PEAK OIL - DOLLAR CRISIS

FTW: THE END OF THE AGE OF OIL by David Goodstein

Published by CalTech News, California Institute of Technology, Vol. 38, No.2, 2004

This article is adapted from a talk that Caltech vice provost and professor of physics and applied physics David Goodstein presented at an April 29 program of the Institute support group, the Caltech Associates. Goodstein’s new book, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, was published in February by W. W. Norton

In the 1950s, it was not Saudi Arabia but the United States that was the world’s greatest producer of oil. Much of our military and industrial might grew out of our giant oil industry, and most people in the oil business thought that this bonanza would go on forever. But there was one gentleman who knew better. He was an oil exploration geologist named Marion King Hubbert....

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"strongly recommendet reading"

UKRAINE: GEOPOLITICS

FTW: Cold War crisis in Ukraine

Control of oil, key Grand Chessboard 'pivot' at stake by Larry Chin

November 26, 2004—The bitterly disputed Ukrainian presidential election, and the crisis that is exploding in the wake of the contested outcome, has reignited the Cold War and a new round of East-West conflict over control of Eurasian/Caspian/Black Sea energy.

Against the backdrop of Peak Oil (also check energy-related coverage in From The Wilderness), this conflict could well decide the geo-resource direction of the planet itself.

Amidst reports of election irregularities, Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovych, who supports stronger ties with Russia, declared himself the winner over pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchekno, in defiance of shrill and aggressive opposition and open threats from the West and the Bush administration.

Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives has served as a blueprint for world dictatorship, and an incriminating predictor of post-9/11 world conflict. Against today's explosive headlines, Brzezinski's words are, once again, nightmarishly relevant:

"Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from their power and motivation but rather from their sensitive location and from the consequences of their potentially vulnerable condition for the behavior of geostrategic players. Most often, geopolitical pivots are determined by their geography, which in some cases gives them a special role in either defining access to important areas or in denying resources to a significant player [my emphasis-LC]."

"Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Turkey and Iran play the role of critically important geopolitical pivots . . .

UKRAINE: GEOPOLITICS

FTW: It's now or never for Washington

America's real aim in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics is to seize control of vital resources before China and India can challenge US dominance. By Mark Almond

Are we on the brink of a new cold war? On both sides of the Atlantic, media commentators see the crisis in Ukraine as comparable to the Berlin crises, involving the US and the Soviet Union, which kept the world on tenterhooks for decades. In this supposed drama, a resurgent Kremlin under an ex-KGB colonel is suppressing freedom at home and encroaching on ex-Soviet republics around his country's vast rim.

This terror of shadows has a track record of success. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the ailing world of Leonid Brezhnev was portrayed as a sinister superpower with its tentacles almost around Uncle Sam's throat. The US and the majority of western European nations combined behind a programme of arms build-up and covert sponsorship of anti-communist dissidents.

IRAQ: TORTURE

US Navy Seals Torturing Iraqis

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES: APARTHEID

The Observer: Israel's New Road Plans Condemned As 'Apartheid'

The message has been consistent: Israel believes the US-backed road-map is the way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It has been repeated by Ariel Sharon and by ministers, yet now government papers suggest that Israel intends to bypass the peace plan, creating a Palestinian state of enclaves, surrounded by walls and linked by tunnels and special roads.

Israel has released plans for the upgrade of roads and construction of 16 tunnels which would create an 'apartheid' road network for Palestinians in the West Bank.

Existing roads would be reserved for Jews, linking their settlements to each other and to Israel. The plans came to light when Giora Eiland, Israel's director of national security, requested international funding for the project. At a meeting with World Bank officials, he told them the roads would maximise freedom of movement for Palestinians without compromising security for Jewish settlers.

"nerver forget "israel" is the only democracy in the middle east!"

PAKISTAN: OBL

BBC: Bin Laden Trail 'Completely Cold'

Troops searching for Osama Bin Laden along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan have no idea where he is, says Pakistan leader Pervez Musharraf

"OBL seems to have fullfilled his Job as Bogeyman for every bad thing that happended in the last 3 years. After all we now have al-zarkawi which is the new Dr. Evil so why bother and find osama"

EURO VS. DOLLAR

Observer:
Japan Threatens Huge
Dollar Sell-Off

Japan is warning the White House that there will be 'enormous capital flight' from the dollar if the Bush administration maintains its laissez-faire approach to the mounting currency crisis.

Tokyo fears that Japan's strongest economic recovery in a decade could be derailed by the sudden appreciation in the yen against the greenback.

The criticism of President Bush's inaction, by a senior member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will be taken as a veiled threat that Japan could start to sell off its multi-billion-dollar holdings of US Treasuries

USA: VOTE FRAUD

Globalresearch: Kerry Won the Election by at least 1,7 Million Votes

A word of caution.

While the following text presents evidence which is not directly verifiable, Global Research, nonetheless, took the decision to bring this controversial text to the attention of our readers. Moreover, the author's identify is not known.

The relevance of this text, should be assessed in relation to the large body of documentation and research already conducted on electoral fraud in America.


The truth about this election is this: Florida and Ohio had to go for Bush in order for him to "win" the election. In reality he lost both states. In fact, he did not even win the popular vote. He lost the national popular vote by at least 1,750,000. This shows you the scale of the fraud.

The exit polls were not wrong. Kerry was the clear winner, but victory was snatched from him.

USA: MILITARY

Libertyforum: Us Versus Them

I am a manipulated stooge who sold his soul to exploit the ignorant with the proud lies our own leaders.

I am told on a regular basis “The Army is not like it used to be.” Most of the lifers think that the military lacks discipline and blame the new “Nintendo generation” soldiers for the weakness. However, I think a hard look should be given at the uses of America’s advanced military in the modern era. Do to the operations the military has been tasked in the last forty years the nobility of the professional soldier has been destroyed. From Vietnam to Iraq the Armed Forces has been a chess piece in a game for money and power by elite Americans. Back in the world wars the military represented every citizen’s will. Today the people are duped with lies and phoney values to support imperial progress.

VHeadline.com - John Pilger: What happens in Venezuela is incredibly important to all of us

John Pilger: What happens in Venezuela is incredibly important to all of us

“Propaganda and the media are absolutely crucial at this time”, Pilger argued, comparing the media coverage of the US invasion of Iraq to the Duke of Wellington’s coverage of the 1815 battle of Waterloo -- “the general as journalist.”

Commenting on last month's US presidential election, Pilger said that only the richest 1% of the US population were the winners. Everyone else was a loser ... whether they voted Republican or Democrat.

Pilger said that in Australia, “there is only effectively one party with two factions [Liberal and Labor].” He argued that the world is heading into an era of “direct action,” of mass struggles against governmental and corporate power ... “There is, across the world, an extraordinary movement ... just because we’re not told about it, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist

IRAQ: FALLUJAH RESISTANCE

JUS: Mujahideen With Fresh Fighters Now Control 70% Of Fallujah

More than 100 Resistance fighters have managed to gain access to Fallujah, joining up with hundreds of other fighters that have flooded into the city in recent days and joined the ranks of the city’s defenders.

According to a report filed at 12:50pm Monday local time by Mafkarat al-Islam’s in Fallujah, the US presence in the city is now limited and the Mujahideen now control more than 70 percent of the city. Fighters from ar-Ramadi have joined up with the fighters inside al-Fallujah and these fighters are said to be experts in urban warfare

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." (George W. Bush)

IRAQ: US MASS GRAVES

Priosnplanet: Further Evidence Of Mass Graves Of US Soldiers In Iraq

"website Jihad Unspun is claiming that a new video carried on its website provides further evidence of mass graves of US soldiers that have been hidden to reduce the official casualty count.
The video offers no definitive proof that the bodies shown are those of US army personnel. The bodies are in an advanced stage of decomposition although one could argue that the whiteness of the teeth suggests they are Western (an area of better sanitation)."

The website posted a lengthy PDF report which can be found here

click here for video (discretion advised)

ISRAEL

New York Review of Books: Sharon and the Future of Palestine

When Ariel Sharon first announced his intention to "disengage" unilaterally from Gaza and to dismantle four isolated settlements in the northern West Bank, many observers believed he was on his way to fulfilling their expectation that, sooner or later, he would transform himself into an Israeli De Gaulle and make the tough decisions that would finally end the Israeli– Palestinian conflict. Even those who were skeptical of the possibility of such a transformation, and believed that Sharon intended the Gaza withdrawal as leverage to gain international acceptance of Israel's control over much of the West Bank, believed that a disengagement from Gaza would create a precedent that would lead to further withdrawals from the West Bank as well, for it would dispel the myth that any effort to dismantle settlements would drag the country into a civil war. For this reason, not only the Bush administration, which has found no measure taken by Sharon too outrageous to deserve American support, but also the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia (the other three members of the Quartet formed to oversee the implementation of the "road map"), as well as much of Israel's left, welcomed Sharon's initiative.

IRAQ: FALLUJAH WAR CRIMES

Aljazeera: U.S. uses napalm gas in Fallujah – Witnesses

The U.S. military is secretly using banned napalm gas and other outlawed weapons against civilians in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, eyewitnesses reported.

The United Nations banned the use of the napalm gas against civilians in 1980 after pictures of a naked wounded girl in Vietnam shocked the world.
The United States, which didn't endorse the convention, is the only nation in the world still using the deadly weapon.

IRAQ: FALLUJAH WAR CRIMES

Aljazeera: U.S. uses napalm gas in Fallujah – Witnesses

The U.S. military is secretly using banned napalm gas and other outlawed weapons against civilians in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, eyewitnesses reported.

UKRAINE

Toronto Times: Ukraine flirting with a civil war

The narrow victory of Ukraine's prime minister Viktor Yanukovych in last week's reportedly fraudulent presidential election is raising grave fears of civil war in this highly strategic nation.

Ukraine split along historic lines, with the European-oriented western, largely Uniate Catholic half (once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), supporting Yushchenko, and the Eastern Orthodox portion, notably the Donets coal basin and industrial Luhansk, with 10 million ethnic Russians, favouring Moscow. Crimea, an ethnic Russian and Tatar region, went solidly for the pro-Moscow camp.

Yushchenko supporters have massed in the streets for days and called on the army and security service to join them, invoking the threat of political chaos, even civil war.

As of this writing, the security services, heavily influenced by Russia's secret services, appear loyal to Yanukovych

UKRAINE

Times: Russia ‘will back force’ by Ukraine president

RUSSIA has offered to back the Ukrainian government if it uses force to crush pro-democracy demonstrators who have taken control of the capital and other cities, it was claimed last night, write Askold Krushelnycky and Mark Franchetti.
A senior figure in the Ukrainian presidential administration who declined to be identified said that Boris Gryzlov, President Vladimir Putin’s personal envoy to Ukraine, had promised “diplomatic cover” against any international backlash prompted by such a move.

Guardian: Ukraine's postmodern coup d'etat

Yushchenko got the US nod, and money flooded in to his supporters

For one thing the demonstrators do not reflect nationwide sentiments. Ukraine is riven by deep historical, religious and linguistic divisions. The crowds in the street include a large contingent from western Ukraine, which has never felt comfortable with rule from Kiev, let alone from people associated with eastern Ukraine, the home-base of Viktor Yanukovich, the disputed president-elect.

Their traditions are not always pleasant. Some protesters have been chanting nationalistic and secessionist songs from the anti-semitic years of the second world war.

Nor are we watching a struggle between freedom and authoritarianism as is romantically alleged. Viktor Yushchenko, who claims to have won Sunday's election, served as prime minister under the outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, and some of his backers are also linked to the brutal industrial clans who manipulated Ukraine's post-Soviet privatisation

Yet after none of those polls did the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the main international observer body, or the US and other western governments, make the furious noise they are producing today. The decision to protest appears to depend mainly on realpolitik and whether the challengers or the incumbent are considered more "pro-western" or "pro-market".

ISRAEL: STATE TERRORISM

Guardian: Israel shocked by image of soldiers forcing violinist to play at roadblock

Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin.
The incident was not as shocking as the recording of an Israeli officer pumping the body of a 13-year-old girl full of bullets and then saying he would have shot her even if she had been three years old.

Yoram Kaniuk, author of a book about a Jewish violinist forced to play for a concentration camp commander, wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the soldiers responsible should be put on trial "not for abusing Arabs but for disgracing the Holocaust".

"So when Israeli soldiers are abusing palestinians they should not be tried because they commited a crime or in this case because they did the same thing as the nazis did when they forced jewish musicans to play in concentration camps but because they are "disgracing the holocaust". How twisted can a mind get?"

IRAQ: FALLUJAH RESISTANCE

JUS: First US Retreat From Fallujah Reported

Mujahideen Retake The Old City

Last evening, after US forces outside Fallujah took heavy rocket fire from the Lions of Fallujah, occupation forces pulled their units that were surrounding the western sector of the city back in the direction of the US base at al-Habbaniyah.

In a dispatch posted at 9pm Mecca time, Friday night, Mafkarat al-Islam's correspondent reported that US forces outside Fallujah were subjected to heavy Mujahideen bombardments, firing Grad and Tariq rockets that resulted in their withdrawal from the area. JUS also received information from sources close to the Mujahideen that US forces were indeed pulling back at al-Habbaniyah