[Leanan]

The wire services are reporting a huge pipeline explosion in Iraq. Just days after it was repaired from the last attack.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;We have received news of a huge explosion, seriously affecting the pumping of oil," AFP quoted Northern Oil Company engineer Aidin Abdullah as saying.

[backstop]

Resistance to the liberators of Iraq was plainly predictable, given the their gratuitous killing of civilians, their withdrawal of the hospital ships, the imprisonment and abuse of pretty random captives, the disbandment of the army, etc.

As a war of choice, the liberators' escalation of anti-US feeling among Iraquis and among Muslems in general looks less like a reaction to a threat than a response to what Gorbachev told the US delegation while addressing the UN General Assembly:
"I'm going to do something terrible to you, I'm going to deny you an enemy."

Yet the raising of anti-US animosity would appear to clash with the need to maximize access to oil as the peak of supply is reached. Yet another pipeline hit is surely yet more evidence of this basic point.

Therefore, I'd tentatively suggest that the US strategic goal appears not to be one of ensuring oil supply but of sterilizing that supply by energizing the theocratic fascim of the Wahabi sect.

Or can we presume that the Military-Industrial-Energy complex that runs US strategy is really so incompetent as to gratuitously generate an ineradicable threat to its energy supplies ?

As to a motivation for sterilizing oil supplies, there is perhaps the issue of just when the peak crunch hits: is the US relatively better off than China, EU, etc, if the crunch hits sooner rather than later ???

Another possibility is that Global Climatic Destabilization is actually seen as a paramount threat, and since an effective multilateral treaty will be slow and very costly for the US to negotiate, let alone to implement, the sterilization of oil supplies is seen as a necessary course.

Can anyone put up other such motives for an intentional sterilization of oil supplies ?

regards,

Backstop

[Soft_Landing]

I'll put my criticism simply, but do not pretend it to be infallible.

Aren't you assuming that the US governmental superstructure acts rationally, or worse, acts as a single consciousness?

In any case, I think it is trivial to find other reasons for this:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')an anyone put up other such motives for an intentional sterilization of oil supplies ?

[Newbie]

Perhaps I should have started a separate thread, but here goes.

I will play "devil's advocate" here, so consider:

The more attention we give to these kinds of supply disruptions, the more
we play into the jihadist's/terrorist's hands. It hurts us all. Especially the people of Iraq. Read Bloomberg's recent news report and you will see what I mean.

The more attention we give them, the more likely they are to happen. Like a screaming child who can't have his way, if you ignore them and they see they have no effect on you, that behavior decreases.

The U.S. HAD to invade Iraq, given peak oil, because, guess what, we'd be at the mercy of Saddam cutting off supply and driving prices up.
The choice wasn't easy, but it had to be done. What would the reaction have been then, when 50 million soccer moms complain about the cost of filling up their SUV's because the U.S was left at the mercy of Saddam? Seriously.

These comments are controversial, I know, but what of them?

Will you respond that any way to can wean ourselves off our dependence is ok?

These thoughts are for argument's sake, not necessarily sure I believe them, but it is a possibility...

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he U.S. HAD to invade Iraq, given peak oil, because, guess what, we'd be at the mercy of Saddam cutting off supply and driving prices up.

[Newbie]

Good point about Saddam wanting to sell more oil, not less, I hadn't thought of that.

Perhaps what it comes down to, maybe, is the U.S. couldn't stand to sit on the sidelines why Iraq made more and more money on rising prices due to come b/c of P.O, and after switching to the Euro. And, I have read, about the possible substantial, undeveloped reserves in Iraq, and wouldn't likely be in the near future because of a lack of Iraqi capital and expertise?

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')erhaps what it comes down to, maybe, is the U.S. couldn't stand to sit on the sidelines why Iraq made more and more money on rising prices due to come b/c of P.O, and after switching to the Euro.

[Canuck]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', '
')
Saddam was not likely to cut off supply. It would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. He was dependent on oil sales to support his country.

[Soft_Landing]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Soft_Landing', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')addam was not likely to cut off supply. It would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. He was dependent on oil sales to support his country.

[Newbie]

Wow, fantastic post Soft Landing!!! I am amazed at the absolutely chilling predictions in that report, and how just about everything they mention has, or will soon be, come to fruition.

Libya, for example, is now safely "in the fold", so many others.

The way this administration stacked itself with so many energy types, the way foreign policy has shifted, points to a suggestion that they "got religion" (pardon the oh-so-appropriate expression) about oil depletion/peak oil, in a major way. The policy shift was visible, and dramatic. Oil/Gas is the only logical explanation tying it all together.

I'm an analyst at heart, going to the deep crux of the issue. I rely on intellect, intuition, and instinct, (my "eye-cubes" as I call it, he, he). It has served me well.

[Soft_Landing]

I forgot to mention...

One of the authors of that report was.... Matthew Simmons.

Wow, huh.

[Soft_Landing]

Also, in the context of that report, we shouldn't be surprised if they were drawing up plans to go into Iraq before 9/11, as Richard Clarke has been saying. Even if they were hoping to diffuse the situation is a political manner, it would be irresponsible not to have looked into the possibility of an attack.

I forget where I read it, but before 9/11, Bush was giving speeches about lowering dependence upon oil, that sort of thing. Like he was looking for a political solution to the Iraq problem. You can see, however, how good an opportunity 9/11 must have appeared to Bush as a pretext for handling the Iraq problem. Especially since, if he had started thinking seriously about getting off oil, it probably would have been dawning on him at about that time just how impossible energy independence was. Who could blame him if he listened to the hawks? What choice does he have? It is the choice of a desperate man, in the shadow of an opportunity that will only exist once. He could have rationalised that he was making all those deaths on 9/11 mean something, by postponing the peak in their name...

I never feel as though I have a good understanding of an historical event unless in my story, no one is stupid, no one is evil, and no one always wrong...

[backstop]

The quotes from the Baker Institute report would mean more to me were it not for its timing, (five months before air cover was withdrawn from US cities) and for Baker's political career as a very effective senior right-wing fixer.

Your proposal that the 'pre-emptive' invasions were meant to secure the reliability of oil supply is undermined to the extent that the present regime connived in the Twin Towers attack. Why facilitate the attack, with its massive publicity boost for Bin Laden, if the goal was to secure and stabilize Middle East oil supplies under a Pax Americana ?

Far from stabilizing the region, invading the Afgahns, Iraqis etc has quite predictably stirred a hornet's nest of resistance and has, again quite predictably, given further substantial recruitment and active training grounds to extremist aggression and bigotry.

Why invade those countries with tactics, conduct and policies that could scarcely be better calculated to rouse implacable armed resistance ? This simply doesn't mesh with a goal of stabilizing access to oil supply.

Similarly in the Afgahn case, it is noteable that the prospect of reliably piping Caspian product across the country is increasingly remote.

I'd suggest that the outcome so far both of Bin Laden's elevation to unique global status and of the two high profile invasions has been to reduce oil production (in Iraq), to close the option of a Caspian - Pakistahn pipeline and to destabilize Middle East oil prospects from what they were at Bush's "election." Whether the House of Saud falls before Ghawar's water output exceeds 70% now looks an open question. Thus to date, US actions have brought forward the probable timing of a Peak Oil crunch.

The degree of incompetence needed to achieve this outcome unintentionally is to me incredible, but I am of course quite willing to differ amicably on it.

I think your proposed possible motive for sterilizing oil supplies of 'damage limitation' is far from trivial; it fits like a glove.

"A sooner peak means a less sharp fall. This explanation has the benefit of representing a short term response to a long term problem, which is the typical bureaucratic response to a systemic problem..."

As to the Baker Report I guess it has been very helpful in providing an internally coherent underlying rationale to convince doubter's within the Pentagon etc of the need for the strategy of a circus of pre-emptive agression.

The report is also maybe a useful 'defence in depth' from later informal investigations such as this website. It is after all far more palatable (particularly to US opinion) to view each of the dreadful outcomes as being an accidental result of incompetence rather than reflecting intentional US policy.

Furthermore, when a Peak Oil crunch arrives, the faintest whiff that the US has intentionally advanced that event would be polical rat-poison at home and massively damaging to US interests internationally. Thus to be effective as a damage-limitation excercise, advancing the Peak Oil crunch must be seen as accidental and a matter of sheer incompetence.

A lot of people round the world will easily accept the idea of US incompetence. The key phrase is I think

"Watch the birdie ! "

regards,

Backstop

[Sedona]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')erhaps what it comes down to, maybe, is the U.S. couldn't stand to sit on the sidelines why Iraq made more and more money on rising prices due to come b/c of P.O, and after switching to the Euro.

[JayHMorrison]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sedona', '
')Think of what would happen to the dollar if that took place.

[Sedona]

But what about the huge dollar cash reserves that countries hold to buy oil? Wouldn't a move to the euro and dumping all that cash on the market depress the dollar?

[The Ducker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he CIA sponsored coup of President Chavez failed, and now he has been reelected by referendum. Watch for action there.

[Sedona]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he question is, can they ignore an anti-capitalist agenda in the Western Hemisphere, ala the Monroe Doctrine.

[Soft_Landing]

Although I do not know the truth of it, I have no reason to doubt the popular belief that the Hawks only gained priority in the Bush administration after 9/11. This is consistent with the view that Bush, and more moderate administration members, were aware of the magnitude of the oil problem (and the Iraq complications), but that it was only after 9/11 that the radical suggestions of the Hawks, which were already well known, were taken seriously.

I want to make it clear that I have done no research whatsoever into the web of conspiracy surrounding 9/11. I remain very skeptical. Unfortunately, I'm too busy to follow every story in detail, and that is one story I am currently deciding to leave alone.

However, I can imagine people believing that they might be taking the moral action by bringing forward peak, by whatever means possible. A lower peak surely does mean an easier transition. This version of events leaves open the possiblity that a number of different players could willfully and 'morally' have helped orchestrate 9/11, including the Hawks or the CIA. If either of these groups were involved in such activities, there is no reason to presume that Bush or moderate members of his administration would have been aware of this.

Of course, this story is also consistent with the traditional view - that Islamic terrorists were behind 9/11.

The difference between the two scenarios is that between: a paternalistic radical right seeking to minimize the damage done by peak, which can by justified by the application of an extreme utilitarian ethic (cause 9/11 for the 'greater good'); and between an administration, belatedly coming to the belief that peak oil is a serious threat to USA/humanity, and opportunistically exploiting a quasi-random event (9/11) in the cause of a less extreme, but still quite utilitarian ethic.

If, as the Northwoods documents demonstrate, the US was willing to consider self-inflicting damage in order to thwart the 'greater evil' of Castro and Communism, it only follows logically that members of the US heirachy may be willing to consider self-inflicting damage for the greater good that is survival of the human species...

However immoral you might consider any act, there is always some belief set (which might well be wrong) that makes the act morally justifiable.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'd')emocratically elected Chavez administration.