Friday, November 4, 2011

Oil's Well That Ends Well - 2

In the first post of this series Dredd Blog pulled no punches when commenting on the real foreign policy reasons for the "war on terror".

In the post yesterday about Iraqi oil, Dredd Blog shows that the foreign policy is "fair", in the sense that U.S. policy calls for the invasion of any nation (no discrimination) that meets the criteria of having an inadvisably tempting supply of the low-hanging fruit type of oil.

The blindest of the blind, or the ultimate cover up masters, are those in the main stream media who do not realize that the current oil wars are products of consistent U.S. foreign policy going back a century.

Yes, the foreign policy that fundamentally supports oil barons has never been a big secret: "One of our greatest helpers has been the State Department" - John D. Rockefeller (1909).

In the book The Control of Oil (1976), in a discussion of Oil Imperialism (1977), and in an Energy Bulletin article (2008), writers and other observers have pointed out that Iraqi and other mid-east oil has always been a twinkle in the eye of the western oil barons (see also Global Research and Global Policy Forum).

The strategy of control was mapped out in the book The Grand Chessboard (1997), by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski:
"How America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources."
(ibid, p. 31). The game becomes more difficult when "populism" raises its head:
"Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization."
(ibid, p. 35). These problems can appear to be on steroids as pressures mount:
"The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea."
(ibid, p. 125). The status quo will creak, groan, and even break in places, as the pressure continues to mount:
"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last."
(ibid, p. 209). Finally, there will have to be some unusual pressures brought to bear to keep the status quo foreign policy in place:
"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."
(ibid, p. 211). Looking back we can see that an event like Pearl Harbor, which was 9/11, was that "external threat" which kicked off the "war on terror", a threat that Dredd Blog calls the oil wars.

We hear that 9/11 made the oil wars all the more palatable to that "multi-cultural society", that is, at least it was more palatable until those policies broke The Bank of Jekyll.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Iraq: World's Number One Oil Producer? - 5

One of the first things Dick Cheney did as Vice President, was to call a meeting in 2001 of the oil barons of MOMCOM, who got together in what was called an "Energy Task Force".

It was to be expected that the press and/or the public would be interested in what their federal government was doing, so a problem arose when the Vice President declared that he wanted to keep it all entirely secret.

So lawsuits arose under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and those cases went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Cheney substantially prevailed.

Thus began the ignorance of the public about what was really going on under the Energy Task Force's secret shadow, with secret plans, secret deliberations, and secret decisions.

There is little wonder why some observers in the press and in the public concluded that those meetings were held to discuss the new offshore oil rig of the new American foreign policy.

The map of Iraqi oil fields at the top of this post, which was discussed in the secret meetings of the Energy Task Force, eventually became public, as did the subject matter of those secrets:
The Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow - Dick Cheney (1999)
...
What people need to hear, loud and clear, is that we're running out of energy in America - George W Bush (2001)
...
The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil - Paul Wolfowitz (2003)
...
I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil - Alan Greenspan (2007)
...
Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that - General John Abizaid (2007)

People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs - Republican Senator Charles Hagel (2007)
(Iraq's Oil: The Greatest Prize Of All?). Later during times when the public and press were wondering how much oil Iraq really had, this was asserted:
Iraq may have oil reserves of 350 billion barrels, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih said on Monday, a massive figure that is triple the country's proven reserves and which even exceeds the oil in Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters, 2008). The Dredd Blog series, which today's post belongs to, has quoted various sources from various nations, businesses, and disciplines to make it perfectly clear to those who want to know, that The Peak of Oil means an eventual Peak of the Oil Wars in the fairly near future.

The previous post in this series is here, the next post in this series is here.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Newsy On Karzai Karzai Klan - 2

On this date two years ago Dredd Blog did the first post in this series.

Not much has changed since then, except that the President of Afghanistan declared in public that he would side with Pakistan if the United States were to go to war with Pakistan.

So we spend $2,500,000,000 a week over there for what, as millions of citizens here lose work, homes, savings, and all hope.

The post of two years ago follows:


The Afghanistan debacle is back in the news in terms of fraudulent elections a la Stalin.

Stalin is reported to have said "the voters decide nothing, the vote counters decide everything" or something close to that.

The Toxins of Power blog has a post that theorizes that this form of corruption emanates from a sort of national "Id" of the Freudian type.

We discussed the purple finger of fake elections in a previous post some months ago.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Ascent of Chaos For Civilized Order

"Chaos theory tries to find some underlying order in what appears to be random events or data" (Physics Planet).

The proper order in which things should be done would, at first blush, seem to the casual observer to be a methodology involving a logical sequence of events.

That is, proceeding from the most logical thing to do first, sequencing through a reasoned "next" list, finally terminating with the logically last thing to be done.

Chaos theory seems to be an increasingly popular technique, used by officials in civilized society, to explain events done in a seemingly disordered sequence.

This resort to chaos theory is generally done when there is a need to explain that a logical sequence is actually happening behind the scenes, it is just that the logic within it can't be detected by a casual observer, because it takes an expert in chaos theory to detect that logic.

Thus, this chaos theory gets around folks, I mean it is replicating itself quite well:
Chaos theory is applied in many scientific disciplines: geology, mathematics, programming, microbiology, biology, computer science, economics, engineering, finance, meteorology, philosophy, physics, politics, population dynamics, psychology, and robotics.
(Wikipedia, emphasis added). Politics is listed as a "science", probably because of its nickname "political science", as one field where chaos theory is utilized.

Also in that list of sciences, where chaos theory is used, we find "economics" and "finance" listed, realms that do much of their research in the laboratories of Wall Street.

Those vast laboratories have been talked about a lot lately, yes, the economic "science" has received a lot of press, especially to the extent that it has mixed with "political science" in the past decade.

The wonderful and good results of these experiments in these great American laboratories is difficult for a casual observer to fathom, without of course, the assistance of chaos theory experts.

Especially in the sense that "the 1%" control far more wealth and power (~90%) than "the 99%" do, at least in the American Republic, the American Democracy, or whatever it is.

These experimental results from the laboratories of "economic science" and "political science" do not, at first blush, seem to follow a logical sequence of events.

Especially if the casual observer notes that the sequence began with "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union ... and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" (Preamble), but ends up now with the infamous 1% - 99% split.

The only way that turns out to be logical is if "We the People" means "the 1%" who are scientifically gathering everything involved in "economics" and "finance" for their "Posterity" to inherit, and "the 99%" are chaff to be cast to the winds and ignored.

Enter the chaos theory experts to explain how it only appears to be that way, when in reality, this status quo is the only way things can be done in our civilized America.

It would seem, then, that we must not leave out the science of "psychology", a science listed as yet another one where chaos theory is applied.

Otherwise the casual observer may misinterpret the psychological response of "the 99%" to these experimental results of the "science" of economics, finance, and politics:
With Election Day just over a year away, a deep sense of economic anxiety and doubt about the future hangs over the nation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with Americans’ distrust of government at its highest level ever.
(Bad Economy ..., quoting NYT/CBS poll). The highly esteemed expert in chaos theory, replying to the minds of "the 99%" using psychology, would explain:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.
(Ways of Bernays, quoting Edward Bernays). That our thinking must be done for us is "a logical result", says this chaos theory expert.

The treatment from that "invisible government" (using their favorite medicine "spin") tells us that we live in the best country on Earth, but sometimes things get difficult for "the 99%" (but not for "the 1%") because our markets are free, unfettered, and full of liberty, just as the founders intended.

Booyah, I feel better now?

Monday, October 31, 2011

The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil - 3

In Oil's Well That Ends Well we talked about the modern, new oil derrick that the the oil barons are constructing with taxpayer money.

Today we will talk about the 40,000 some odd U.S. troops being sent to man those new oil derricks near Dick Cheney's Halliburton Headquarters.

In the first and second posts in this series, Dredd Blog pointed out the massive moves of war machines to target areas where oil is the prime concern.

While trust in U.S. Government is at an all time low, while homelessness, joblessness, and hopelessness increases, while demonstrations spread across the land, the government doubles down on oil addiction:
The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.
(NY Times). An increasing troop level in the United Arab Emirates following a reduction in Iraq is more of the same, more of the status quo thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.

That is not the way the people think, nor is that what the people want, which supports the Dredd Blog theory of a coup, and how things really are, because that is the way a Wartocracy looks at the world at large, the way a Plutocracy looks at economy, and the way a Police-Secretocracy looks at "security".

If the people do not get what they want, then they are not in charge.

If the military gets what it wants, endless war, then they are in charge.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Building What?




With Election Day just over a year away, a deep sense of economic anxiety and doubt about the future hangs over the nation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with Americans’ distrust of government at its highest level ever.
(New York Times / CBS Poll, emphasis added). Trust of government is at a high with the 1%, but at a low with the 99% ... we all know why.