Britain's chancellor Gordon Brown has decided against adopting the euro in place of the venerable pound sterling, reports the BBC. The British government has not yet made an official announcement, but things are looking bad for the euro. England's imminent rejection of the euro may signal a turning point in the current war more decisive than the fall of Baghdad. Both the Axis of Evil and the Axis of Weasels have been plotting for years to replace the dollar with the euro as the world's new "petro" currency -- that is, the currency used by all countries to buy oil. Chancellor Gordon Brown may have delivered the coup de grace to their unwholesome ambitions.
The Liebermann Theory (for those who have not been following this story on RichardPoe.com, here's the short version): Most Americans believe (as do I) that the United States is fighting today primarily to avenge the 9-11 attack and to neutralize the perpetrators thereof. However, Ron Liebermann of LewRockwell.com suggests an alternate theory. He says we are fighting to protect the dollar from competition by the euro.
On the surface, Liebermann's theory seems to have merit. Saddam Hussein was rejecting dollars and accepting only euros in payment for petroleum, before his overthrow. Muslim activists have been pushing "euros-for-oil" as a key plank of their anti-American program. Euro-enthusiasts from Jordan to Russia have been mumbling quietly about the euro's possible emergence as the world's new petro-currency, prompting the British newspaper The Observer to ask: "So is the euro the missing link between the 'axis of evil' and the 'axis of weasel'?"
According to Liebermann, the U.S. felt so threatened by the euro juggernaut that we siezed on the first available excuse to wage all-out war on those euro-loving Arabs.
The problem with this theory, as was pointed out a few month ago, is that the euro is no juggernaut. It never presented a serious threat to the dollar. On the contrary, the introduction of the euro has pushed Europe into a continent-wide, economic meltdown (See November 4, 2002 blog entry, "Euro-Apocalypse," and the related discussion on the Poe Forum).
America had no need to make war on the euro. All we had to do was sit back and wait for it to self-destruct.
Whose Euro War?
In fact, it is the European Union -- not America -- which stood to gain by starting a Euro War.
Let us suppose that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are not the fanatical, highly-motivated, superbly-trained supermen our mass media have made them out to be. Let us suppose, instead, that they are exactly what they appear to be -- a scruffy band of hired assassins who take orders from someone else behind the scenes.
Now let us suppose that the European Union (perhaps in tandem with Russia and China) secretly arranged for Al Qaeda to carry out the 9-11 attacks, in a classic "false flag" operation.
The purpose of these attacks would be to spark an all-out war between the United States and the Muslim world. America would invade the Middle East and get bogged down in a Vietnam-style quagmire. The European Union would denounce the warmongering Americans. The Arabs, in gratitude to their European friends, would stop accepting dollars for oil and embrace the euro as their new "petro" currency.
And maybe -- just maybe -- Europe might escape the otherwise inevitable Euro-Apocalypse.
If indeed the EU was desperate and reckless enough to pursue such a plan, their hopes were dashed when America failed to get bogged down in a quagmire. It seems to me oddly coincidental that England would finally decide to reject the euro now, so soon after our victory in Iraq.