Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 10:23 pm Post subject: Iraq: A Conspiracy of Feigned Incompetence ?
There is a referenced quote from Cheney in the '90s on one of the threads (in terms of needing to find x Saudi Arabias by 2010) indicating his clear knowledge of peak oil back then.
Considering the absence of any massive surge in oil industry exploration-budgets since taking power, Cheney was speaking of what he saw as an inevitable event.
From that perspective once he was in power there were few choices:
a. Pour funds into Renewables, Coal and Nuclear to soften the impact.
This is somewhat dangerous to the credibility of the US oil industry, on which its share prices rest, particularly from the perspective of global warming : affordable alternatives end the justification for using fossil fuels.
b. Do nothing but await the inevitable impact of the peak.
This means saying little or nothing about it publicly since to acknowledge it is to destabilize both global stock prices and the increasingly vulnerable dollar.
c. Advance the date of the inevitable peak in order to gain relative advantage over other major economic powers (plus other feasible motives).
This means undertaking a series of extraordinary action, however dishonourable, to generate and rapidly expand an ineradicable fundamentalist threat to sterilize ME oil supplies. That goal is hidden for as long as possible behind a facade of the outcome being entirely accidental and due merely to US strategic incompetence. As in b. this means saying nothing officially about peak oil, but rather letting it leak out until it is gradually 'talked-up' towards reality, and then triggered by a major event wounding global confidence in ME oil supplies.
There may well be other options, which I'd be interested to see posted.
If not, take your pick of the above.
IMHO, of the above options, given events since Cheney came to power, option c. appears to be the best fit.
Don't knock Feigned Incompetence. It is one of the greatest skills known to mankind.
Many a man would have to cook his own meals if his wife knew that he wasn't a total incompetent in the kitchen.
The secret, as with any form of self discipline, is to be able to suppress your ego while you point at yourself and yell "Look at the fool".
Is there anyone here who really believes that a bunch of ignorant idiotic cow pokes from Texas could take over the executive branch of the USA? I would think people would be able to look past their political prejudices and see these people for the geniuses they really are(evil or good should be the point of contention, not their intellect).
Think. When a man is pointing a gun at you, do you make yourself look tough? NO. You make yourself look as non-threatening as humanly possible, and take them out after they've dismissed you as a non-threat.
Too true Viper, and of course they are hardly cow pokes... GW is about as texan as John Kerry - blue blood east coast yaley all the way... he has to fake the texas drawl even. When he lets his guard down the accent shifts back to new england money....
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1328 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 9:33 pm Post subject: Re: Iraq: A Conspiracy of Feigned Incompetence ?
backstop wrote:
This means undertaking a series of extraordinary action, however dishonourable, to generate and rapidly expand an ineradicable fundamentalist threat to sterilize ME oil supplies. That goal is hidden for as long as possible behind a facade of the outcome being entirely accidental and due merely to US strategic incompetence. As in b. this means saying nothing officially about peak oil, but rather letting it leak out until it is gradually 'talked-up' towards reality, and then triggered by a major event wounding global confidence in ME oil supplies.
There are three articles in News: Production; Extraction; Exploration "talking-up" the idea that hundreds of billions must be invested in the ME, Venezuela and Russia to meet demand and this will only happen if big oil is able to get secure property rights to resources in these countries. The current regimes favour state oil companies which do not have the necessary cash or expertise. So we need regime change, the New Mideast. (Big oil is not going to risk investing in developing $20 oil in deep water or the Arctic when there is undeveloped $5 oil in these countries which could possibly make them uncompetitive.)
The problem is there is nothing to buy. The oilfields of the North Sea, Texas and Alaska are drying up. There are interesting prospects in West Africa and the Gulf of Mexico, but the big opportunities are in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Iraq, tantalising and unavailable.
The national oil companies of the Middle East and Venezuela view the ExxonMobils and BPs with suspicion.
The International Energy Agency gives warning that $400 billion (£225 billion) needs to be invested in the Middle East over the next two decades if we are to have the oil supplies we need. That is unlikely to impress the Opec governments. They are by instinct hoarders - for them ownership of the resource is key. Led by corrupt elites, the Opec states of the Middle East are happy to run the cartel, micro-manage the oil price, collect the rent from selling barrels and watch their economies decline.
If these corrupt regimes are destabilized and collapse into "failed states" becoming "hotbeds of terrorism" then the US and its lap-bulldog will have no choice but to take over the oilfields and bring in big oil to run them properly. Sound like a plan?
Keith - within its frame of reference yes I think it certainly sounds like a plan - - but,,, there are practical problems with it having a serious chance of success, without which I think we'd agree that Big Oil wouldn't have given it the nod (or maybe written the script).
Those difficulties include the inability of US forces to hold down any further militia forces, let alone trained and well equipped armies on their home ground.
Second, the monetary costs of such an operation would have to be bankrolled by other countries as an extension of US endebtedness. Given that Bush has dumped seven solemn treaties and illegally invaded Iraq, the US has no serious allies at present. (Blair, maybe, but he cannot repeat the con without being impeached).
As against the lack of allies to fund invasions across ME, many states, including China and Russia, would view such invasions as a threat to their strategic interests.
Therefore, quite apart from being unable to fund such an adventure, I think the US would find its debts no longer being rolled over.
For these and other reasons I can't see Big Oil having approved such a plan.
Loth as I am to harp on about it, (particularly since nobody seems to be interested), the only plan that fits Bush's conduct since before the twin towers were hit is that of 'accidently' destabilizing ME oil supplies to the point of significantly advancing the date of peak oil.
If peak oil is inevitable and you are VP Cheyney, you had three choices when you took power: delay it with massive Ren,s energy investment; advance its date by reducing global oil supply,
or await its arrival under other parties' timing.
Of these tree, destabilization could well be seen as the best option by big oil, and it is plainly what is and has been happenning on the ground.
Short of a serious leak, I doubt we'll ever get incontrovertable proof of this plan. So, I must rest my case, at least till the next bit of the puzzle comes along.
Further to the above - a 380 ton bit of the puzzle arrived today.
That was 380 tons of sophisticated high explosive that US forces just happenned to allow lraqi looters to cart off. (How many Donkey-loads is that ??)
We know about it because part of the load is the type used in nuclear weapons to provide explosive compression of the core, so the UN.IAEA had recorded it, and, formally told US authorities of its location and the need to secure it.
I calculate that when US HQ sacked the 400,000 Iraqi soldiers
(with no dole and without removing their portable weaponry: how to win friends and influence people)
somebody went and got them about 2lbs each of high explosive.
I see no clear evidence that what is going on in the destabilization of the ME is anything other than what the US wants to be going on.
From this perspective, we are looking at the intentional advance of the date of Peak Oil.
From this perspective, we are looking at the intentional advance of the date of Peak Oil.
There's another option besides the 3 you listed in the original post:
d) Delay peak oil. Instigate/allow a severe recession, thereby delaying peak oil for 10 years or more, and get some breathing room. Of course, you would want to use this strategy after the election.
(Isn't the destabilization of Iraq slowing the development of Iraqi oil, and thus delaying PO?)
John - I too wondered about the 'breathing space' possibility you propose, but after running the math on it saw that it doesn't add up to a plan.
The reasons for this include:
a/. for many years we've been consuming oil at several times the rate we've been able to find it, and, given even a severe recession for a decade, that use would continue at a few percent below present rates. That continued depletion of global stocks would mean that, short of dicovering several new Saudi Arabias, we'd never again be able to produce 80MBls/day.
b/. Such a recession will, sure as eggs, collapse the dollar due to its abuse as a global reserve currency with constant dollar printing. This cuts still further US capacities to sieze, hold, explore, find and operate those notional additional reserves.
c/. The thriving Wahabist cult shows no sign yet of a declining influence across the ME, and in the event of a prolongued global recession could be expected to harden resistance to the expansion of US oil interests both in the ME, FE and elsewhere.
For these and other resons I don't see the 'breathing space' scenario as a workable option, and instead think that they're trying to advance peak oil.
what you are saying is very interesting. I to belive the White House Gang and their backers are well aware of PO. They may even have some long term plan in mind to deal with it. The shape of that plan can be seen in Patriot Acts, FEMA, and Guantamo Bay.
My question to you is- if they want to hasten PO- and not just try and grab reserves as they seem to be doing- what is the motive? What is it that they are trying to achieve? Sure a recession/depression curtails demand and maybe delays the peak- but then what?
Marco - I wouldn't care to try to plumb the depths of the depravity of the avaerage neo-texan's delusions of US agrandisement, so I'll not attempt a chapter and verse rationale for the strategy of feigned incompetence.
A few of their hopes can tentatively be identified -
that the politics of fear will pull wavering allies into line to uphold the dollar's credibility until the chosen time,
that post crash the US will be relatively better off than other major nations by having avoided continued relative decline,
that post crash the US population will be shocked to the point of abdicating what democracy is left to them and will lower labour costs to the wealthy,
that sufficient foreign farmland can be controlled to yield enough Agribusiness Ethanol to maintain transport for the wealthy, for essential supplies, and for the apparatus of control.
These motives are just a selection, and they require recognition both of the fascism underlying the neo-cons' thinking, and of their acceptance that peak oil is inevitable.
I should add that given the several critical aspects of the problematique they ignore in their planning, they haven't a chance of making their nightmare work. At worst they can and will try to obstruct creative collective solutions to the problematique by the rest of the world.
As it is, the US regime is a cogent spur to other countries to get on with developing energy self-reliance and with allocating carbon emissions rights under Contraction & Convergence.
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