What power has law where only money rules?» –Petronius
French-born Dominique Gaston André
Strauss-Kahn became the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) tenth
Managing Director in November 2007.
His term was remarkable because of three different extraordinary facts, namely:
Unlike most of his predecessors at the helm of
the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn –also known as DSK to his fellow
Frenchmen– is not a banker and has no known affiliations to banking
entities. Instead, he had worked as a politician and as a college
professor. (Whitney, 2011).
1. Less than a
year after his arrival at the IMF, a worldwide financial crisis of
considerable proportions took place. (Chossudovsky, 2011).
2. As a member of
the French Socialist Party, DSK was widely believed to harbor
aspirations to run for the highest political office in France, i.e. the
Presidency, in the elections that were scheduled for 2012. He was
regarded as a competitive challenger who would contend against the then
incumbent President Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarkozy de Nagy-Bocsa,
candidate of the conservative-leaning UMP Party –Union for a Popular
Movement– (Weisenthal, 2011).
3. His skill as
IMF Managing Director was praised for being a “sagacious leader”
(Stiglitz, 2011) and, replaying the role of the legendary Austrian
Prince and statesman, DSK was described as “Metternich with a
Blackberry” for his bright maneuvers to establish a “system of
interlocking interests” in order to ensure that stability and balance,
understood in both financial and political terms, could prevail
(Johnson, 2010).
A Sex Scandal at the Highest Levels
Nevertheless, DSK’s promising career, in both the IMF and French politics was abruptly undermined in New York, on May 14th,
2011 when he was arrested and charged with sexual assault and attempted
rape of Guinean-born Sofitel Hotel chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo.
Shortly afterwards –on May 18th, 2011–, DSK tendered his
resignation from the IMF. He was swiftly replaced by French Finance
Minister Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde. DSK pleaded not guilty and,
eventually, all charges were dismissed (Los Angeles Times, 2011) after
even public prosecutors became unable to believe the accuser’s words
(BBC, 2011).
Was this incident just another high-profile sex
scandal, similar to the ones involving former US President William
Jefferson Clinton, former US Democratic Senator John Reid Edwards,
former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, former Israeli
President Moshe Katzav, former President of the World Bank Paul Dundes
Wolfowitz, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency David
Howell Petraeus, et al. or… is there more than
meets the eye at play? As an educated guess, this research paper is
meant to provide a plausible answer.
Unanswered Questions and Reasonable Doubt
«Justice, and only justice, you shall follow… » –Deuteronomy 16:20
This section is neither a specialized forensic
analysis nor is intended to be one. Instead, it is meant to highlight
the correlation of political circumstances that, once encompassed
together, turn out to be too disturbing and coincidental to be dismissed
outright as a mere product of chance and, thus, they provide a
plausible basis to raise more than reasonable doubts concerning the
official version of events as described in the previous section.
In the hermetic jargon of intelligence circles,
well organized setups involving sexual baits and specially designed to
compromise high-value targets are euphemistically known as ‘honey
traps’, i.e. operations which are “undertaken to ensnare an unwary
target in a compromising sexual encounter that may leave the victim
vulnerable to blackmail that might result in espionage” (West, 2007). In
fact, an experienced analyst observes that “a useful rule of thumb in
evaluating spectacular scandals around prominent public figures is to
ask what and who might want to eliminate that person” (Engdahl, 2008).
Statesmen, military leaders, diplomats, strongmen,
warlords, ministers, dictators, potentates, monarchs, lawmakers,
government officials, spies, businessmen, corporate executives,
merchants, bankers, media moguls, influential journalists and decision
makers in general, like any other human being, have personal weaknesses
and flaws that can and sometimes are indeed exploited by rivals willing
to damage them.
Those are factors that are closely scrutinized by
psychological analysts employed by several intelligence agencies
specifically for that purpose. Those same agencies “prepare
sophisticated psychological profiles before they intervene. They know
that the knowledge of the secret lives—and kinks— of public figures can
easily discredit them. They specialize in foraging for dirt and can leak
information or use it opportunistically […furthermore,] sex scandals
have become a staple of media exploitation with personal morality plays
trumping political morality confrontations every time. They are both
great distractions and effective tools of character assassination which
are often more effective than more violent ways to neutralize people
considered dangerous” (Schechter, 2011).
DSK
was well aware of his personal traits which could be used by political
opponents to damage his aspirations: “cash, women and being Jewish”
(Harman, 2011). The latter could be exploited by vicious anti-Semites
close to both extremes of the French political spectrum. Nevertheless,
his reputation of being a seducer was a far more threatening
vulnerability because he could be blackmailed if he were to contend
against then incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as was
discussed in French journalistic outlets (Bacqué, 2011).
Concerning more specific details, there are several conditions surrounding alleged victim, Nafissatou
Diallo that question the truthfulness of her testimony. Prior to the
incident, it has surfaced that the Guinean-born woman’s bank account had
received 100, 000 dollars (Roberts, 2011). Even mainstream media published that “little
by little, her credibility as a witness crumbled — she had lied about
her immigration, about being gang raped in Guinea, about her experiences
in her homeland and about her finances, according to two law
enforcement officials. She had been linked to people suspected of
crimes. She changed her account of what she did immediately after the
encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. Sit-downs with prosecutors became
tense, even angry. Initially composed, she later collapsed in tears and
got down on the floor during questioning. She became unavailable to
investigators from the district attorney’s office for days at a time” (Wilson, 2011).
At this point, it is important to briefly examine a remarkable precedent. Back in 2008, it was leaked that then Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer
had resorted to exclusive sexual entertainment services. The scandal
was taken advantage of by Republican politicians willing to unseat the
Democratic Governor and his political career was ultimately undermined.
Initially, Spitzer had inflicted a painful defeat
on the Grand Old Party –GOP– when was elected Governor with close to
70% of the vote and, a few years later, he may have irrevocably sealed
his own fate by being an outspoken opponent of the Bush Administration’s
apparent criminal complicity with banking behemoths –“predatory
lenders”– at the expense of common citizens, i.e. homeowners, taxpayers
and consumers (Spitzer, 2008). Also, as former Attorney General of the
State which houses the very core of the US financial system, Spitzer
even challenged powerful interests by looking deep into financial
crimes, frauds and corruption by Wall Street investment banks in the
early 2000’s (Engdahl, 2008).
Interestingly, in an apparent attempt to further
tarnish DSK’s integrity, Kristin Davis, the Manhattan Madam of the
prostitute who was involved in the Eliot Spitzer sex
scandal, publically announced that “one of her call girls refused to
service Strauss-Kahn a second time because he was too rough in the act”
(Roberts, 2011).
So the possibility that Spitzer was overthrown by a
cabal integrated by a combination of powerful financial interests and
opportunistic political opponents must be seriously considered. The
aforementioned raises an unavoidable question: Could something similar,
although on a larger scale, have happened to Dominique Strauss-Kahn?
On the other hand, DSK had been alerted in advance
that his political opponents back in France –the UMP Party– somehow had
managed to gain access to his personal communications and, more
amazingly, “he had already been warned by a
friend in the French diplomatic corps that an effort would be made to
embarrass him with a scandal” (Epstein, 2011). It
is telling that DSK had previously anticipated that he would be the
target of a conspiracy masterminded by political enemies and engineered
to topple him through accusations of an alleged rape (Allen, 2011).
His suspicions could not have turned out to be
more accurate given that he was well aware of his particular vulnerable
points. It is even more revealing that the very first person to
disseminate the news about the French FMI Managing Director was Jonathan
Pinet, a politics student who also happens to be an activist in Nicolas
Sarkozy’s UMP party. That information was, in turn, spread by Arnaud
Dassier, a spin doctor who had worked for Sarkozy’s presidential
campaign and responsible of orchestrating a campaign designed to
discredit DSK’s Socialist political position (Roberts, 2011).
Furthermore, Accor Group is the owner of the
Sofitel hotel. Along these lines, it cannot be ignored that, at the time
of the incidence, Accor’s head of security was none other than
René-Georges Querry, who had previously “worked closely in the police
with Ange Mancini, who [was] coordinator for intelligence for President
Sarkozy” (Epstein, 2011).
Sometimes, even silence is deafening. Dominique
Strauss-Kahn could have been politically protected by prominent members
of the US political establishment. He was not. Quite the contrary: DSK
was charged with seven crimes –attempted rape, sexual abuse, forcible
touching, among others– by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.,
son of former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, whose Deputy Executive
Secretary of State was former CIA official Frank G. Wisner II, who
became Nicolas Sarkozy’s stepfather in 1977 when he married his
stepmother Christine de Ganay. Additionally, DSK was denied bail by
Judge Melissa Jackson, who was politically sponsored and handpicked by
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also happens to be a powerful
player in Wall Street. (Chossudovsky, 2011).
Moreover, the fact that DSK was arrested aboard an
airplane shortly before it was scheduled to depart creates the “image
of a man fleeing from a crime” (Roberts, 2011) even though he was
heading to Europe in order to hold a meeting with German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and, afterwards, participate in a meeting of eurozone
finance ministers in Brussels (Bucci, 2011).
Afterwards,
it must not be forgotten that, when Strauss-Kahn was arrested, he was
temporarily substituted by John Philipp Lipsky before Christine Lagarde
was officially appointed as the next Managing Director of the IMF.
During his career, it has to be pointed out, Lipksy had worked for
banking corporations such as Salomon Brothers and JPMorgan Chase (Whitney, 2011).
By the way, Lagarde’s candidacy to succeed DSK was
promptly and enthusiastically backed by the US Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner –himself a former Goldman Sachs man–, who somewhat prematurely
argued that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was “obviously not it in the
position to run the IMF” (Calabresi, 2011). Perhaps not incidentally, “the
report from the prosecutor proving DSK’s innocence was released on the
day following the IMF’s executive board decision instating Lagarde as
Managing Director of IMF for a five year term […] if this information
had been revealed a few days earlier, Lagarde’s candidacy as IMF chief
might have been questioned” (Chossudovsky, 2011).
These surprising coincidences have lead some
analysts to assert the hypothesis that “regime change at the IMF […had]
been speedily implemented” (Chossudovsky, 2011). Was it? It is certainly
a legitimate question that deserves careful attention. If so, who was
interested in ousting him and, even more importantly, what were the
motivations behind such move?
The above article is Part I of a longer essay forthcoming on Global Research
References
· Allen,
P., 2011. IMF chief ‘feared political opponent would pay a woman more
than $1m to allege rape’. The Daily Mail, May 16, p. News.
· Bacqué, R., 2011. Dominique Strauss-Kahn: A Scandal Waiting to Happen. TIME, p. World.
· Blomberg,
B. & Broz, L., 2006. The Political Economy of IMF Voting Power,
California: Claremont McKenna College | University of California.
· Bordo,
M. & James, H., 2000. The International Monetary Fund: Its Present
Role in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, National Bureau of Economic
Research.
· Brown, E., 2011. Libya: All about Oil, or Central Banking?.Asia Times, 14 April, p. Middle East.
· Carbaugh,
R. &Hendrik, D., 2009. Will the Dollar be Dethroned as the Main
Reserve Currency?.Global Economy Journal, Vol. 09 (Iss. 03), pp. 1-14.
· Chin,
G. & Wang, Y., 2010. Debating the International Currency System:
What’s in a Speech?.China Security, Vol. 6(Iss. 1), pp. 3 – 20.
· Clark, W., 2005. Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.
· Cohen, B., 2003. The Geopolitics of Currencies and the Future of the International System. Madrid, Real InstitutoElcano.
· Cohen,
B., 2008. The International Monetary System: Diffusion and Ambiguity.
International Affairs, Vol. 84 (Iss. 3), pp. 455-470.
· Cohen,
B., 2008. Whither the Key Currency? American Policy and the Global Role
of the Dollar in the 21st Century. Santa Barbara, University of
California at Santa Barbara.
· Cohen, B., 2009. Currency and State Power. Stranford, University of California.
· Dobbs,
R., 2009. An exorbitant privilege? Implications of Reserve Currencies
for Competitiveness, s.l.: McKinsey Global Institute.
· Dreher, A., Marchesi, S. & Vreeland, J. R., 2007. The Politics of IMF Forecasts, NA: Social Science Research Network.
· Drezner, D., 2010. Will currency follow the flag?.International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Volumen Vol. 10, pp. 389-414.
· Dwyer,
G. & Lothian, 2002. International Money and Common Currencies in
Historical Perspective. Conference on Euro and Dollarization: Forms of
Monetary Union.
· Eichengreen,
B., 2003. Hegemonic Stability Theories of the International Monetary
System. En: J. Frieden& D. Lake, edits. International Political
Economy: Perspectives on Globval Power and Wealth. London: Routledge,
pp. 220-244.
· Eichengreen,
B., 2005. Sterling’s Past, Dollar’s Future: Historical Perspectives on
Reserve Currency Competition. Leicester, Economic History Society.
· Engdahl, W., 2006. Why Iran’s Oil Bourse Can’t Break the Buck. Asia Times, 10 March, p. Middle East.
· Eslake,
S., 2009. Is the US Dollar in Danger of Losing its Reserve Currency
Status.Munich, International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists.
· Faugère, C. & Van Erlach, J., 2005. The Price of Gold: A Global Required Yield Theory. The Journal of Investing, Volumen Spring.
· Frenkel, J. & Chin, M., 2008. Why the Euro Will Rival the Dollar. International Finance, pp. 49-73.
· Friedberg,
A., 1991. The Changing Relationship between Economics and National
Security. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 106 (No. 2), pp. 265-276.
· Goldberg,
L., 2011. The International Role of the Dollar: Does It Matter if This
Changes?,New York: Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports.
· Harman, D., 2011. The Strauss-Kahn affair and France’s Jews. Haaretz, May 25, p. Jewish World.
· International
Monetary Fund, 2011. Enhancing International Monetary Stability – A
Role for the SDR?,Washington D.C.: Strategy, Policy and Review
Department.
· International Monetary Fund, 2013. Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER), Washington D.C.: IMF.
· Jaeger, M., 2010. Yuan as Reserve Currency, Frankfurt am Main: Detsche Bank Research.
· Kirshner, J., 2003. Money is politics. Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 10 (No. 4), p. 645–660.
· Leech,
D., 2002. Voting Power in the Governance of the International Monetary
Fund. Annals of Operations Research, Vol. 109, pp. 375-397.
· Lee, J.-W., 2010. Will the Renminbi Emerge as an International Reserve Currency?.Beijing, Asian Development Bank.
· Lips,
F., 2001. Gold Wars: The Battle Against Sound Money As Seen From A
Swiss Perspective. New York: The Foundation for the Advancement of
Monetary Education.
· Lips,
F., 2004. Gold Wars: Military Conflicts, Gold and Currency Crises. St.
Gallen, International Finance & Security lecture series.
· Makin, J., 2011. Can China’s Currency Go Global?,Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
· McConnell,
J. M., 2008. Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community,
Washington D.C.: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
· Mearsheimer, 1994. The False Promise of International Institutions. International Security, Vol. 19 (No. 3), pp. 5-49.
· Mearsheimer, J., 1995. A Realist Reply. International Security, Vol. 20 (No. 1), pp. 82-93.
· Michaud, R., Michaud, R. &Pulvermacher, K., 2006. Gold as a Strategic Asset, London: World Gold Council.
· Moghadam,
R., 2011. Enhancing International Monetary Stability—A Role for the
SDR?,Washington D.C.: IMF Strategy, Policy, and Review Department.
· Mundell, R., 1993. EMU and the International Monetary System: A Transatlantic Perspective, Vienna: Austrian National Bank.
· National Intelligence Council, 2008. Global Trends 2025, Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office.
· Osborn, A., 2011. Vladimir Putin hints at Dominique Strauss-Kahn conspiracy. The Telegraph, May 29, p. Finance.
· Oxford Analytica, 2008. Dollar is safe as world currency, Oxford: Oxford Analytica.
· Oxford Analytica, 2008. US Hegemony Will Persist, But Decline, Oxford: Oxford Analytica.
· Quiao, L. & Wang, X., 1999. Unrestricted Warfare. Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House.
· Reynaud,
J. &Vauday, J., 2007. Geopolitics in the International
MonetaryFund, Madrid: Fundación Centro de Investigación Latinoamérica
Europa.
· Rickards,
J., 2012. Currencies of Power and the Power of Currencies: The
Geopolitics of Currencies,Reserves and the Global Financial System.
International Institute for Strategic Studies -ISSS Geo-economics and
Strategy Programme.
· Roby, E., 2010. Control of Oil is Dollar Strategy. Düsseldorf: DüsseldorferInstitutfürAußen- und Sicherheitspolitik.
· Rosensweig,
J., 2009. Global Macroeconomic Perspectives: Single Reserve Currency,
Atlanta: Emory University | Goizueta Business School.
· Schulz, G., 2009. Petrodollar Recycling as a Predictive Means of Conflict Assessment. AARMS, Vol. 8 (No. 3), pp. 463-468.
· Scott, P. D., 2011. Libya and the decline of the petrodollar system. Asia Times Online, May 06, p. Global Economy.
· Setser,
B., 2009. Strategic Implications of the Financial Crisis. En: M.
Emerson, ed. Readings in European Security. Brussels: Centre for
European Policy Studies, pp. 201-217.
· Shelton, J., 2008. Security and the Falling Dollar. Wall Street Journal, February 15 , p. A.15.
· Spitzer, E., 2008. Predatory Lenders’ Partner in Crime. The Washington Post, February 14, p. Opinion.
· Stiglitz, J., 2002. Globalization and Its Discontents. s.l.:Norton& Company.
· Strange, S., 1998. “What Theory? The Theory in Mad Money”, Coventry: Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation.
· Strauss-Kahn,
D., 2009. The International Monetary System: Reforms to Enhance
Stability and Governance [Speech] (November 19 2009).
· Stroupe, J., 2005. The Strategy of the Central Banker, s.l.: Global Events Magazine.
· Stroupe, J. 2006. Russian Rubicon: Impending Checkmate of the West. Global Events Magazine.
· Summers, L., 2004. The United States and the Global Adjustment Process. Washington D.C., Institute for International Economics.
· Waltz, K., 2000. Structural Realism after the Cold War. Inetrnational Security, Vol. 25(Issue 1).
· Weiss,
M., 2012. International Monetary Fund: Background and Issues for
Congress, Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service.
· West, N., 2007. Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence. Maryland: Scarecrow Press Inc..
[1]SDRs
are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets held by member
countries and maintained by the IMF and their value is based on four
international currencies: the US dollar, the euro, the yen and the pound
and can be exchanged for freely usable currencies. They represent a
potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF member states.
Posts
Every
minute of every day, file-sharing networks all over the globe are being
monitored by anti-piracy companies on behalf of their copyright holder
paymasters.