Friday, November 2, 2007

Gold Sells for $800 an Ounce. Can War Be Far Behind?

By Alan Caruba

The news today is that the price of gold has reached $800 an ounce. Gold is the traditional refuge for money in times of war and that is why a great deal of money is moving into gold.

Men are looking at the price of oil flirt with an unprecedented $100 a barrel, the instability in the Middle East from Afghanistan to Iraq to Iran, and watching as well the 100,000 troops Turkey has posted to its border with Iraq.

They are keeping an eye on the machinations of Syria in Lebanon that have included several assassinations of Lebanese leaders, plus their Hezbollah surrogates who are poised to attack Israel. And finally they are watching the chaos in the Gaza in what amounts to a civil war between Palestinian factions there and on the West Bank.

Lurking in the background throughout the Middle East, but especially in Pakistan, is al Qaeda. Wounded and fractious, it still remains a force that wants to take over Saudi Arabia and the Gulf State emirates.

The conclusions and calculations of men are that these represent the kind of conditions that lead to very big, very bad wars.

The West, America, England and Europe, will have no option except to intervene because Middle East oil is just too critical to their own economies and need for the energy resource it represents. They got together to resist Saddam Hussein after he invaded Kuwait.

They got together again after 9/11 to bless the Afghanistan venture to drive out the Taliban and they grumbled a great deal about the U.S. decision to depose Hussein's regime, but they know the real stakes.

Don't blink!

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