Yes, petr, those were key moves. The greatest weapon in international power plays is money...because money buys all the other forms of weaponry. He who has the controlling currency dominates the world. He whose currency oil is pegged to has enormous influence, and the American government fears greatly to lose that position.

The day the US dollar was no longer backed by gold was the day on which it began to lose real value and become just a symbolic piece of paper.

That happened because the USA had international debts it could not pay. The situation has gotten a lot worse since then.

Foreign wars and the USA's overextension in those foreign wars have destroyed the USA's financial health, beginning with the debacle in Vietnam. The adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have greatly worsened that situation. War consumes and exhausts a country's real wealth while destroying another country's real wealth! This has been done by many other empires in the past, and it always proves to be their downfall in the end. They bankrupt themselves by overplaying the game of war.

War, whenever it is fought by choice, as is the case with any "pre-emptive" attack, is simply an attempt to force other people to do something they don't want to do...or to give up something that is theirs. It's armed robbery.

Wonderful excuses are always trotted out to justify it. The "enemy" of the moment is not fooled by those excuses, but most of the people in the empire of the moment are fooled...for awhile.