[jenko]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LadyRuby', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jenko', 'C')orrect me if I'm wrong, but Nixon didn't go thru a trial, and the first thing Ford did upon taking office was pardon Nixon for whatever he might have done. Hey, they have the power, they make the rules. Haven't we gotten that yet?

[gg3]

Interesting to hear that perjury is now just a little technicality.

What every happened to "it's not the sex, it's the lies!"...?

Meanwhile, if Bush does pardon any of these people, yes it will be a shitstorm.

And yeah, it was the sex after all.

[EnemyCombatant]

You liberals are stoopid! You're just mad cause your guy ain't in office.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', 'Y')ou liberals are stoopid! You're just mad cause your guy ain't in office.

[DerelictOverlord]

Isn't it wonderful to know that we will be able to pick from the same old contaminated pool of swine in 2008?

[LadyRuby]

How the CIA paid a high priced consultant to sell the war
Excellent article in rolling stone. Discusses how the CIA paid this guy over $300/hour to set up the Iraqi National Congress (INC), whose goal was to overthrow Saddam, and how the CIA also paid this consultant to get sympathetic journalists to spread their crap. Nice to know what we're paying for, huh?
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8798997

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]The Man Who Sold the War Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war By JAMES BAMFORD:
The road to war in Iraq led through many unlikely places. One of them was a chic hotel nestled among the strip bars and brothels that cater to foreigners in the town of Pattaya, on the Gulf of Thailand.
On December 17th, 2001, in a small room within the sound of the crashing tide, a CIA officer attached metal electrodes to the ring and index fingers of a man sitting pensively in a padded chair. The officer then stretched a black rubber tube, pleated like an accordion, around the man's chest and another across his abdomen. Finally, he slipped a thick cuff over the man's brachial artery, on the inside of his upper arm.

Strapped to the polygraph machine was Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a forty-three-year-old Iraqi who had fled his homeland in Kurdistan and was now determined to bring down Saddam Hussein. For hours, as thin mechanical styluses traced black lines on rolling graph paper, al-Haideri laid out an explosive tale. Answering yes and no to a series of questions, he insisted repeatedly that he was a civil engineer who had helped Saddam's men to secretly bury tons of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. The illegal arms, according to al-Haideri, were buried in subterranean wells, hidden in private villas, even stashed beneath the Saddam Hussein Hospital, the largest medical facility in Baghdad.

It was damning stuff -- just the kind of evidence the Bush administration was looking for. If the charges were true, they would offer the White House a compelling reason to invade Iraq and depose Saddam. That's why the Pentagon had flown a CIA polygraph expert to Pattaya: to question al-Haideri and confirm, once and for all, that Saddam was secretly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

There was only one problem: It was all a lie. After a review of the sharp peaks and deep valleys on the polygraph chart, the intelligence officer concluded that al-Haideri had made up the entire story, apparently in the hopes of securing a visa.

The fabrication might have ended there, the tale of another political refugee trying to scheme his way to a better life. But just because the story wasn't true didn't mean it couldn't be put to good use. Al-Haideri, in fact, was the product of a clandestine operation -- part espionage, part PR campaign -- that had been set up and funded by the CIA and the Pentagon for the express purpose of selling the world a war. And the man who had long been in charge of the marketing was a secretive and mysterious creature of the Washington establishment named John Rendon.

[shakespear1]

Amazing but not surprising. Looks like gov. work is done by PR specialists who find ways to get us in wars. Excellent way to run a country.

Perhaps they should get them working on finding ways to get us off the addiction to oil. In that case I wouldn't mind if my tax dollars were spent in this way.

[Geology_Guy]

Hmm-Wonder if Valerie Plame is involved? Her specialty is WMDs.

[LadyRuby]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geology_Guy', 'H')mm-Wonder if Valerie Plame is involved? Her specialty is WMDs.

[The_Virginian]

Hey where do I sign up for the cash?

Chavez i developing something...i just know it... "Mr Danger" and I will make a thousand year reich.

[cornholio]

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... s_oil.html

It has been suggested that the CIA has been aware of the issue of peak oil for decades and used that information strategically... The peaking of oil production of USSR (and income) was anticipated in the 70's by the CIA. It is suggested that this peaking was used strategically to facilitate the collapse of the Solviet Union (by witholding oil extracting equipment, escalating an expensive arms race, fueling proxy wars, and keeping Solviet oil income low through massive increases in OPEC oil output). This begs the question... Is current US strategy (no conservation, no public transport, no alternatives to oil) more intelligently designed and strategic than it seems? Is our current course actually felt to be strategically benificial for the US? I say this partially out of hope, partially out of paranoia, and partially because I'm wondering if our current course may in fact be beneficial to the US for strategic reasons that aren't commonly discussed. How?

-A nation's industry, wealth and prosperity are linked to oil consumption, ie. the US has 5% of the world's population but uses 25% of the oil
-Oil surplus is a one time event... it is being produced now, and will be used to increase some nation's power (might as well be us).
-Aggressive conservation in the us would free up oil for use in other nations (fueling their growth, strenght and prosperity). It is better that it is used up by us than used in other countries.
-The longer the MiddleEast has huge supplies of oil, the longer they will have huge income and influence. If they sold oil at a price reflecting it's value the Middle East would be the center of world power (superpower)... Better to use it up quickly, before they realize it.
-Economic Growth in China so close to peak, on an oil-intense model, is unsustainable. Exponential growth (threatening) will not happen. Full industrialization will be aborted before it can fully materialize... So, no harm in exporting industry there... After peak, labor/manufacturing in China on a scale restrained by PeakOil will remain beneficial to the US rather than threatening.
-As prices escalate second and third world consumers will be priced out of driving long before first world consumers are... in part because wages in those countries are lower and in part because government subsidies which keep gasoline affordable will become unsustainable and will be discontinued (demand destruction for them, increased supply for us). THIS is the period to be used to increase efficiency and ramp up alternatives.
-In the event of a worldwide recession/depression following PeakOil, supplies will be freed up which will, relatively, be most affordable to the US.

I'm just "thinking out loud" here, trying to see a stragegy beyond short sighted consumerism. What if greed, consumerism and complete lack of an energy plan on a global scale is in fact "the plan," that results in the best possible outcome for the US in the face of PeakOil... that it is at least on some level strategic and planned?

PS- I have doubts that Regan's stragegy (escalation, star-wars) was any more nuanced or strategic than it seemed at that time, and that peak oil or economic collapse was far from his mind... anyway, IF there might have been a larger plan then, might there be now?

Thanks for any thoughts,
Cornholio (aka ChicknLittle)

[Colorado-Valley]

I'm sure the strategists at the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundations are burning the midnight oil (so to speak) trying to figure this all out.

Seems like all the U.S. really has is a really big military backed up by a slowly faltering economic system. They need to control the world's oil and gas pipes to have any chance of hegemony.

I think Russia, China, India, Iran and Venezuela have their own plans. Interesting that the Saudi king was in China last week holding discussions; what were they talking about?

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cornholio', '
')-Aggressive conservation in the us would free up oil for use in other nations (fueling their growth, strength and prosperity). It is better that it is used up by us than used in other countries.

[MicroHydro]

The CIA/Pentagon/NSA is the second level of power in the western world. The soldiers and spies take their orders from the senior leadership of high finance, the true masters of the universe. Elected officials/major media are at the 3rd level of power, merely the PR/marketing department of the establishment. The public has no power at all.

High finance has a plan, to secure the best possible outcome for their people, a few hundred families, heavily intermarried. The CIA/Pentagon/NSA and the lowly whores in politics and media are the tools to be used to attain their objectives. The well being of the masses is not even a consideration.

[shakespear1]

I think that there may be something to this. Maybe.

While in Russia I was surprised when a Russian manager told me that producing the wells at max production capacity was not a good strategy. WHATTT, thought I. With my Western Econ cap on I want to maximize NPV etc.

His arugment was simple, "What will I produce in 4 yrs?" I started to think. Hhhuuummm, you have a point.

Full spigots open is OK if you are draining the Universe and your life span is that of a fly.

[shakespear1]

Another thought.

If US intelligence was looking at the issue of Soviet PO it would only seem natural that the same people would be directed to look at the same issue with respect to the US and other countries in the world. Hence the establishment would have been shaping policy with this in mind.

Some of the best minds are working in these intelligence organizations. At the same time some of the best minds in Soviet Union were trying/succeeded to get into the corridors of US policy makers to find out what they were up to.

So the cat is out of the bag now. We are just watching the show unnravel.

That is why I am surprised by an support given to the US in the case of Iran by China and Russia. I just don't see the advantage gained as like all then, they do not do anything without benefit to themselves.

They have some of the best chess players in the world. We have Deep Blue

[Liamj]

Ah, but then why didn't the CIA see/prevent the strategic weakness created by offshoring of manufacturing, steel making etc?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shakespear1', '.')..
That is why I am surprised by an support given to the US in the case of Iran by China and Russia. I just don't see the advantage gained as like all then, they do not do anything without benefit to themselves.

[Wildwell]

Strategy! Lol What you mean like making things so expensive business moves out the China etc making them strong and creating a resource crisis. Paying the Russians and Arabs vast amounts of money for oil to make them strong…Shock horror, some nations are connected to Terrorist groups. Making the rich richer and the poor poorer, causing vast amounts of resentment and in some countries forced benefit claims. Money is given away in the city like monopoly winnings, while everyone else struggles to pay for heating or pay for basic housing in supposedly rich countries...Publicising Americans don’t like the C word (conservation) when everyone else struggles to get by, causing a vast amounts of anti-Americanism, even in traditionally allied countries in Western Europe. Then to top it off, getting US and UK citizens into vast amounts of debt, as much debt as since the great depression.

Some strategy, it’s called destabilising the world and creating the roots for thermo-global nuclear war!

[donshan]

Good post Cornholio! Some additional points:

In his book " A century of War" ( See Books/Media) William Engdahl details how in the oil shocks of the 1970s, one objective of US policy was the INTENTIONAL 400% increase in world oil prices engineered in secret. This strategy was two fold:

1. The increased oil price created demand for dollars by everyone in the world who now needed 4 times as many dollars to pay for oil imports. More demand for dollars on world money exchanges supported the dropping value of the dollar back then since oil is denominated in US dollars. It also created a lot of debt to buy oil that the IMF required to be paid back in dollars.

2. The increased oil price made the undeveloped oil in the North Sea, Alaska and Gulf of Mexico and other places a sure bet for profits by the oil company multinationals. With an assured higher oil price all these new sources of oil were developed.

It seems to me the same factors are at work now. The US needs to support the dollar due to the outrageous trade deficits, and higher oil prices are needed to make alternative energy competitive in the free market, extract oil sands and oil from deep oceans in risky places. It is also nice for those in power to get rich in the process.

Thus VP Cheney telegraphed US policy Jan 19 when he said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Whether or not there would be a spike in the price of oil if in fact some kind of crisis with Iran is entirely possible,...
But I think the consequences of that would be less significant than having [Iranian President Mahoud Ahmadinejad] armed with nuclear weapons

[Wolfeyes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cornholio', 'h')ttp://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/081503_cia_russ_oil.html

I'm just "thinking out loud" here, trying to see a stragegy beyond short sighted consumerism. What if greed, consumerism and complete lack of an energy plan on a global scale is in fact "the plan," that results in the best possible outcome for the US in the face of PeakOil... that it is at least on some level strategic and planned?