State of Israel Feels Threatened by Humanitarian Aid Ships to Sealed Gaza Strip

The two boats carrying members of a U.S.-based activist group set sail from Cyprus early Friday in a bid to break Israel's 14-month blockade of Gaza. The activists hope to reach Gaza's shores on Saturday. … They plan to deliver 200 hearing aids to a Palestinian charity for children and hand out 5,000 balloons.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Aviv Shiron said Israel was closely following the boats. "We will make sure that this provocation is not taking place," he said. He declined to say whether military action was planned, saying only that "all the options are being considered." A military spokeswoman refused comment.

From: Israel warns activists against sailing to Gaza, by Josef Federman, AP, August 22, 2008.

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Al Qaeda Starter Kit!!!

December 2007

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The War on Terrorism turns Inward

As I write this the Australian city of Sydney is being sealed off with fences, barricades, roadblocks, and police checkpoints, including military ships and aircraft on patrol, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC), an international forum for trade and economic agreements.

It is estimated that the weeklong meeting will cost more than 320 million Australian dollars, or $262 million. About 177 million dollars will be spent on security arrangements alone, and much of the rest will be from lost production following the government's decision to make next Friday a national holiday. [1]

Called the largest security operation in Australian history, the primary stated purpose of these highly inconvenient and expensive police measures in the middle of a major city is to protect government authorities from an unidentified terrorist threat that even the Australian authorities indirectly admit is probably non-existent. The second stated reason for the show of force by the police and military is to stop 'violent' protestors.

With visions in mind of past public demonstrations against international economic meetings turned rowdy while conveniently ignoring the fact that nearly all the violence in these cases has originated from the police (since they have most of the weapons) and not from the public demonstrators, Australian authorities have prepared for this coming wave of 'terrorism' by emptying the prisons of existing criminals to make room for soon-to-be arrested protestors who dare to express their opinions!

In addition, parts of Sydney have been declared “APEC security areas”. Under the APEC Meeting (Police Powers) Bill, drafted by the NSW state Labor government, police have extraordinary powers within these areas, including the authority to stop and search any individual or vehicle without warrant. Included are four central Sydney hotels and their immediate surrounds, the city’s airport, parts of Kirribilli and the beach-side suburb of Bondi, and the Royal Australian Air Force base in northwest Sydney. Anyone arrested will be denied the presumption of bail and detained for the duration of the APEC summit. Those convicted of entering a restricted area without authorisation will face up to two years’ jail. ...

The scale of the Sydney security operation bears no relationship to any actual danger posed to the personal security of the meeting’s participants. [2]

Priorities, by Freydis

2000

The actual purpose of this high-security is much more clear in consideration of past events like the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle: to shield the leaders from the very public they are supposed to be democratically representing so they can continue to implement socially and economically harmful policies without fear of public retribution or even criticism. Unpopular leaders that implement widely disliked policies have much to fear from the public. To these authorities terrorism is all around them and terrorists are everywhere because, to them, public dissent is terrorism and the people are terrorists.

Particular criticism has been leveled at the decision to move a number of Australia's indigenous fauna from Sydney's Taronga Zoo, which was deemed insecure, to an island in the middle of the harbor so that the leaders' spouses could visit them. [1] Australian citizens surely won't mind paying more in taxes to support this  worthy cause.

The fictional War on Terrorism is quickly transforming into a factual war on dissent because valid threats to national security are far away but potential threats to corrupt and illegitimate political power are right here inside the country. 02&07.09.07

1. Sydney prepares for APEC forum, by Tim Johnston, IHT, September 2, 2007.
2. Extraordinary security operation shuts down central Sydney, by Patrick O’Connor, WSWS, September 4, 2007.

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Sum of All Fears

August 2007

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Film Review: Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failure, (2003) DVD

This is a very concise and informative documentary that details the troubles in Colombia, focusing on the current drug war and the U.S. concocted 'Plan Colombia' program. The film connects the School of the Americas in the United States that has trained Colombian military leaders later implicated in atrocities; the latest "free-trade" scam called the ‘Free trade agreement of the Americas’ that undercuts local environmental and labor regulations to favor U.S. business interest; and the oil connection - Colombia and neighboring Venezuela are oil producers, creating yet another reason to prop up a corrupt and brutal yet politically friendly regime.

So, despite the obvious failure of the so-called war on drugs the program continues with U.S. military aid to Colombia ranking number three only after Israel and Egypt. Basically it's a subsidy to the military industrial complex domestically, and as foreign policy it’s used as a means of propping up a regime in power over Colombia that is friendly towards wealthy American interests.

Plan Colombia reveals the historic U.S. motive to protect "our" resources around the world regardless of the violence and criminality of the governments willing to cooperate to do this. The film includes interviews with Noam Chomsky, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, and many others. Film website: http://www.plancolombia.org/ See also: Crisis Colombia at Holology. 28.05.07

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It's All Iran's Fault: Show and Tell in Baghdad

The Bush administration has been under pressure to reveal the evidence they claim to have that justifies their repeated claims of Iranian involvement in arming militias and insurgents in Iraq. After delays to repackage their presentation, because the first one wasn’t credible enough according to the Bush administration (!), a show and tell was done in Baghdad on the 11^th of February. The location pretty much excluded any reporters not already located there given the difficulties and dangers of getting into, and around, Iraq but the stated reason was that a Washington DC venue would have made the presentation ‘too political’.

Anyway, the presentation was greeted with widespread skepticism, clearly evident in the articles published in the influential New York Times and the Washington Post newspapers. Others have gone further in demolishing the White House and the Pentagon’s claims against Iran.

The only weapon that the Pentagon seems to be concerned enough about enough to try and build a convincing case against Iran comes from the Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), meaning shaped charge munitions.

The argument for Iranian official responsibility assumes that such weapons are so tightly controlled that Shi'ite groups could not purchase them in small numbers on the black market in Iran, Syria or Lebanon. It is well documented, however, that the Shi'ites have resorted to black-market networks to obtain EFPs.

An article in Jane's Intelligence Review last month by Michael Knights, chief of analysis for the Olive Group, a private security-consulting firm, reports that the British discovered that there was indeed an organization in Basra engaged in arranging for the purchase and delivery of imported EFPs and that it was composed entirely of police officials, including members of the Police Intelligence Unit, the Internal Affairs Directorate and the Major Crimes Unit. They found that members of the organization followed no specific Shi'ite faction, but included members from all the factions in Basra. [1]

We do know that weapons with markings indicating manufacture in Iran are present in Iraq and are, by virtue of that fact and the massive public resistance to foreign military occupation, very likely being used against ‘Coalition’ forces. But the same could be said of weapons from China, Russia, and undoubtedly many other countries around the world! So why single out Iran? The only answer that makes any sense is that the Bush administration wants to get Iran and is doing everything possible to build a pretext for further political and economic isolation and, most likely, eventually military action against that country.

The EFPs used against US and British troops in Iraq were the centerpiece of the briefing. But the anonymous US officials did not claim that the finished products have been manufactured in Iran. Instead they referred to machining of EFP "components" - referring to the concave metal lids on the devices - as being done in Iran.

It also raises an obvious question: If Iran has the technical ability to supply the complete EFPs, why are only components being smuggled into Iraq? [1]

It’s going to be nearly impossible for the White House to prove that the Iranian government is directly involved and approves of these weapons being sent to and used in Iraq. Again this just raises the main question – why bother? Why go to all this effort when it isn’t going to convince anyone and it only serves to antagonize and marginalize Iraq’s most important neighbor, especially when diplomacy could go so much farther? Iran has demonstrated a desire and capacity to help the United States, for instance in help given to topple the Taliban, and Iran clearly has the most influence inside Iraq with their Shiite connections. Instead the only option being pursued by the Bush administration and the Pentagon is aggression. 15.02.07

1. US's smoking gun on Iran misfires, by Gareth Porter, IPS news via ATOL, February 15, 2007.

Next Stop for the Neo-Con Pain-Train: Iran

You should know the routine by now: exaggerate the threat loudly and repeatedly, provoke the other side and then use some kind of reaction on their part to justify a military action. Members of the Bush administration are all operating on schedule and according to script in the buildup to a war on Iran. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs in the supposedly diplomatic State Department recently stated: "Iran needs to learn to respect us, and Iran certainly needs to respect American power in the Middle East." If that isn’t a threat, what is?!

Multiple recent events indicate that an attack on Iran is very near. Here’s a revealing list:

• A second carrier group is being moved into the Persian Gulf.
  Pentagon officials said this week that they were ordering a second aircraft carrier battle group, including ships and warplanes, to the gulf, as a message to Iran. [1]

• Patriot missile batteries are being moved in to defend regional pseudo-allies in case of Iranian missile retaliation.
  Bush in his speech said that intelligence-sharing would be expanded in the region and that Patriot air defense systems were being deployed "to reassure our friends and allies." [1]

• Key personnel are being reshuffled.

The former National Security Agency director and veteran of more than 25 years in intelligence, retired Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, who happens to be an old friend of Vice President Dick Cheney (who personally intervened on his old buddy's behalf), will succeed Negroponte as national intelligence director. McConnell, willing to oblige his neo-con pal Cheney, may prove more hawkish regarding Iran than Negroponte was.

The timing of this move is what should raise eyebrows, and for two main reasons. First, Negroponte is relieved of his job of intelligence director as the drums of war continue to be pounded by the diehard neo-conservatives, and Negroponte wasn't playing quite loud enough to the Tehran tune. McConnell may well be able to carry a louder tune for his pal Cheney, which may come in the form of a sonata of manufactured intelligence to justify an attack on Iran, which is important as time is growing short for Cheney and company. [2]

• The Generals in charge of Iraq have been changed towards those favorable to a troop expansion and Admiral William Fallon has been put in charge of the CENTCOM region that includes Iraq. Seemingly an odd choice, Admiral Fallon doesn’t have any experience in the region but he does projecting naval air-power, circle back to the second carrier air group and focus on Iran.

• The 21,500 more soldiers being collected in Iraq can offer nothing that hasn’t already been attempted to stifle the massive public resistance but it can serve the purpose of protecting against a predicable response to an attack on Iran by the Shiite population. In other words they know they will need every soldier they can get to keep the lid on once the green light is given for a wider war and they have to manufacture an excuse to avoid truthful explanations.

• Independent analysts of the situation are not the only ones to conclude that a U.S. sponsored war on Iran is in the works, Iran has read the signs as well and that may be the reason for an otherwise inexplicable shift in their nuclear program.
  Iran’s uranium enrichment program appears stalled despite tough talk from the Tehran leadership, leaving intelligence services guessing about why it has not made good on plans to press ahead with activities that the West fears could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said Thursday. [3] Why build on something you’re convinced is going to get bombed in a few months anyway?

The official reason for attacking Iran is their nuclear energy program that the Bush administration and Israel loudly claim is intended to covertly create atomic weapons and very soon. No evidence has been presented to the public to substantiate the accusation that Iran’s nuclear program is anything but what the Iranian’s repeatedly claim it to be: for civilian energy, specifically to offset Iran’s declining oil production. The IAEA has reportedly found trace amounts of weapons grade radioactive materials on some Iranian equipment but the chemical source is Pakistan where the equipment originated. So, questions certainly remain but conclusive evidence of nefarious purpose remains noticeably lacking.

For its part the Pentagon and the neo-con armchair Generals are operating on the assumption that a week or two of pinpoint airstrikes will be enough to set back Iran and Syria ten years or more, and that will be more than enough to allow everyone else in the region to return to business as usual. However, Israel’s military (IDF) and the Pentagon believed the same thing before launching a war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon where both were rudely surprised to discover that airstrikes were not enough to defeat, or even significantly degrade, the fighting capacity of Hezbollah. Israel was subsequently forced to launch a ground invasion that turned into a fiasco partly because of poor planning on Israel’s part but mostly because of the fighting tenacity of Hezbollah.

So, unless Syria and Iran have been totally oblivious they must have internalized the lessons from Lebanon and prepared appropriately. This being the case the Pentagon may well be in for a rude awaking of their own when they discover that even if they can find the correct targets and inflict sufficient damage it still won’t be enough to generate a conclusive militarily defeat of Iran and Syria. A ground invasion of one or both countries will consequently become necessary and the Pentagon will be in a very dangerous position clearly lacking anything close to the needed quantity of ground forces.

What's the excuse this time?

The most likely pretext to attack is being established as the claimed support Iran is providing to people in Iraq to build carefully manufactured shaped charge munitions used in roadside bombs, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), as well as small arms that originated in Iran. Yet the charge that Iran is providing military assistance to Iraq is absurdly hypocritical given that the United States is doing exactly that themselves on a massive scale, even going so far as to flood the country with guns without even keeping track of the serial numbers [Reference: Genocide for Dollars]! In truth the Bush administration doesn’t need any competition to arm Iraqis and this issue is just using a pretext necessary for launching an attack on Iran under the guise of ‘protecting the troops’ in Iraq. President Nixon when he was embroiled in a bloody and futile conflict in Asia launched similar campaigns against Vietnam’s neighbors, Cambodia being the most blatant example. The difference this time is that the President is not trying to fix the crisis stemming from the original invasion but rather to attack another pre-existing enemy. Even the term ‘enemy’ needs to be explained here for Iran poses no direct threat to the United States only to American forces stationed in Iraq and even then Iran would only attack directly if pushed into a corner because the balance of military force, both nuclear and non-nuclear, is overwhelmingly on the side of the United States. Iran is an enemy to the Bush administration, the neo-cons and Israel, not to the people of the United States.

An unfortunately popular saying in Israel is, “the only good Arab is a dead one,” but even more than the Arabs in general, Israel as represented by its Zionist government, absolutely hates Iran with a burning passion and their militant and most potent arm of influence in the United States now, the neo-conservatives, are using a delusional President Bush to get what they want because, in their view, that’s what the USA is for. "The only good Arab is a dead one,” think about that mindset for a moment. Think about the death squads rebuilt in Iraq [Reference: Death Squads Return in Iraq] under the Bush administration. Put the two together and the seemingly pointless sectarian carnage in Iraq and the reason why certain people are so adamant that the United States should maintain its military presence in Iraq begins to make sense.

I don’t think the neo-cons and Bush really expected the resistance from Congress they are receiving in response to the troop surge in Iraq and it makes it more difficult for them to justify a further escalation of the war against Iran and, possibly, Syria as well. The political window of opportunity to strike Iran is rapidly closing and at best they have a year to get it done, realistically only six months before events on the ground in Iraq become totally untenable. Now even Republican supporters of Bush’s wars are switching sides, unable to continue resisting massive public discontent and an escalating yet clearly futile conflict for America. Nonetheless Congress is very unlikely to actually block air-strikes against Iran because the predictable tsunami of propaganda will not leave them room to argue out of it, if they even want to resist the lobby influence behind it. At this point it looks like the Bush-Cheney-neocon plan is to surge, strike, and withdraw back into the superbases in Iraq. This will accomplish the minimum they want and it will leave most of the carnage of the aftermath for the next administration to deal with. If Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons actually manage to expand their war on Iran and even Syria, and all signs point in that direction, the results will be unprecedented. Worldwide response will be fascinating to put it mildly.

There is no room for sanity in a world where the powerful are driven by religious hatred, where apocalypse based prophecy seeking Christian zealots have aligned with Jewish Zionist fanatics to defeat the rising influence of Islam. Just how far can they go before the system they've usurped crashes and burns? 13.01.07

1. Tough Moves On Iranians And Syrians In Iraq Planned, by Paul Richter, LA Times, January 11, 2007.
2. Negroponte and the escalation of death, by Dahr Jamail, ATOL, January 11, 2007.
3. Iran's nuclear seems slow, puzzling West, by George Jahn, AP, January 11, 2007.

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"The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq, so America will not leave until victory is achieved." - President W. Bush, September 2006.

"The violence is not increasing. We're not in a civil war. Iraq will never be in a civil war. The violence is in decrease, and our security ability is increasing." - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, August 28, 2006.

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Part I: Oil or Security - What Happened?

It’s commonly accepted that the reason for Bush’s war on Iraq is because of the oil that lies beneath that country. This is true to a certain extent but to believe that oil is the only reason why the United States is, still, in Iraq would be naïve in the extreme.

Bush and Vice President Cheney have long histories with ties to the petroleum industry.  The public statements and policy decisions of the Bush administration leave no doubt as to their allegiance to the very profitable natural resource extraction industries, particularly oil. But oil was not the main motivating factor for invading Iraq, it was a kickback benefit that brought the oil industry on board for a war that they otherwise would have been ambivalent towards at best. The reason for this has become fairly clear over the past four years of the war with the results being a considerable net strategic loss to U.S. oil companies. Although these oil companies have reaped record profits from the spike in oil prices caused by worldwide turmoil, market panic and production disruptions, their long term financial outlook is not nearly as healthy as most might assume.

The Conundrum of High Oil Prices

Most oil producing countries, like Saudi Arabia, now aim for a market price of $30 per barrel not because they don’t like the hefty profits from the current $60 range but because they know very well that long term prices above $50 make numerous alternative fuels cost-effective. The adoption of alternative fuels and technologies spells serious trouble for oil producers because once the public becomes aware of alternatives and once these new fuels are adopted for widespread use the cat is out of the bag so to speak and high demand for dirty oil will not return and their lock on the market will disappear.

It would seem to make sense for the oil companies to invest in alternative fuels but history has shown that even when interested in new technology it’s usually just to buy up the patents and keep the technology off the market. Oil is so enormously profitable that big oil finds it much more profitable to perpetuate their control of the fuel market than to invest and market new technologies. Big oil is a stereotypical dinosaur industry and when you’re really big change is seen as very dangerous. They need security and stability that works in their favor. What the oil producers and big oil companies want is not high prices but steady long-term, reliable profits – not market price volatility. They want to keep the price of oil just below the threshold where the consumers rebel and adopt alternatives.

Iraq has consistently produced less oil under the occupation since 2003 than it did under Saddam with sanctions on him! That is one of the reasons for the high price of oil and that adds considerable costs to economic activity. Just about anything that has to move needs oil – trucks, trains, airplanes and so on and in a globalized economy rapid and cheap transportation is critical to making everything work affordably. High fuel prices have been very damaging to Bush’s Republican Party by depressing the domestic economy, raising unemployment and agitating the gas-buying public. From the standpoint of oil production the invasion of Iraq has been a colossal failure for the Bush administration – the invasion and reconstruction of Iraq did not pay for itself after all! A new set of laws designed to lock in rules favorable towards western ownership of Iraq’s oil assets is tied up amidst political disagreement in Iraq. Whether these laws that benefit foreign capitalism over Iraq’s national interests ever become legal fact is open for debate. Iraq still has massive oil reserves but the short and mid-range outlook for getting that oil out is looking very sour indeed.

Myth: the war on Iraq was launched to raise the price of oil

So, if the plan was for Chevron and ExxonMobil to quickly move into Iraq, buy up the oil wells and start pumping out the profits then it has clearly failed. If the plan was to make a king-size mess of Iraq and the oil-wells just to keep it all off the world market and drive up prices then it has been a success. But that scenario doesn’t make any sense because it badly hurts the Republican Party and the economy. Not only that but the invasion was quite unnecessary because Saddam’s oil was already pretty tightly tied up under the sanctions regime. If oil is the only reason for invading Iraq then somebody loses no matter how it’s sliced.

Neo-Cons and the Cheney Nexus

Many of the things the neo-conservatives want don’t comport with what big oil wants. For instance the neo-cons are big backers of getting away from reliance on Middle Eastern oil, for obvious reasons, but that means adopting alternative fuels, the same ones that big oil continually drags their feet and avoids getting involved in. No, the oil industry is just along for the ride on this one.

The neo-cons planned the war, they started it and now they manage it. All the other interest groups, like big oil and the arms industry, supported the war because they thought they could gain from it. My current hypothesis, subject to revision, is that Vice President Dick Cheney let the neo-cons in the door this time and anyway Cheney seems to be the nexus of the Bush administration. After the events of 9-11 Cheney became a very angry man. Enraged that anyone would dare to strike back at the United States in response to decades of heavy-handed foreign policy he wanted revenge. Perhaps he made a pact with the neo-cons, or maybe the plans they already had on the shelf seemed appealing to him, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) for example. September 11 became a perfect window of opportunity to expand Executive powers and privileges, just for starters. The war on Afghanistan had limited potential but Iraq offered much more.

Fight Lesson

April 2006

Cheney took a huge gamble and it hasn’t worked well for him at all. Iraq and Afghanistan are turning into major military defeats. America’s violent, unilateral actions on the world stage have outraged and mobilized the rest of the world into forming new trade blocs and alliances that are outside the control of Washington D.C. Not to mention that high oil prices have vastly increased the wealth and power of states with their own agendas, like Venezuela and Russia. The domestic front for Cheney is not much better. Things have not gone according to plan and now Cheney finds himself in an increasingly unstable position, but he is in it so deep that he cannot pull back. Cheney is sweating bullets walking a tightrope and he’s leaning hard on the neo-cons to come up with a solution because he has no other allies.

Indeed, Cheney’s position is actually much more precarious than it might seem upon superficial inspection. It’s not just external problems Cheney has to worry about; the internal trouble is potentially even more dangerous. We’ve already seen that the interests of the neo-cons don’t match up with those of big oil, and increasingly they run contrary to domestic political and economic realities too. It’s Cheney’s job to act as the interface between the two groups to keep anyone from bailing out, but how much longer he can hold everyone together is anyone’s guess.

Something to consider is that the neo-cons may not be concerned with the violence in Iraq like the Generals are. The neo-cons have consistently shown themselves to be terrible military planners and indeed they have practically no military experience themselves anyway. The current push to increase the number of soldiers in Iraq (read, Iraq: The Most Ambitious Failure in American History) may actually be a prelude to an attack on Iran, perhaps as early as the spring of 2007.

How Far Can the Military be Pushed?

Even without an attack on Iran the Army and Marines are already near the breaking point. Recruitment is increasingly difficult and even though the military is paying a fortune in bonuses to get people signed up they are still forced to take substandard recruits. Since it’s increasingly obvious that Iraq and Afghanistan are lost causes, morale is dropping fast, yet the political leadership shows no signs of recognizing the futility of the conflict. So the question is, will the military leadership stand by and allow their forces to be broken just to satisfy the vanity of the Executive branch and the foolishness of the neo-cons? How far will the military allow themselves to be pushed? Anywhere else in the world if this kind of thing happened we would see a military coup or at least rebellion in the ranks of the armed forces. There’s no reason to think America is immune, it’s just a matter of pressure.

It’s interesting to consider that the military is really the only functional element left in the U.S. government. Congress doesn’t do its job of keeping the Executive branch in line, the Courts have been marginalized, elections are now highly contested affairs and most people don’t have any faith in the system one way or the other. Current polls put public support for Bush at only 27% - that’s the level of support President Nixon had when he resigned after the Watergate scandal! If the wars last until 2009, as Bush has promised, then something will break. The two most likely scenarios come from the two weakest points: either a financial collapse brought on by the frenetic deficit spending and perhaps precipitated by a Dollar decline, or it could break as a military rebellion and even a coup. The Bush administration may back down just before America’s breaking point but past actions do not instill me with confidence that they even realize just how close they already are!

The 'War on Terrorism' is a war on freedom

August 2006

The supreme irony in all this is that the ‘War on Terrorism’, from Afghanistan to Iraq and everywhere else, was launched with the express purpose stated to the public of protecting the ‘homeland’. Yet the final result will very likely be internal turmoil and insecurity on a scale that America has never witnessed before. A military-police state has already been constructed and implemented; barriers against Executive abuse and excess have been knocked down creating a de-facto dictatorship of the Presidency. Legal and Constitutional protections on individual liberty and privacy have been attacked and undermined. The American public is less safe than they have been in recent memory and not just from foreign terrorists but from their own government! It is very possible that a major attack on Iran will be launched in 2007, yet there will be no opposition, of any significance, to this war from the Democratic Party, In the name of protecting the homeland through foreign warfare the Bush administration has killed more American’s than the number that died in the 9-11 attacks, and the official war causality figures don’t even include the private contractors. In the name of security the United States has been so constitutionally destabilized and public confidence so eroded away that a military coup has become a plausible outcome. If ever there was a time to be asking critical questions about world events and our political leadership this is it.

Irony in Revenge

September 2006

For much more detail about the conflict in Iraq read War on Iraq - Oil, Dollars and Israel. To learn more about the people pushing for these wars and why read Neo-Conned: The Neo-Conservative Connection. 17.12.06

Part II: The War for Oil is a Myth and so is 'Peak Oil'

It’s clear with objective analysis that the war on Iraq is not about oil despite the superficial veracity and repetitiveness of claims to the contrary, and indeed these false assertions are highly convenient fiction for authorities precisely because they mask fundamental truths they would prefer remain unrecognized. And now, finally, someone else is making the same contentions that I have,

[T]here is strong evidence that, in fact, oil companies did not welcome the war because they prefer stability and predictability to periodic oil spikes that follow war and political convulsion: "Looking back over the last 20 years, there is plenty of evidence showing the industry's push for stability and cooperation with Middle Eastern countries and leaders, and the US government's drive for hegemony works against the oil industry." [1]

The real top-force manipulating U.S. foreign policy is not ‘Big Oil’, it’s the Israel Lobby and we know this because U.S. oil loses on many counts from Middle East turmoil while Israel and the lobby gain from it. Here is just one example of legislation passed that punishes U.S. oil while rewarding Zionism:

It is no secret that the major force behind the Iran-Libya Sanction Act was the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main Zionist lobby in Washington. The success of AIPAC in passing ILSA through both the Congress and the White House over the opposition of the major US oil companies is testament to the fact that, in the context of US policy in the Middle East, even the influence of the oil industry pales vis-a-vis the influence of the Zionist lobby. [1]

The author of Are they really oil wars?, Hossein-sadeh, also attacks the fraudulent ‘theory’ of Peak Oil that is being used as another convenient fiction by multiple factions,

[W]ar and military force are no longer the necessary or appropriate means to gain access to sources of energy - resorting to military measures can, indeed, lead to costly, not cheap, oil. In fact, despite the lucrative spoils of war resulting from high oil prices and profits, Big Oil prefers peace and stability, not war and geopolitical turbulence, in global energy markets. ...

The Peak Oil thesis serves as a powerful trap and a clever manipulation in that it lets the real forces of war and militarism (the military-industrial complex and the pro-Israel lobby) "off the hook; it is a fabulous redirection. All evils are blamed on a commodity upon which we are all utterly dependent”. …

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, claims of "peaked and dwindling" oil are refuted by the available facts and figures on global oil supply. Statistical evidence shows that there is absolutely no supply-demand imbalance in global oil markets. Contrary to the claims of the proponents of Peak Oil and champions of war and militarism, the current oil price shocks are a direct consequence of the destabilizing wars and geopolitical insecurity in the Middle East, not oil shortages. [1]

Other independent analysis has found that the amount of oil locked up in proven reserves is probably twice what is currently estimated due to the conservative calculations used by the industry. Peak oil is based on wholly flawed assumptions, oil will not run out anytime soon.

The environmental implications of his analysis, based on more than 30 years inside the industry, will alarm environmentalists who have exploited the concept of peak oil to press the urgency of the need to find greener alternatives.

"The bad news is that by underestimating proven oil reserves we have been lulled into a false sense of security in terms of environmental issues, because it suggests we will have to find alternatives to fossil fuels in a few decades," said Dr Pike. "We should not be surprised if oil dominates well into the twenty-second century. It highlights a major error in energy and environmental planning – we are dramatically underestimating the challenge facing us," he said. [2]

Currently oil stockpiles are at a record high, and although the price of crude oil continues to climb above $140 per barrel the real reason is mostly due to the declining value of the U.S. Dollar due to inflation of the money supply, not a lack of oil - blame Ben Shalom Bernanke at the Federal Reserve not Saudi Arabia.

So why do these myths persist? 

But the major reason for the persistence of this pervasive myth seems to stem from certain deliberate efforts that are designed to perpetuate the legend in order to camouflage some real economic and geopolitical special interests that drive US military adventures in the Middle East. There is evidence that both the military-industrial complex and hard-line Zionist proponents of "greater Israel" disingenuously use oil (as an issue of national interest) in order to disguise their own nefarious special interests and objectives: justification of continued expansion of military spending, extension of sales markets for military hardware, and recasting the geopolitical map of the Middle East in favor of Israel.

There is also evidence that for every dollar's worth of oil imported from the Persian Gulf region the Pentagon takes $5 out of the Federal budget to "secure" the flow of that oil. This is a clear indication that the claim that the US military presence in the Middle East is due to oil consideration is a fraud. [1]

1.  Are they really oil wars?, by Ismael Hossein-zadeh, ATOL, June 25, 2008.
2. Oil shortage a myth, says industry insider, by Steve Connor, The Independent, June 9, 2008.

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War Games

December 2006

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The American Police Enterprise

Welcome to the United States of Police 2004 where your hard-earned tax dollars are at work 24/7 to protect the people and institutions that really matter and make you a safer, more subdued citizen.

Park police, drug police, gun police, counterfeiting police, tax police, forest police, highway police, dog-catching police, ATF, BCBP, COPS, NDIC, OVC, BJA, OTJ, INS, DEA, IRS, BOP, FBI, INL …

Q: Just how many police in America are there?!
A: Here's one: “There are approximately 18,760 total police agencies in the U.S. with approximately 940,275 employees and a combined annual budget of about $51 billion (year 2000 data).  There are approximately 60 different federal police agencies…” [1] But it could just as easily read 'no one knows'. Factoring in private security guards, law enforcement intelligence agencies, private investigators and so on It's practically impossible to know how many police America really has, suffice to say it’s an incredible number and indeed it’s more than likely America has not just more police than any other country on Earth but in history as well.

Look at the weaponry these police officers are packing around? A Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine gun?! Three magazines of ammunition?! What kind of war are these ‘police’ ready for anyway? Are the tourist attractions in Washington D.C. about to be invaded by Russian Spetsnaz Commandos or maybe heavily armed invaders from Mars?! Whatever happened to the old days when all a cop needed was a Magnum .44 "the most powerful handgun in the world"? Looks like George Bush Senior's "kinder gentler nation" has been replaced by George Bush Junior’s iron-fisted police state. Is this Newark, New Jersey 2004 or Hue, Vietnam 1968? You decide.

Don't you feel safer knowing this man has his finger a half-inch from the trigger of an automatic rifle with enough firepower to take on a swarm of battle-hardened Viet Cong? Oh but how can you put a price on the false sense of security such a spectacle creates? Let’s try anyway. A few hundred dollars for the military issue Kevlar helmet, several hundred more for the body armor, a few hundred for the tactical uniforms, a few hundred more for all the snazzy accessories, tasers, batons, tear-gas, a few million for the Motorola radio system that doesn’t work half the time, and then the guns. Yes the guns; any idea how much an Armalite automatic rifle or an H&K  sub-machine gun costs? And really, how much does an average American police department spend on weapons and how much do they spend on crime prevention programs, or indeed anything that might actually solve the root of the problem with crime or even terrorism for that matter? Priorities.

Some people call the United States a 'police state' but that ascribes a level of central planning and control that doesn’t exist – 'police enterprise' would be more accurate. Prisons, police, guards, security, weapons, jails – arresting, trying and locking people up is a multi-billion dollar industry that grows every year. In America the police enterprise is less a system for control as it is a system for perpetuating a financial profit.

Spend away America because you can never be too safe or too rich! 08.08.04

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Rising Stock: Investing in America's Future

February 2004

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