this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
447 points (99.3% liked)

World News

47663 readers
2434 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] aaron@infosec.pub 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The US (Nixon) made an agreement with the Saudis that the world buy their oil in dollars in exchange for the US providing protection - thus extending the dollar's period as global reserve currency beyond the time the US unpegged the dollar from gold. Known as the petrodollar agreement, this extended the period the US gained an unearned portion of global wealth beyond the 70's.

America was, Americans were paid handsomely for its agreement with the Saudis. [Edit - this is a little bit reductive, but] Bretton Woods then this is why boomers were able to buy a house and live well on one wage.

I understand not every American benefited from this, and that from Reagan, and neo-liberalism onwards, all the wealth went to capital. In fact I think American capitalist ideology largely squandered this period of wealth enriching the likes Tump, Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg etc. I guess 'a rising tide raises all boats' and 'trickle down economics' turned out to be big lies after all, whouldathoughtit.

[–] G4Z@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wasn't Saddam trying to move to selling his oil in another currency, which is one of the reasons he was invaded?

[–] aaron@infosec.pub 2 points 1 day ago

Yes.

Who knows what other reasons various people in and around the government at that time had for invading Iraq, but what does seem to have been established is that it wasn't WMD's or anything to do with 9/11, which iirc, is what the Americans and us (well Tony Blair, who was paid handsomely for his service) said it was.