BIN LADEN'S ECONOMIC TRAP

When Bin Laden struck the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon on 9/11 his real motivation was to goad the United States into attacking Afghanistan and Iraq. We took the bait as he knew we would. Our Pavlovian military response accomplished what no one else and nothing else had ever been able to do before:

unite a billion Islamic people in a common cause.

But what exactly is that cause? It is certainly not a military victory over an impervious superpower. Instead, it is a strategy based primarily on economics. Bin Laden has declared war on the world's monetary system and specifically the U.S. economy. By drawing the United States into the trap of a military response, he is successfully bleeding this country's financial well being by driving expenditures through the roof while the economically challenged president keeps lowering taxes. The triple deficits of budget, trade and current account explode while the value of the U.S. dollar will most certainly implode.

The United States is the greatest debtor nation in the world. As such, we "depend on the kindness of strangers," otherwise known as foreign central banks, to finance our remarkable deficits. Since "Made in the USA" is largely a thing of the past, we buy from China and Japan things we don't need with money we don't have and in return send them ever depreciating dollars so they can buy our Treasury bonds and keep us afloat. Our bankers (foreign creditors) can pull the plug whenever the discomfort of choking on too many debased paper dollars hits the trigger point. The dollar represents the common shares of the United States of America. If this country were a corporation, it would be spiraling toward the potential for bankruptcy.

Do you think for one moment that Geortge W., sitting smugly in his Oval Office, has the slightest inkling of what al-Qaida is really up to? Anyone who might have educated him on the subject has been purged from his Cabinet and from the CIA. Hopelessly bogged down in Iraq, this president, nonetheless, plows ahead on the basis of his one remaining thesis that we are freeing a people from an evil dictator. (Of course, the world is filled with evil dictators, and America is famous for having done business with most of them, including Saddam).

When ignorance and stubborness are combined with a total lack of dissent, bad things happen. We will continue to hemorrhage billions of dollars and, of course, the real blood of our young people, as well, in the pursuit of futility. It does not matter what happens in Iraq or even whether we capture Bin Laden. The grand strategy of bringing down the financial system of the West, with the U.S. dollar as its reserve currency, will go on unabated. So, as they say on the various bankrupt airlines, "Fasten your seat belts." The next few years could get nasty.

03/26/2006