Thursday, May 19, 2011

IMF Chief Strauss-Kahn Would not Spare the Dollar

IMF Managing Director at UN International Donors Conference
SIMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (r), and President of the Republic of Haiti H.E. René Garcia Préval (l) prior to a bi-lateral meeting between Strauss-Kahn and Préval during the “International Donors’ Conference Towards a New Future for Haiti” at the United Nations in New York on March 31, 2010
IMF Staff Photographer/Michael Spilotro


Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned from the International Monetary Fund. Today he was granted bail and faces sexual assault charges involving housekeeper at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan.

The whole situation must be very surreal to him, given that, as recently as a month ago, on April 28, a French daily newspaper, Liberation, published an off-the-record comment by Mr. Strauss-Kahn described as voicing the fear that "political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m to allege rape"

DSK has said through his lawyer that there was no rape. He has pled not guilty and asserts that the sexual encounter was consensual.

Innocent until proven guilty. Critical thinking says we must question the evidence against Strauss-Kahn. After all, it is the job of the prosecution to prove its case. "Neither we nor anyone else—outside the accused and the accuser (and, perhaps, other interested and unnamed parties)—know exactly what went on in Strauss-Kahn’s suite at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan on Sunday. Whatever information the public possesses has emerged courtesy of the New York City Police Department, the alleged victim’s lawyer, and the mass media. None of these can be considered reliable sources."

Rape is a crime of control and violence. Strauss-Kahn was known as a seducer of women. Up to this point, he had never been accused of violently assaulting a woman who became the focus of his attentions, although since the attempted rape allegations, a woman has come forward to say that five years ago Strauss-Kahn acted like a "rutting chimpanzee."

Retired criminal defense attorney John Reed lays out a case for the defense of Strauss-Kahn:
"...first of all apply the Constitutional standard that Strauss-Kahn is innocent until proved guilty, and therefore, we must look with suspicion upon the facts asserted by the state at this point, including the alleged statement of the victim.

There are some very large red flags in this case, and if I had to choose right now whether I would rather prosecute this case or defend it, I would choose to defend it. I think it will be hard to prosecute.

First, my guess is that standard operating procedure in this hotel, like others, is for the maids to prop the door open with their cleaning cart as they work the room. So the defendant's prints better be on the handles of that cart since he had to remove it from propping open the door before he could commence the attack, and he had to do this without the maid seeing him.

Second, I would hire an expert to test the sound proofing of the room, and use an investigator to determine where the other maids and guests were are at the time of the assault. For if she did not scream when she could have been heard, then a reasonable doubt about a set up might arise.

Third, maids usually work in groups of two, and I would determine whether this was the normal procedure at the hotel in question, and why, if so, the procedure was not followed this particular morning. Fourth, hotel maids always determine whether a guest is in the room, including the bathroom, before they begin cleaning the room. They also make sure the guest has checked out. Neither was done in this case. Why? This kind of mistake does not happen in a $200 a day Hilton, let alone a room costing in thousands.

Fifth, why, considering that the rape shield law is preventing the release of victim's name, is the state keeping the alleged victim incommunicado, not even allowed to visit with her daughter, according to her attorney?

Sixth, why was the defendant not provided bail? He is one of the most famous men in the world. Certainly bail could be set high enough to insure his return. Moreover, the state would know his location despite the fact he travels internationally with frequency. If he failed to appear, he would not only look guilty, but he would simply be extradited eventually, and lose his bail money. [Bail was granted as of 5.91.11.]
While there's plenty of reasons to question the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn, we must also look at the motive that "interested and unnamed parties" might have in railroading him.

According to an economics expert interviewed on Russia Today, Strauss-Kahn was a vocal advocate of widening the world money system and drawing the world away from the dollar as a reserve currency.

Adrian Salbuchi, is an economics and geopolitics author in Buenos Aires. Mr. Salbuchi interprets the dramatic circumstances surrounding the former IMF boss' resignation as a sign "that the powers that be were not very happy with him."



Russia Today is not the only alternate news source to smell something fishy about Strauss-Kahn's spectacular arrest. To many it's not making a lot of sense and the timing is really suspicious.

The UK Telegraph broke the scoop. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was mounting an attack against the dollar:
So, Strauss-Kahn finds himself in the same crowd as Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, right? You may recall that Saddam switched from dollars to euros about a year before the war. Twelve months later Iraq was invaded, Saddam was hanged, and the dollar was restored to power. Gaddafi made a similar mistake when "he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar." ("Libya: All About Oil, or All About Central Banking?" Ellen Brown, Op-Ed News) Libya has since come under attack by US and NATO forces which have armed a motley group of dissidents, malcontents and terrorists to depose Gaddafi and reimpose dollar hegemony.

To sum up the motives for the arrest:
  1. Mr. Strauss-Kahn angered a lot of the big-money guys because he was a vocal advocate for drawing the world away from the dollar as a reserve currency.

  2. DSK was planning to institute reforms at the IMF:
    Strauss-Kahn had set out on a "kinder and gentler" path, one that would not force foreign leaders to privatize their state-owned industries or crush their labor unions. Naturally, his actions were not warmly received by the bankers and corporatists who look to the IMF to provide legitimacy to their ongoing plunder of the rest of the world. These are the people who think that the current policies are "just fine" because they produce the results they're looking for, which is bigger profits for themselves and deeper poverty for everyone else."
  3. The IMF issued a surprising report in 2009 – two years into Strauss-Kahn's tenure, which placed the blame for the global economic crisis on U.S. mortgage companies and financial industry associations. Read an evaluation of the report here.

  4. In an interview with the French daily newspaper Liberation, Strauss-Kahn voiced the off-the-record fear, published as recently as a month ago, in April 28th, that this very situation might be engineered: "IMF chief 'feared political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m to allege rape"
    Michelle Sabban, a senior councillor for the greater Paris region and a Strauss-Kahn loyalist said: ‘I am convinced it is an international conspiracy.’
    She added: ‘It's the IMF they wanted to decapitate, not so much the Socialist primary candidate.
  5. The IMF chief was ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy in the race. Sarkozy had a number of personal scandals and plummeting approval ratings. Strauss-Kahn was favored to be the next President of France.

  6. The fact that Strauss-Kahn is a member of the French Socialist party cannot be ruled out of the equation, given the stigma attached to anyone labeled with having a "Socialist agenda" – as is erroneously the case with detractors of U.S. President Barack Obama.

    The Daily Mail reports that, "the first person to break the news of Strauss-Kahn's arrest was an activist in Mr Sarkozy's UMP party -- who apparently knew about the scandal before it happened. Jonathan Pinet, a politics student, tweeted the news just before the New York Police Department made it public, although he said that he simply had a 'friend' working at the Sofitel where the attack was said to have happened." Also, "The first person to re-tweet Mr Pinet was Arnaud Dassier, a spin doctor who had previously publicized details of multi-millionaire Strauss-Kahn's luxurious lifestyle in a bid to dent his left wing credentials."
The purported facts of the case as released by the police are suspicious. In the hands of a competent criminal defense lawyer who can punch wholes into the incredible story, Mr. Strauss-Kahn will likely be acquitted. Strauss-Kahn's attorney Benjamin Brafman, who has defended other high-profile clients, including Michael Jackson, is no slouch.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was probably taken down because he advocated real change to a monetary system which is rotten to a the core. In this "new world order," failure is rewarded, up is down, down is up and we the people are always the ones who get screwed.

Therefore, his political career is affectively over before it began. He has lost his power, influence, reputation and sadly his freedom. To further prejudice the public, a rumor has been circulated that he is on suicide watch. No fear of him being offed while in jail, though. The ends have been achieved. Like they were with the jailing of Haiti's Father Gerard Jean-Juste, Yvon Neptune and other political prisoners globally who are deemed to pose a threat to those in power.

The IMF's first deputy managing director John Lipsky has stepped in as acting managing director of the global institution in the interim. W
hen a new IMF chief is selected, that next individual will have great motivation for toeing the line and keeping the dollar king.
"Lagarde supports weaker regulations so that banks and other financial institutions can continue to rake in windfall profits while increasing the risks to the broader economy. She just announced her candidacy this morning (May 25), but already she's won the approval of Washington, Wall Street, the big banks, and the EU heads of state. She's a shoo."
"But Lagarde has not moved to the head of the pack due to her anti-worker bias alone, but because she's a trusted insider who will implement the IMF's privatization and structural adjustment programs without challenging their merit.

Strauss-Kahn's promises of "reform" at the fund were a constant source of anxiety for big finance. Lagarde won't make that same mistake. She won't go off the reservation, consort with progressives like Joseph Stiglitz, or veer from her script. Here's how The Guardian summed up Lagarde's impressive resume:
"Christine Lagarde stands for protecting big banks.....she's the most pro-bank bailout of the lot.

"The Americans are going to try and put in [White House adviser] David Lipton as number two. Lipton is Mr Bank Bailout. He worked for Citigroup. If they put in Lagarde and Lipton, what does that say? We are going with the total bank protection plan. That would be a disaster."

[...] So the belt-tightening will intensify under Lagarde, which is a signal to bankers that she can be trusted to protect their interests, and all the talk about "soft restructuring" or reforms a la Strauss-Kahn will end.

There will be no more talk about replacing the dollar with SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) either. Lagarde is not going to rock the boat. The only reforms she'll be working on are "labor reforms", a familiar buzzword among the financial elite for union busting.

[...] So, it looks like Wall Street may have found their replacement for the mercurial Strauss Kahn. There won't be any debt-restructuring, bondholders will be paid in full, and the dollar's dominant role as the world's reserve currency will go unchallenged."


Background:

No comments: