Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Summer 2009
Target For Terror A year later, in the Spring of 2009, though President Obama
cited Pakistan among the most pressing challenges facing his Presidency, the general
public still knew next to nothing about the country, what had led to the escalating war …
and especially what justified increased US involvement.
Twenty-one thousand additional troops and a tough new military commander were
sent by Obama to fight the Afghan war more vigorously. The consequences were predict-
able: the war spread beyond the borders into Pakistan and civilian casualties mounted.
In May 2009, at the behest of Washington, the Pakistani military launched a massive
offensive in the Swat Valley to rid it of Taliban forces … as if such a feat were feasible.
What had been achieved was that three million civilians were forced to flee their homes,
creating a humanitarian crisis which refugees blamed on the US for pressuring Pakistan
to launch the campaign.
Suffering Pakistanis now added to the already swelled ranks of Muslims seeking to
avenge the tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands mutilated by America in
the ongoing Afghan and Iraq Wars.
But when promises to retaliate were fulfilled, the media and politicians would at-
tribute the attacks to “militants” and “insurgents,” rather than call them acts of revenge
by angry people who had lost everything … including the lives of loved ones: “Pakistani
militants launch bomb raid on hotel.” Financial Times, 10 June 2009.
Back then, as in 2012, bombing innocent people staying in hotels was called an “act
of terror,” while bombing innocent people staying in their homes was called a “surgical
strike.”
Trend Forecast: The stage was being set for another 9/11-scale terror attack within the
US or a foreign US facility. And when terror strikes, as with 9/11, rather than acknowl-
edge that its foreign policy provoked the act of revenge, Washington will again blame it
on Islamic extremists attacking America because they “hate our freedom and way of life.”
With 63 percent of Americans supporting President Obama’s Afghan strategy — and
the vast majority uninformed of Pakistani motives, history and its proxy role in carrying
out US interests — the public would again accept the government’s explanation and sup-
port whatever doomed course of action it took.
Editor’s Note: What was never acknowledged by the government and rarely by the media
was the unspoken US goal of the Afghan War. It was not just the pursuit of “Al Qaeda and
the Taliban” as originally claimed by President Bush and restated by President Obama
in his June 2009 Cairo address. It was also about oil … and America’s determination to
control supplies of oil and gas from the Caspian Basin.
The Iraq War was also about oil. Long forgotten by 2009 was Washington’s promise to
Americans that victory in Iraq would bring on a multifaceted oil bonanza. Oil profits would
cover all war costs. With America in control, the price of oil would be driven down and
supplies guaranteed. Oil was held out as a bargaining carrot to entice nations to join the
“coalition of the willing.” The unwilling, such as France, would be excluded from reaping
the riches derived from rebuilding Iraq’s decrepit oil infrastructure.
Not one of these promises was fulfilled. Yet, seven years and a few trillion dollars
later, President Obama was restating the Bush rationale for invading and occupying Iraq
even after it was proven that Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al Qaeda, no connection to
9/11, and no weapons of mass destruction. Like his predecessor, President Obama would
justify America’s invasion: “I believe,” said Obama, “that the Iraqi people are ultimately
better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.”
Trend Forecast: Should terror strike, it would drive the United States and much of the
world swiftly into Depression. Unlike in 2001, urgent exhortations to keep shopping, like
those made by President Bush following 9/11, would not work. This was not 2001. These
were very different economic times. Now there was no room left to lower interest rates. By
2009, the unemployment rate was nearly double the 2001 rate. Americans were working
an average of just 33.3 hours a week, the fewest hours since the Bureau of Labor Statistics
began counting in 1964. Part-time work was at a record high, overtime was at a record
low. In the first quarter of 2009, US businesses cut total wages a staggering 6.2 percent.
Median household income was below 1999 levels, millions of homes were being foreclosed,
states were going bankrupt, deficits were skyrocketing. Facing the worst employment con-
ditions since the Great Depression, US workers had neither the will nor the way to keep
shopping.
But there would also be similarities. Washington would close down Wall Street to
forestall stampedes on equity markets. Not only would stockholders be prevented from
redeeming equities, CDs and other financial instruments would also be frozen.
With economic conditions much worse than in 2001, the President would call a bank
“holiday” following a panicked public’s run on the banks. Still functioning ATMs would
dispense paltry subsistence sums.
Back in 2009, though an impending terror attack was among the wild cards in our
trend deck, polls showed “terror” was not a public panic button issue. But the prescient
knew that if not terror, then one or another of those wild cards would be dealt, and sooner
rather than later. The prepared had both the funds on hand and the strategies in place to
ride out the financial havoc.
There weren’t a lot of options. Investing in gold, storing it in a safe place other than a
bank safety deposit box, or even in the US, was a strategy embraced by those who feared
the government would again confiscate it as it had done in 1933. Others would be short
on stocks, heavy on silver and long on currencies … a basket of them, so that when some
went down, others would rise, thus hedging losses.
By mid year 2009, the financial world was broken down into essentially two camps: risk-
taking speculators and wealth preservers. Preserving what they had rather than gambling on
stocks in the hope of making more, was the considered strategy for those who saw the game
for what it was.