1933: US President Franklin Roosevelt replaced gold domestically with central bank-created reserves, but gold remained the reserve currency internationally.
1944: The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created in the USA, to unify this bank-created money system globally. An IMF ruling said that no paper money could have gold backing. It is banks, not governments, which create most of the money in Western economies, through the process called 'fractional reserve' lending. After 1944, the US dollar traded interchangeably with gold as a global reserve currency.
1971: When the US was no longer able to maintain the dollar's gold backing, a deal was made with OPEC to 'back' the dollar with oil, creating the 'petro-dollar'. Oil would be sold only in US dollars, which would be deposited in Wall Street and other international banks. The dollar is the reserve currency based on that deal made with the Saudis, in which the Saudis as the world's largest oil producer agreed to accept only dollars for oil.
November 2001: General Wesley Clark, author of "Winning Modern Wars", was at the Pentagon and was told, "There was a total of seven countries beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." A senior military officer explained the five-year plan then being discussed. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) has had a "hit list" of Arab nations. The common feature of all 7 nations on the US hit list is they had independent central banks, not part of the Bank cartel that is establishing "One World Money". Nations whose governments own and operate their national currency system possess monetary defenses against financial warfare; therefore the US is systematically destroying those defenses.
2000: Libya had achieved economic independence, with its water, its food, its oil, and its state-owned bank. It had arisen under Qaddafi from one of the poorest of countries to the richest in Africa. Education and medical treatment were free; having a home was considered a human right, and Libyans participated in a Libyan form of democracy. The country had the world's largest irrigation system, called "The Great Man-Made River Project", which brought water from the desert to the cities and coastal areas; and Qaddafi was embarking on a program to spread this model throughout Africa.
2008: While giving a speech at an Arab League Summit in Damascus, Syria. Qaddafi predicted that America will kill more Arab leaders, as they did with Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
2009: While Qaddafi was acting head of the African Union, he planned to create a gold-backed African currency to compete with the dollar and euro. Oil and all resources in Africa would be traded in Gold. The debt-laden Western countries and the power elite who control the money of the world were threatened by this idea.
Under Qaddafi's leadership, African nations had convened at least twice for monetary unification. The countries discussed the possibility of using the Libyan dinar and the silver dirham as the only possible money to buy African oil.
Until the US-NATO invasion, the gold dinar was issued by the Central Bank of Libya (CBL). The Libyan bank was 100% state-owned and independent. Foreigners had to go through the CBL to do business with Libya. The Central Bank of Libya issued the dinar, using the country's 143.8 tons of gold.
African oil-producing nations were planning to abandon the petrodollar, and demand gold payment for oil/gas. Qaddafi had done more than organize an African monetary coup; he had demonstrated that financial independence could be achieved. His greatest infrastructure project, the Great Man-Made River, was turning arid regions into a breadbasket for Libya; and the $33 billion project was being funded interest-free without foreign debt, through Libya's state-owned bank.
Qaddafi's plan would have strengthened the whole continent of Africa in the eyes of economists backing sound money, but it would have been especially devastating for the U.S. economy, the American dollar, and particularly the elite in charge of the system. The idea of Arab and African nations adopting a gold-backed currency would threaten the central bankers and their aligned political and media leaders, who control not only the money of the world but also the leadership of super-powers and the minds of people through mainstream media propaganda.
Qaddafi's idea was that African and Muslim nations would join together to create this new currency and would use it to purchase oil and other resources in exclusion of the dollar and other currencies; an idea that would shift the economic balance of the world. The plan was designed to establish an alternative to the French African franc (CFA) in the French-speaking African nations.
Pricing oil in something other than the dollar would attack the basis of US power in the world. Qaddafi's idea would have strengthened all of Africa in the opinion of hard-money economists. Gold is the ultimate real money and the mark against which all other currencies are ultimately devalued.
2010: The decision to attack Libya was taken and military coordination began at the top levels in the US and NATO. It was to prevent the creation of an independent hard currency in Africa that would free the continent from economic bondage under the dollar, the IMF, and the French African franc (CFA), shaking off the last heavy chains of colonial exploitation.
February 2011: The first protests broke out in the middle to end of February 2011 in Benghazi. From the outset, Western and foreign Special Forces were on the ground in Libya, with a massive supply of AK47 assault rifles and ammunition. What was reported by western mainstream media as a "popular uprising", was a well planned and orchestrated US and NATO attack on Libya for regime change, and stealing the countries resources. Al Qaeda terrorists were embedded in the US-backed opposition.
March 19, 2011: At a meeting of the rebel council they announced the creation of a new oil company, and more importantly the designation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi. The rebels in Libya announced they were creating a new bank, a central bank, replacing the previous state-owned Libyan bank. The rebels took a break from slaughtering unarmed civilians across Libya, to announce a new banking system, which was in line with western aims. The new Central Bank of Benghazi was established to stop any ideas of a gold currency for Africa. Economic analysts were astounded that Al Qaeda terrorists could also be astute banking specialists, capable of establishing a whole new banking authority for an oil-rich nation. The 'revolution' was just in the beginning stages, and yet a new bank was the first order of business. This made it obvious for the entire world to see, that it was the new bank which was of primary importance, not securing the humanitarian concerns of the residents of Libya.
Libya Gold Reserves 2000-2016: Gold Reserves in Libya remained unchanged at 116.64 Tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2015 from 116.64 Tonnes in the third quarter of 2015. Gold Reserves in Libya averaged 136.60 Tonnes from 2000 until 2015, reaching an all-time high of 143.82 Tonnes in the second quarter of 2000 and a record low of 116.64 Tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2011. Gold Reserves in Libya is reported by the World Gold Council."
There is a huge amount of Libyan gold gone missing at the end of 2011 after Gaddafi was murdered.
March 27, 2011: The US Secretary of State was briefed on clear evidence of war crimes on the part of NATO-backed rebels. The mercenaries used by the US and NATO were carrying out ethnic cleansing of all dark-skinned people in Libya, as well as other war crimes and atrocities. The most well-documented example was an entire town of 30,000 black and "dark-skinned" Libyans which vanished by August 2011 after its takeover by NATO-backed brigades.
April 2, 2011: an email archived at Hillary Clinton's private email server from her close confidante Sidney Blumenthal dated April 2, 2011, reads in part: "Qaddafi's government holds 143 tons of gold and a similar amount in silver ... This gold was accumulated before the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA)."
In an email from Sidney Blumenthal, intelligence advisor to US Secretary of State, subject line: "France's client and Qaddafi's gold". The email details French President Nicholas Sarkozy plan to attack Libya with five specific purposes in mind: to steal the oil, keep France strong in the region, increase Sarkozy in the polls in France, to exhibit French military might abroad, and to stop Qaddafi's influence in French-speaking countries in Africa.
Libya is Africa's largest oil producer and had a huge amount of gold. Qaddafi's plan had the potential to bring down the dollar and the world monetary system by extension, according to analysts. French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly went so far as to call Libya a "threat" to the financial security of the world. The huge threat of the 143 tons of gold held by Libya, and the economic threat poised if Libyan gold were displacing the French franc (CFA) as a prime African currency. This quantity of Libyan gold and Libyan silver as well is valued at more than $7 billion. The great fear was that Libya might lead North Africa into a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency.
October 20, 2011: Muammar Qaddafi was murdered in Libya. From that point until present, Libya has been a country in chaos and filled with terrorists, who disguise themselves sometimes in suits and ties and pretend to be leaders. Many Libyan civilians have been murdered, or have left the country. What are left are mainly foreign terrorists armed by western governments, with some local mafias who are aligned with the terrorists to survive. At some point between March 2011 and 2016, a large amount of Libyan gold was taken from the Libyan reserves, presumably during the transition of control from the Qaddafi government, to the US-backed rebels.
December 2015: 3,000 emails were released from Hillary Clinton's private email server, and about a third were from her advisor Sidney Blumenthal. Hillary Clinton's emails shed light on a mystery remarked on by early commentators. Why, within weeks of initiating fighting, did the rebels set up their own central bank? Violent intervention in Libya was not chiefly about the security of the people: it was about the security of global banking, money, and oil.
Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist
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