than not, drug money. If this is a requirement of the Treasury's "scarlett letter" then western banking is truly f*cked.

But, of course, a double standard is in play. Western terrorism and money laundering isn't judged to be an offence (although it offends me). Western terrorism of the order of past and present Gladio type operations are regarded as fighting the good fight. And drug money laundering by the major western bank is treated as being understandable and punished with a financial slap on the wrists.

But, I think, the use of economic warfare is not a new thing. This was how the Reagan Administration brought down the Soviet Union. So for me, that whole operation has merely been dusted off for use again now that we the US has engineered a new cold war we can all be proud of...