The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

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Go to 12877
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHI20080307&articleId=8262
What is the Logic of False Flag Terror Attacks?

The two winners of the 2008 presidential election: fear and war

by Larry Chin

Global Research, March 7, 2008
Online Journal

The 2008 US presidential charade has already been decided. Come November, the next White House occupant (who will be installed via political malfeasance, computer vote theft and other election “irregularities”) will be the puppet who proves to be the most effective in echoing Bush-Cheney’s “war on terrorism” lies, and expanding the Bush-Cheney “national security” agenda.

The American populace will bow to the “next Bush” who will “keep them safe” from “Islamic jihadists." Facing a new and increasingly brutal regime (probably under McCain), many brain-addled Americans will be stunned that “it is happening all over again," oblivious to the fact that their own acquiescence helped make it possible.

Washington’s bipartisan consensus “war on terrorism” deception

Amply demonstrated by the rhetoric of each of the prospective US presidential candidates, the “terrorism” lie is also the key to the election. The candidates know that the ill-informed US population remains petrified, and still thoroughly manipulated by fear of “another 9/11."

As exhaustively detailed by Michel Chossudovsky, author of America’s “War on Terrorism," and in "Washington's consensus al-Qaeda deception", the “war on terrorism” deception is a manipulation supported by an elite consensus, and a cover-up promoted equally by Washington’s political factions and both Republican and Democratic parties.

This myth, which rests on the perpetual fabricated threat of an outside enemy, has been the key to the power wielded by Bush-Cheney. It remains at the core of every official and unofficial decision made by this criminal regime, and its complicit bipartisan Washington partners. The “terrorist” threat to the US homeland, and its many propaganda variations, are now embedded fixations in the American psyche, reinforced by endless corporate media bombast.

The Washington consensus has remained united behind the lies and cover-up of 1) the atrocities of 9/11, a US-led false flag operation, 2) the fact that “Al-Qaeda” is an Anglo-American military-intelligence covert operation, and 3) the use of “anti-terrorism” as a pretext to invade and conquer Afghanistan and Iraq, and its use as the justification for future war across the Middle East and Central Asia, Africa, and other vital geostrategic regions.

Which candidate will be the most effective mass murderer?

Clinton, McCain and Obama are backed by hawkish national security teams headed by some of the world’s master war criminals (Kissinger, Brzezinski, Albright, etc.).These elite connections, and their ramifications, which promise the deepening of the war, remain unaddressed and ignored.

John McCain is deeply corrupt and ruthless -- the perfect extension of Bush-Cheney. McCain’s participation in the 1980s savings and loan scandal, as a member of the infamous Keating Five, is a matter of historical fact. Also a matter of record are McCain’s brutal views on war and killing, which are best exemplified by his 2001 op-ed, War is Hell. Now Let's Get On With It.

Despite their inexplicable reputations as liberals, Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are now locked in a bitter and destructive struggle over who is the more Bush/Cheney-esque; who is the superior “anti-terrorist” and protector of “American security."

Clinton and Obama have both repeated the same slippery and all too familiar “war on terrorism” deceptions favored by the elite neoliberal faction:

“The Bush administration has failed to fight the ‘real war on terrorism’ begun after 9/11.”


“Mismanagement and blunders of the war in Iraq have created radical jihadist insurgencies that will the destroy the United States.”


“The Iraq mistake has distracted us from fighting the ‘real’ war on terrorism.”


“We should declare war on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which harbor the real ‘terrorists’ who attacked us on 9/11.”


“The Iraq distraction has prevented us from capturing Osama.”


“The world was united after 9/11, but Bush squandered it all.”
Other variations popular with the Clinton and Obama camps include:

“Al-Qaeda is reforming in Afghanistan, because of Bush policy failures, and must be dealt with.”


“Iran has become increasingly radical and dangerous because of Bush’s Iraq policy, and now must be dealt with.”
Both Clinton and Obama repeat bald-faced lies about “bringing troops home," when it is clear that their agenda will do neither. US bases in Iraq are permanent. Some troops could be redeployed, but the US geostrategic foothold in the region is permanent -- and they know it.

Both enthusiastically support war waged under the NATO banner, the US-backed Kosovo criminal apparatus (created by the Bill Clinton administration), and other atrocities.

In a telling exchange during a recent debate, Clinton and Obama each kissed the feet (and other body parts) of the powerful AIPAC war lobby, declaring Israel and Israeli security “sacrosanct," leaving no doubt that a presidency under either of them promises a continuation of genocidal Middle East policy.

The gutter tactics of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton’s recent primary victories in Texas and Ohio were the result of gutter politics directly out of the Karl Rove playbook. Clinton has stooped to every trick in this book, and the most below-belt attacks and open lies in recent memory.

Clinton’s penchant for fear-mongering is exemplified by the now-infamous "Red Phone" Ad. In this malodorous work, endorsed by the right wing and hailed as a smashing success by venal Clinton strategists, Obama’s ability to deal with a 3 a.m. “international security” crisis is called into question.

Here again, the 9/11 “terrorism” lie is placed front and center, obliterating every other issue.

The peevish Clintons are so hungry for power, that they destroy the Democratic Party, and hand the White House to the Republicans and Bush-Cheney-McCain, to achieve their objective. Clearly, the beneficiaries are the Republicans, and Bush-Cheney-McCain.

It is also no surprise that Clinton’s Texas and Ohio success was assisted by orchestrated conniving by right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh. Armed with the certainty that McCain is already the Republican nominee, Limbaugh and other fanatical right-wingers swarmed to cast votes for Clinton in “cross-over” states. Limbaugh’s stated goal was to “bloody up” Obama (perceived by the right wing to be more liberal and more dangerous), force the Democrats deeper into self-destruction “for fun," making a McCain victory that much more certain.

This is not the first time Clinton has benefited from shenanigans (and Republican help), nor will it be the last. Her New Hampshire primary results were manipulated, giving her a surprise victory despite exit polls favoring Obama by big margins. Clinton has continued to bully and intimidate her peers in the Congress (her “super delegates”), and force the Democratic Party into giving her delegates from Florida and Michigan, despite the party’s rules that do not permit delegates from those uncontested states.

Of course, it is no coincidence that criminal activity saves a Clinton or a Bush every time one faces political defeat. The political and criminal connection that the Clinton faction shares with the Bushes is a matter of historical fact, going back to their criminal activities in Arkansas. The Bush-Clinton milieu has cooperatively ruled the United States for decades.

In fact, a McCain-Clinton ticket, with Jeb Bush and other intelligence-connected neocons in their administration, would offer the most honest representation of what the American empire really is.

Obama’s support for war and death squads

Despite his stirring rhetoric, razor sharp intellect and immensely appealing persona, Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda is virtually identical to that of Bush-Cheney-McCain and Clinton, including his approach to the “war on terrorism." The differences in nuance, over which a bitter campaign is being fought, are slight.

Obama has repeated his earlier promise to take unilateral military action to “take out terrorists” anywhere in the world, where “actionable intelligence” identifies terrorists, and governments (where these terrorists are found) fail to act. This is no different than existing Bush-Cheney policy. In a recent debate, Obama stated that he would send troops back into Iraq (after a hypothetical pullout) if, hypothetically, “Al-Qaeda reforms in Iraq."

As reported by Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Largest Mercenary Army, Obama has even expressed support for continuing to outsource war-related activities to Blackwater USA. This itself should eliminate any notion that Obama is in any way “antiwar," or anti-criminality.

An Obama presidency would offer a soothing and momentary illusion of false hope to many Americans.

But if recent events are any indication, even false hopes will be squashed, well before a national election contest begins.

Every election in modern US history has been a criminal manipulation, choreographed and rigged by political elites and performed by handpicked elite puppets, each backed by their teams of corrupt war criminals, intelligence/security “advisors” and think tank assets. The 2008 affair will be no different.

It is still a fact that corporations (primarily connected to the Republican political apparatus) control the American vote, and with increasing technological sophistication: Diebold, ESS, Sequoia, and SAIC. In fact, new generations of their machines will be used in 2008.

Democratic Party “war on terrorism” complicity in Congress

In activities paralleling the red herrings bandied about by the presidential campaigns, the bipartisan consensus in the US Congress is demonstrating (again) that it is will not act to stop Bush-Cheney on domestic surveillance. Congressional Democrats are also unable to muster meager opposition of any kind to Bush-Cheney’s Iraq war.

The Iraq Redeployment Act, pushed by Senator Russ Feingold, is a perfect example of Democratic Party ignorance and complicity. Feingold’s bill limits funding, except for “hunting Al-Qaeda terrorists," and for “training Iraqi troops to fight Al-Qaeda."

Given that the “hunt for Al-Qaeda” has been the eternal bipartisan consensus pretext for US geostrategy, and given that “Al-Qaeda” is blamed for the host of Iraq problems (including, but not limited to, “insurgencies”), the Feingold bill essentially accommodates continued funding for eternal war.

The Feingold bill, like the rest of Democratic Party's “war on terrorism” rhetoric is the definition of a zero-sum charade.

The presidential campaign to hell

Without an end to the “terrorism” lie, there will be no end to the “war on terrorism."

Given the intensity with which this lie is being wielded by Clinton, McCain and Obama, and with the Anglo-American empire’s very survival at stake, clearly there will be no end to war, no matter who is the next White House occupant.


Larry Chin is a frequent contributor to Global Research.



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http://www.dailypaul.com/node/41819
Rand Paul: Is the Revolution Over or Just Beginning?
Posted March 8th, 2008 by manystrom
by Rand Paul MD | March 8, 2008

Reports that Ron Paul has quit the Presidential Race remind me of Mark Twain's famous quote, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." The Ron Paul Presidential campaign continues, albeit at a different pace.

What does that mean?

Ron Paul will continue to contest the remaining primaries. Ron Paul's name will be on all the remaining state ballots. Ron Paul volunteers are encouraged to become precinct captains, delegates to state and national conventions, and to try pass Constitutional proposals to each state's Republican platform.

For example, volunteers in each state should try to attach amendments such as the following: Republicans believe that war should only be fought after a proper Declaration of War by Congress. Another possible platform idea is that: Republican Congressmen are expected to vote against any federal budget, Republican or Democrat, that is not balanced.

Want to have some fun? Just imagine the fun when the debate begins on these ideas.

Is Ron Paul still campaigning for president? Yes. Ron Paul has tentative plans to campaign in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Ron Paul will also likely appear in other states that have remaining primaries.

The press is reporting that Ron Paul has quit the race. This is not true. Ron Paul's video simply acknowledges that the campaign will continue but will also transform into additional activities such as education and supporting other candidates. In Kentucky we just held precinct conventions and Ron Paul Republicans won hundreds of precinct captains. In Kyle Texas, Craig Young upset the establishment choice for Republican County Chairman.

The Ron Paul Revolution lives on! Victory comes in many forms. Help shape what the Ron Paul revolution becomes.



Go to 12875
http://www.rense.com/general81/usfor.htm
$US Foreclosures Rise
As Owners Give Up
By Kathleen M. Howley
3-8-8

(Bloomberg) -- U.S.mortgage foreclosures rose to an all-time high at the end of 2007 as borrowers with adjustable-rate loans walked away from properties before their payments increased, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today.

New foreclosures jumped to 0.83 percent of all home loans in the fourth quarter from 0.54 percent a year earlier. Late payments rose to a 23-year high, the organization said in a report today.

``We're seeing people give up even before they get to the reset because they couldn't afford the home in the first place,'' said Jay Brinkmann, vice president of research and economics for the Washington-based trade group.

The Bush administration is urging lenders to avert foreclosures by modifying mortgage terms amid the worst housing slump in a quarter century. The Federal Reserve has slashed its benchmark interest rate twice this year to try to avert the first recession since 2001. The central bank yesterday said the net worth of U.S. households decreased by $532.9 billion during the fourth quarter as home values fell.

The share of all home loans with payments more than 30 days late, both prime and fixed-rate loans, rose to a seasonally adjusted 5.82 percent, the highest since 1985, the bankers' group said in today's report.

Buyers `Overstretched'

About 40 percent of all foreclosures are homeowners with prime or subprime loans who couldn't make their payments before the reset, Brinkmann estimated in an interview. Another 23 percent are borrowers who received some form of loan modification, typically a freezing or a reduction of their rate, and then default, he said

Forty-two percent of new foreclosures in the fourth quarter were people with adjustable-rate subprime mortgages, given to borrowers with limited or tainted credit records, according to the report. Those types of loans accounted for about 7 percent of all mortgages, the report said.

``It comes down to an overstretching of buyers to get into homes they couldn't afford and an overextending of credit by lenders who were more willing to take risk,'' Brinkmann said.

Another 20 percent of new foreclosures were prime adjustable-rate mortgages, which accounted for 15 percent of all home loans, according to the report.

Late Payments Data

Twenty percent of adjustable-rate subprime loans had late payments in the fourth quarter, a number that excludes the one of every eight mortgages already in foreclosure, the bankers group said in their report.

The share of late payments for adjustable prime loans was 5.51 percent, from 3.39 percent a year earlier, and the foreclosure inventory rose to 2.59 percent, almost tripling from a year earlier.

The Mortgage Bankers survey examines 46 million residential home loans, about 80 percent of the market. The study gives percentages without providing the number of loans they represent.

Homebuilding executives, economists and securities analysts predict the housing market won't begin to recover until at least 2009. U.S. sales of new and existing homes probably will fall to 5 million this year, a drop of 33 percent from the all-time high of 7.46 million in 2005, before rising to 5.23 million in 2009, Freddie Mac said in a March 3 forecast.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the biggest U.S. mortgage finance companies, have posted their largest-ever losses as rising defaults boosted credit costs. Fannie Mae had a $3.55 billion loss in the fourth quarter, the Washington-based company said Feb. 27. Freddie Mac reported $2.45 billion fourth-quarter loss the following day.

The Mortgage Bankers survey came on the same day that the National Association of Realtors reported that the number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes was unchanged in January.

The Realtors' index of signed purchase agreements held at 85.9, higher than forecast and the second-lowest level since the Chicago-based group began keeping records in 2001.

To contact the reporter on this story:Kathleen M. Howley in Boston at
kmhowley@bloomberg.net.



Go to 12874
http://www.rense.com/general81/zzn.htm
Never Have So Few Done
So Much, To So Many
Jim Kirwan
3-8-8

The title does not refer to a people, to a religion or to a race; it refers to a twisted cult of Zealots that seek nothing less than to enslave the world. They call themselves Zionists, and they have attracted millions of followers the world over to their creed that worships money and power to the exclusion of all else.

They are not Semites, they are evil incarnate and they live by draining the life-force from others of their kind in a satanic celebration of Greed and Envy that uses hate and bigotry, along with racism, to utterly destroy their enemies regardless of race, creed or national origin.

These Zionists represent the most dangerous thing that the human race has ever faced, and unless we begin to find ways to drive these bestial savages back into oblivion, then we are doomed.

Zionists tend to be secretive, but they are not secret. If you have a U.S. one-dollar bill, then you have been notified of their supremacy in the 'natural order' of all things American: Because they have placed themselves inside the Great Seal of the United States of America, above the Eagle, where they have enclosed the thirteen stars of the original colonies within their six-pointed Star of David.
This should not be confused with the religious symbol of Israel, even though that was the intended purpose long before there was a 'State of Israel.' What it stands for here is absolute control over the power of the United States and by extension the World: Because the symbol for Zionism has captured the thirteen stars of the original thirteen colonies, and whatever power they might symbolize in the 'American' Eagle and its olive branch or its arrows: All the potential might that this US Seal sought to convey, is redirected by the imposition of Zionism in both the Great Seal and on US currency, which is now known the world over. In 1913 - After the financial panics of 1893 and 1907, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was passed. It created the Federal Reserve System as the nation's central bank to regulate the flow of money and credit for economic stability and growth. The system was authorized to issue Federal Reserve Notes, now the only U.S. currency produced.

In 1929 - Currency was reduced in size by twenty-five percent and standardized with uniform portraits on the faces and emblems along with the monuments on the backs." This tells us how long Zionism has been a real problem in the modern world, but this is not the issue, it's only the backdrop.

Zionism is not like other cults or national movements. Zionism is not limited to any one group of people, to any one belief system or to any specific area of interest-it is truly a universal evil- something that some might call a philosophy yet it is far larger than that. This concept is a massive parasite that actively seeks to destroy anything that willingly or unwillingly serves as a host for its plans and designs: anything that comes between what it has and what it wants. It will use any religion, any philosophy, or any 'people' to obtain its long-term goals. Along the way it sows dissention, racial and religious hatreds among the whole range of human belief systems, while it keeps the Cyclops of its monomaniacal and one-dimensional eye, upon the expansion of its greed and the ever-rising lust of its passion for total power. Everyone that uses this money has in effect been put on notice, as to what and who is actually behind our actions and our lives.

Zionism feeds upon the world that was built by others over thousands of years; it's only interest is in control and dominance over existing resources and power world-wide. To this end it has used world history and most religions, just as it has used fear and conspiracies to frustrate those that might uncloak this monstrous cabal that uses nations and people like chess pieces in their bid for global dominance. Its methods begin with deception and run the gauntlet from barbarity, through torture and murder to pre-emptive wars of conquest and massive destruction of previously successful civilizations. This is why Zionism is able to threaten the whole of humanity, and it is also why it must be eradicated from the councils of men and women everywhere!

Fast-forward to this last week in the world today, just to check up on the progress of this parasitical would-be ruler that continues to threaten the entire planet.

We rejoin this continuing fable at the point where Zionist-Israel is about to begin Operation Clean Break. "From the very first moment, the Bush foreign policy would focus on three key objectives: get rid of Saddam, end American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and rearrange the dominoes in the Middle East. A key to the policy shift would be the concept of pre-emption.

The Blueprint for the new Bush policy had actually been drawn up five years earlier by three of his top national security advisors. Soon to be appointed to senior administration positions, they were Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser. Ironically the plan was originally intended not for Bush but for another world leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the time, the three officials were out of government and working for conservative pro-Israel think tanks. Perle and Feith had previously served in high level Pentagon positions during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In a very unusual move, the former-- and future--senior American officials were acting as a sort of American privy-council to the new Israeli Prime Minister" (1)

The point here is apparently to launch another attack upon Lebanon and Syria, to give Israel one more chance to redeem their miserable military and diplomatic performances in 2006. (2)

Whether this is just another distraction or yet another cover for what's about to happen with Columbia, Venezuela, and several other countries in South America remains to be seen. These slights of cloven-hooves are something that is always used to keep the herds more quiet than they should be, because we are entering the final phase.

For a very long time now the USA has been running a psychological test in the prison system, as a dress rehearsal for the "new" reality they want to begin to implement. Of course this too began with privatization on a massive scale: This time it was the entire US Prison system that was used to test and reconfigure how people can be effectively-managed behind prison bars.

Since "REX 84" was introduced inside FEMA's Homeland Security plan: it has been nearly impossible for the public to figure out just how 50 million prisoners could possibly be used to keep this country afloat. One fatal flaw in trying to solve this riddle was that the goal here was not "to keep the country afloat," it was about giving the Corporations a way to use prison labor to counter what global outsourcing has done to U S Corporations-which of course has more than contributed to the oncoming crash.

The Corporations want to return to being able to manufacture goods again, but they can't compete with foreign workers that work for next-to-nothing, so the solution was obvious; create a prison population that can double as their own private work force-then collect on them as prisoners, from the government, and use their labor to expand corporate profits as well. In case anyone might still be wondering, the way to create this new world order, is to institute Martial Law, and use that as the excuse to lock up the 50 million people they want to use, and eliminate the remaining problem-people. Of course the prisoners will be living in the 2008 version of "1984" but hey that's the price for failing to pay attention.

For decades now prison labor has been used to undercut American jobs in all kinds of ways, in addition to the continued undercutting by illegal-laborers, and the outsourcing by these same corporations of millions of former US jobs. Prisons are the answer that the corporations came up with ­ to solve this inequity and enhance their own bottom lines as well. Think of these "camps" as the new norm that has been designed to merge the old middle- class with an under-class that will form the new slave-class of American workers. (3)

If you think this is too far-fetched, just look at Social Security in Chile under Pinochet. The plan to privatize America's Social Security was lifted directly from Pinochet's plans in fascist Chile! This was designed by the Chicago Boys, as part of their long- range plans of the future of the USA. The Social Security transplant failed here, but rather than try to bring it back, they've decided on Martial Law to simply eradicate Social Security altogether. (4)

Everything above is all in play at the moment, and depending on which massive part of what used to be this nation collapses first, we will either become part of the beginning of World War III with anarchy and chaos as our new best friends, or the schedule for Martial Law will take-over and end all this talk of elections and the beauty-contest between failures: for who will be the new Master- of-Ceremonies among the crumbling fifty States that once thought they were sovereign.

For those interested there's even a television series that outlines it all, disguised as entertainment of course. Ironically it's called OZ, life inside a maximum security prison, and is available on Netflix. It's the new "1984" with excellent performances from known actors.

In the meantime, you might want to think about just how blatant all this has always been-from the symbols on the money in your pockets to the number of times that 911 has run unchallenged on national television. Because the people who brought you both of these things are the same people which this article is all about. Truly: "Never Have So Few Done So Much, to So Many" But they could not have done it, without so much help from all of us!

kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net


1) A Clean Break http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/

2) Who Will Stop the Countdown http://www.rense.com/general73/wde.htm

3) U.S. Concentration Camps FEMA and the REX 84 Program http:// www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/camps.html

4) The Chicago Boys and the Chilean economic miracle http:// www.rrojasdatabank.org/econom~1.htm



Go to 12873
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=8166
Is Israel using prohibited 'thermobarbaric' weapons in its holocaust?
By Stuart Littlewood – BBS News via uruknet.info March 5, 2008

Not content with their massive blood-letting and maiming mission last weekend, the Israelis couldn't resist nipping back into Gaza last night for more of the same.

Not that the British government seems to give a damn about the murder and mayhem being visited on the Gazans. Our foreign secretary David Miliband said: "I condemn the rocket attacks against Israel. These are terrorist acts. They should be seen for what they are - an attempt to break the political process by breaking the will of those committed to peace."

No condemnation of Israel's terrorist acts, then. No acknowledgement that any political process involving unrepresentative placemen like Abbas and Fayyad is doomed. No recognition that the prospect of peace has already been scuppered by the acceleration of Israel's land-grab and illegal settlement programme.

And the dear boy still seems utterly oblivious to the inevitable... that someone, sooner or later, will have to talk with Hamas. Good manners require it, even if good sense is lacking.

Anyway who is this Miliband person, somebody asked me. And does he write his own speeches or are the words supplied by some Zionist scribbler on loan from the White House?

Well I have no idea. Miliband just popped out of Labour's 'bright young things' cupboard one day and suddenly became foreign secretary with no qualifications for the job whatsoever, a folly compounded by harnessing him with former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel and the minister for the Middle East, Dr Kim Howells.

Miliband told the Daily Mail "categorically" that he didn't believe in God. Maybe that explains why he voted for the war in Iraq.

So can we take it that he also doesn't give a damn about thermobaric weapons and whether his US and Israeli chums are using them against civilians? The question arises because I have just received from Gaza's Ministry of Health a report into the effects of prohibited weapons Israel is suspected of using.

In July 2006 doctors in Lebanon and Gaza were saying: "We never saw before wounds and corpses like those that arrive in the ward... what are these new weapons that cause such wounding and horrible deaths?" The large majority of victims in both locations were women, children and elders caught in Israeli attacks in the street, in the market place and at home.


Thermobaric bombs and grenades leave no visible wound

What they saw led doctors to believe that a new generation of weapons was being used in both territories. For example, in Sidon 8 victims (3 children, 4 men and one woman) were described thus: "One might think they were burnt, but they are not, only their color is dark, they're inflated, and they have a terrible smell. The hair is not burnt nor the bodies wounded". Due to the strong smell of the corpses, the medical director said he couldn't breath properly for at least 12 hours after they were handled.

The report stated: "Common features of all the victim's bodies were lack of main wounds... All victims had serious internal edema and hemorrhage with loss of blood from all body orifices. All the bodies were covered of dark powder so to look black, but were not burnt. Clothes and hair were not damaged or burnt."

Samples from the skin of six corpses were analyzed for histology in two independent laboratories. The results revealed no altered elements in the skin and derma and no sign of burns. All samples showed particles of dark color covering the skin, histologically staining for iron.

Electron microscope scans showed the presence of phosphorous, iron and magnesium at below the normal level of detection. Analysis of the dark refractive material layered over the skin of one victim showed it contained mainly carbon and oxygen, and lesser amounts of iron, silicon and calcium. Some of these elements are used in particle form as fuel additives to boost the blast of thermobaric bombs or grenades.

Thermobaric, or fuel-air energy (FAE), explosives work in two stages. The shell, or container, is burst open to spread the combusting agent as a fine aerosol, then this is ignited, creating an overpressure blast wave traveling at 3000 metres per second, and burning all available oxygen in the process.

The GlobalSecurity website describes the effect of a thermobaric bomb: "Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, and thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness. The destruction, death, and injury are caused by the blast wave."

Enhanced performance is achieved by adding excess metals to the explosive composition, aluminum and magnesium being the metals of choice.

A report on the Defense Technology website says that instead of shrapnel/fragment injuries a thermobaric device produces blast effects. "Each tissue type, when interacting with the blast wave, is compressed, stretched, sheared or disintegrated by overload according to its material properties. Internal organs that contain air (sinuses, ears, lungs and intestines) are particularly vulnerable to blast."


"Six rounds in three seconds... I thought this thing was sick."

Russian made RPO-A: 2.1 kg thermobaric.

The US uses dinky 40mm thermobaric grenades developed for the war against 'terror' in Afghanistan. Is it too big a stretch of the imagination to suppose they are being supplied for use in places like Gaza? These little beauties produce "a thermobaric overpressure blast rather than fragmentation. As a result of the thermobaric reaction, all enemy personnel within the effective radius will suffer lethal effects as opposed to the conventional fragmentation round."

The grenades look like cannon shells and are fired from a lumpy, aggressive looking shoulder weapon with a multi-chambered revolving cylinder. "You can put six rounds on target in under three seconds," one Marine Corps corporal said. "I thought this thing was sick." Just the job, then, for eliminating Qassam rocketeers and their families and friends and anyone else who happens to get in the way....

In the victim cases examined, the weapon used left no traces visible to the naked eye or detectable by instruments commonly used in hospitals and emergency wards. This makes it all the more difficult to provide proper care for the wounded. "These weapons do not leave fragments on/in the victims' bodies and this fact already puts them outside established conventions of war, regardless of whether they are used against military or civilians," say the doctors.

According to Geneva Conventions (Protocol on Non-Detectable Fragments), "it is prohibited to use any weapon the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays."

Of course none of this is news to the arms industry. But it's time the public – who pay for the development of such weapons and could one day find themselves on the wrong end – knew more about it.

Thankfully, here in Britain we seem to be a bit queasier about prohibited weaponry than our thermobarbaric allies. Rumour has it that our enlightened government has opted for 'enhanced blast explosives technology', which is designed to fully comply with international humanitarian law. How thoughtful. Let's hope women, children and old folk on the receiving end appreciate the difference.

I suppose this is as near as Britain gets these days to taking a moral lead.
=http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20080305085806128


Stuart Littlewood is a business consultant turned writer and photographer living in England. He is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For details please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk


Also see:
What Types of Gruesome Weapons Did Israel Use in Lebanon?
www.uruknet.info/?p=26044

Israelis Rain Down Deadly DU On Lebanese Civilians
www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/290706deadlydu.htm

IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=5143



Go to 12872
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=8169
Moscow becomes world's billionaire capital - Forbes
RIA Novosti – March 6, 2008

Moscow now has 74 billionaires with average wealth of $5.9 bln, placing it above New York, Forbes Magazine said in its annual rich list published on Thursday.

According to the list, New York has 71 billionaires, followed by London with 36, Istanbul with 34, and Hong Kong with 30.

Russia is second only to the United States in the number of its super-rich. An additional 35 Russians have crossed the $1 bln mark in the past year, helped along by the continued rise of the ruble against the dollar.

"Sixteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia, with 87 billionaires, is the new No. 2 country behind the U.S., easily overtaking Germany, with 59 billionaires, which held the honour for six years," said Forbes associate editor Luisa Kroll.

The Unites States accounts for 469 (42%) of the world's billionaires.

Topping the list of Russia's billionaires is Oleg Deripaska with $28 bln, placing him ninth in the world, ahead of the more famous Roman Abramovich with $23.5 bln, in 15th place.

Deripaska's holding company Basic Element owns huge assets in insurance, auto manufacture, and aluminum, while Abramovich, since selling his oil company Sibneft to Russian state-controlled gas giant Gazprom in 2005, has bought up steel and mining assets. He also owns Chelsea Football Club.

Russia's richest woman remains Elena Baturina, the 45-year-old second wife of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, 71. Forbes estimates that she has added $1.1 bln to her personal wealth in the past year, bringing it up to $4.2 bln and putting her in 253rd place globally.

Baturina founded Inteko in 1991, which became Moscow's largest construction firm in the years after her husband became mayor. In late 2006 she sued the Russian edition of Forbes over a cover story.

The world's richest man this year is U.S. investor and philanthropist Warren Buffet, ousting his friend Bill Gates from the top spot, which the Microsoft founder had held for 13 years. The two reportedly play regular games of online bridge together, and Buffet has pledged most of his wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a charity focused on healthcare improvement and poverty reduction.

Buffet's wealth has shot up to $62 bln with the stock growth of his holding Berkshire Hathaway, while Gates is now worth $58 bln, $2 bln more than last year, putting him in third place. In second place is Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim with an estimated $60 bln.
=http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080306/100793187.html



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http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=8175
Werner Von Braun’s Predictions

Flashclub – January 24, 2008

The pioneer rocket scientist laying on his death bed confided in Dr. Carol Rosin his fears about the weaponization of space. He identified the scare tactics that would convince the public to accept that space-based weapons need to be built.
He made this prediction in the early 70's what these artificial threats would consist of:

1. Russians / Communists
2. Terrorists
3. Third-world Country "Crazies" / Axis of Evil / Nations of Concern
4. Asteroids
5. Aliens (extraterrestrials)

[I strongly advise you to visit Dr. Greer's web site at www.disclosureproject.org .
The information there is mind-boggling, Wes Penre]


* * *

Dr Carol Rosin was the first woman corporate manager of Fairchild Industries and was spokesperson for Wernher Von Braun in the last years of his life. She founded the Institute for Security and Cooperation in Outer Space in Washington DC and has testified before Congress on many occasions about space based weapons. Von Braun revealed to Dr Rosin a plan to justify weapons in spaced based on hoaxing an extraterrestrial threat. She was also present at meetings in the '70s when the scenario for the Gulf War of the '90s was planned.

CR: Dr Carol Rosin
SG: Dr Steven Greer

CR: My name is Carol Rosin. I am an educator who became the first woman corporate manager of an Aerospace Company, Fairchild Industries.

I am a Space and Missile Defense Consultant and have consulted to a number of companies, organizations, and government departments, even the intelligence community. I was a consultant to TRW working on the MX missile, so I was part of that strategy, which turned out to be a role model for how to sell space-based weapons to the public. The MX missile is yet another weapon system that we didn't need. I founded the Institute for Security and Cooperation in Outer Space, a Washington DC based think tank. I am an author and have testified before Congress and the President's Commission on Space.

When I was a Corporate Manager of Fairchild Industries from 1974 through 1977, I met the late Dr Wernher Von Braun. We first met in early 1974. At that time, Von Braun was dying of cancer but he assured me that he would live a few more years to tell me about the game that was being played- that game being the effort to weaponize space, to control the Earth from space and space itself. Von Braun had a history of working with weapons systems. He escaped from Germany to come to this country and became a Vice President of Fairchild Industries when I had met him. Von Braun's purpose during the last years of his life, his dying years, was to educate the public and decision-makers about why space-based weapons are dumb, dangerous, destabilizing, too costly, unnecessary, unworkable, and an undesirable idea, and about the alternatives that are available.

As practically a deathbed speech, he educated me about those concepts and who the players were in this game. He gave me the responsibility, since he was dying, of continuing this effort to prevent the weaponization of outer space. When Wernher Von Braun was dying of cancer, he asked me to be his spokesperson, to appear on occasions when he was too ill to speak. I did this.

What was most interesting to me was a repetitive sentence that he said to me over and over again during the approximately four years that I had the opportunity to work with him. He said the strategy that was being used to educate the public and decision makers was to use scare tactics That was how we identify an enemy. The strategy that Wernher Von Braun taught me was that first the Russians are going to be considered to be the enemy. In fact, in 1974, they were the enemy, the identified enemy. We were told that they had "killer satellites". We were told that they were coming to get us and control us-that they were "Commies."

Then terrorists would be identified, and that was soon to follow. We heard a lot about terrorism. Then we were going to identify third-world country "crazies." We now call them Nations of Concern. But he said that would be the third enemy against whom we would build space-based weapons.

The next enemy was asteroids. Now, at this point he kind of chuckled the first time he said it.

Asteroids- against asteroids we are going to build space-based weapons.

And the funniest one of all was what he called aliens, extraterrestrials. That would be the final scare. And over and over and over during the four years that I knew him and was giving speeches for him, he would bring up that last card. "And remember Carol, the last card is the alien card. We are going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens and all of it is a lie."

I think I was too naïve at that time to know the seriousness of the nature of the spin that was being put on the system. And now, the pieces are starting to fall into place. We are building a space-based weapons system on a premise that is a lie, a spin. Wernher Von Braun was trying to hint that to me back in the early 70's and right up until the moment when he died in 1977.

What he told me was that there is an accelerated effort in place. He didn't mention a timeline but he said that it was going to be speeding up faster than anybody could possibly imagine. That the effort to put weapons into space was not only based on a lie but would accelerate past the point of people even understanding it until it was already up there and too late.

When Von Braun was dying in front of me, the very first day that I met him, he had tubes draining out of his side. He was tapping on the desk telling me, "You will come to Fairchild." I was a schoolteacher. He said, "You will come to Fairchild and you will be responsible for keeping weapons out of space." The way he said it with this intenseness in his eyes, and added that very first day, the first time I met him, that space-based weapons were a dangerous, destabilizing, too costly, unnecessary, untestable, unworkable idea.

The last card that was being held was the extraterrestrial enemy card.

The intensity with which he said that, made me realize that he knew something that he was too afraid to mention. He was too afraid to talk about it. He would not tell me the details.

I am not sure that I would have absorbed them if he had told me the details or even believed him in 1974. But there was no question that that man knew and had a need to know, I found out later.

There is no doubt in my mind that Wernher Von Braun knew about the extraterrestrial issue. He explained to me the reasons why weapons were going to be put into space, the enemies against whom we were going to build these weapons, and that all of that was a lie. He mentioned that extraterrestrials were going to be identified as the final enemy against whom we were going to build space-based weapons back in 1974.

The way he said it to me, there was no doubt in my mind that he knew something that he was too afraid to talk about.

Wernher Von Braun never spoke to me about any of the details that he knew related to extraterrestrials except that one day extraterrestrials were going to be identified as an enemy against whom we are going to build an enormous space-based weapons system. Wernher Von Braun actually told me that the spin was a lie-that the premise for space-based weaponry, the reasons that were going to be given, the enemies that we were going to identify-were all based on a lie.

I have been tracking the space-based weapons issue for about 26 years.

I have debated Generals and Congressional Representatives. I have testified before the Congress and the Senate. I have met with people in over 100 countries. But I have not been able to identify who the people are who are making this space-based weapons system happen. I see the news. I see the administrative decisions being made. I know that they are all based on lies and greed.

But I have yet to be able to identify who the people are. That is after tracking this issue for 26 years. I know that there are big secrets being kept and I know that it is time the public and decision-makers pay attention to the people who are now going to be disclosing the truth. Then we need to make some definite changes and build a system in space that will benefit every single person, and all of the animals, and the environment of this planet. The technology is there. The solutions to Earth's urgent and long-term potential problems are there. I have a feeling that once we start studying this extraterrestrial issue, all of the questions are going to be answered that I have had for 26 years.

But I have concluded that it is based on a few people making a lot of money and gaining power. It is about ego. It is not about our essence and who we really are on this planet and loving each other and being at peace and cooperating. It isn't about using technology to solve problems and heal people in the planet. It isn't about that. It is about a few people who really are playing an old, dangerous, costly game for their own pocketbooks and power struggle. That is all it is.

I believe that this entire space-based weapons game is initiated right here in the United States of America. What I hope is that with this information that is being disclosed, the new administration will to do what is right. That is to transform the war game into a space game so that we use the technologies that are available not just as spin-offs of war technology, but as direct technological applications to build a cooperative space system that will benefit the entire world and that will allow us to communicate with the extraterrestrial cultures that are obviously out there.

Who would benefit from these space-based weapons? They are the people who work in that arena, people in the military, in industries, in universities and labs, in the intelligence community. This is not just in the United States but it is worldwide. This is a worldwide cooperative system. Wars are cooperative. Just as peace will be when it breaks out. But right now there are a lot of people benefiting.

This is what our economy has been based on in this country and spreading around the world-war. People suffer as a result. It is not fair. It never has been. People have screamed: "out of swords let us build plow shares, let's have peace and hold hands around the world," but it hasn't worked because too many people are benefiting. Not only are they benefiting financially, but from what my experience is there are people who actually believe that Armageddon should happen so we have to have these wars.

So, it is going from the pocketbook, to the religious right: some people actually believe that we have to have wars for these religious reasons. There are people who just love war. I have met warriors who just love to go to war. Then there are the good people, the soldiers, who just take orders. They have to feed their children and send them to college so they want to keep their jobs.

People in laboratories have told me that they don't want to work on these technologies for war but if they don't they won't get a paycheck. Who is going to pay them? But what I see is that there are not only dual uses for these technologies but there are many uses for the same technologies.

We can build space hospitals, schools, hotels, laboratories, farms, industries. It may sound far out but if we don't do that we are going to build battle stations and weapons pointed down all of our throats and into space. Apparently we have been doing some of that already.

We have a choice now that can be made. We can all benefit-all of the people in the military industrial complex, in the intelligence community, in universities and labs, in the United States and all over the world-we can all benefit. We can just transform that industry so easily with just a decision based on our highest consciousness, our spirituality, and on the fact that we have no choice unless we all want to die. And we don't. So we can all benefit financially, spiritually, socially, psychologically; it is technologically and politically feasible to transform this game now and everybody will benefit.

In 1977, I was at a meeting in Fairchild Industries in a conference room called the War Room. In that room were a lot of charts on the walls with enemies, identified enemies. There were other more obscure names, names like Saddam Hussein and Khadafi. But we were talking then about terrorists, the potential terrorists. No one had ever talked about this before but this was the next stage after the Russians against whom we were going to build these space-based weapons. I stood up in this meeting and I said, "Excuse me, why are we talking about these potential enemies against whom we are going to build space-based weapons if, in fact, we know that they are not the enemy at this time?"

Well, they continued the conversation about how they were going to antagonize these enemies and that at some point, there was going to be a war in the Gulf, a Gulf War. Now this is 1977, 1977! And they were talking about creating a war in the Gulf Region when there was 25 billion dollars in the space-based weapons program that had yet to be identified. It wasn't called the Strategic Defense Initiative, at least. Not until 1983. This weapons system, then, had obviously been going on for some time and I didn't know anything about. So I stood up in this meeting in 1977 and said, "I would like to know why we are talking about space-based weapons against these enemies. I would like to know more about this. Would someone please tell me what this is about?" Nobody answered. They just went on with this meeting as though I hadn't said anything.

Suddenly, I stood up in the room and said, "If nobody can tell me why you are planning a war in the Gulf when there is a certain amount of money in a budget so that you can create the next set of weapons systems that will be the beginning of the sell to the public about why we need space-based weapons, then consider this: my resignation. And you will not hear from me again!"

And nobody said a word, because they were planning a war in the Gulf and it happened exactly as they planned it, on time.

SG: Who was at this meeting?

CR: The room was filled with people in the revolving door game. There were people that I had seen once in a military uniform and other times in a gray suit and an industry outfit. These people play a revolving door game. They work as consultants, industry people, and/or military and intelligence people. They work in the industries and they revolve themselves through these doors and right into government positions.

I stood up in this meeting and asked if I was hearing correctly. That when there was 25 billion dollars expended in the space-based weapons budget, that there was going to be a war in the Gulf, stimulated, created, so that they could then sell the next phase of weapons to the public and the decision-makers. This war was going to be created so that they could dump the old weapons and create a whole new set of weapons. So I had to resign from that position. I could no longer work in that industry.

In about 1990 I was sitting in my living room looking at the money that had been spent on space-based weapons research and development programs and I realized that it had come to that number, about 25 billion dollars, and I said to my husband, "I am now going to stop everything. I am now going to stop and sit and watch CNN television and I am going to wait for the war to happen." My husband said, "Well, you have finally gone over the edge. You have flipped out."
Friends said, "You have really gone too far this time. There is not going to be a war in the Gulf, nobody is talking about a war in the Gulf."

I said, "There is going to be a war in the Gulf. I am going to sit here and wait for the war in the Gulf." And it happened right on schedule.

As part of the war game in the Gulf, we in the public were told that the United States was successful in shooting down Russian Scud Missiles. We were rationalizing new budgets based on that success. In fact, we found out later, after the budgets were approved for the next phase of weapons, that it was a lie. We did not have successful shoot-downs the way we were told. It was all a lie, just to get more money put in the budget to make more weapons.

I was one of the first people to go independently to Russia when I heard that they had "killer satellites."

[See the testimony of Dr Paul Czysz. SG]

When I went to Russia in the early 70's, I found out that they didn't have killer satellites, that it was a lie. In fact, the Russian leaders and people wanted peace. They wanted to cooperate with the United States and with the people of the world.

Another time I called Saddam Hussein when he was lighting his oil fields on fire. My husband was in the kitchen while I was making this phone call. I got a call back from his First Attaché with Saddam Hussein nearby and he asked, "Are you a reporter? Are you an agent?

Why do you want to know?"

I said, "No. I am just a citizen who helped to start the movement to prevent the weaponization of outer space and I have found that a lot of stories that I have been told about weapons systems and the enemies are not true. I wanted to find out what would satisfy Saddam Hussein so he would stop making these oil fields catch fire and stop antagonizing people." He said, "Well, nobody has ever asked him that question, what he wants."

So, when I hear that there is a possible threat of extraterrestrials-and I look at the history of thousands of years of possible ET visitations, and hear the disclosures of honest military-intelligence- industry people who have had experiences with UFO's, with crashes and landings, with live and dead bodies of extraterrestrial beings-I know it is a lie. And if I am ever told that these are enemies against whom we have to build space-based weapons systems, based on my own personal experience of having worked in the military industrial complex on weapons systems and military strategy, I am going to know it is a lie.

It is a lie.

Not only will I not believe it, but I am going to go out as loudly as I can and tell everyone to take a look. They [the ET's] have not taken us away yet. We are still here after thousands of years of visits. If in fact they are still visiting us now and we have not been harmed then we have to look at this as something that is not a hostile occurrence.

It would be my hope and my intention to do everything I could to work with people who are working to communicate with and cooperate with these extraterrestrial beings. They are clearly not hostile. We are here. That is enough proof for me.

There is no limit to how people can choose to live on this planet. We have a chance to do that and I think that the window is closing rapidly. I don't think that we have much time in which to make that decision. We are too close in too many ways to having some horrible disaster happen, having some sort of war take place, whether it is from high technology or an exotic weapons system.

We need leadership and it has to start with the United States President and that is who we all have to reach. If you are international, if you are around the world, if you are in the United States of America, whether you are from any party, any belief system or religion- the United States Commander in Chief, the President of the United States is the person that needs to be reached.

We need to say that we want an ultimate, comprehensive, verifiable ban on all space-based weapons.

Duncan M. Roads, Editor, NEXUS Magazine
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia.
Tel: 07 5442 9280; Fax: 07 5442 9381
www.nexusmagazine.com


"The nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end."
(Aldous Huxley)

Updated/Revised: Friday, April 29, 2005 20:28:16 –0700
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Last updated 07/03/2008



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Peak Oil - True Or False
By Stephen Lendman
3-6-8

The arguments are so one-sided, it's practically a given that "peak oil" is real and threatening. Or is it? This article examines both sides. It lets readers decide and deals only with supply issues, not crucial environmental ones and the need to develop alternative energy sources. First some background.

The name most associated with "peak oil" is M. King Hubbert. He became the world's best known geologist when he worked for Houston-based Shell Oil Company from 1943 to 1964. His theory goes something like this. Oil is a finite resource. Peak oil, or Hubbert's peak, is the point at which maximum world production is reached, after which its rate terminally declines.

Hubbert first presented his theory in a February 4, 1949 Science magazine article called "Energy from Fossil Fuels." He gained prominence, however, from his 1956 American Petroleum Institute presentation titled "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels." In it, he predicted that US production would peak between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, and he was largely right (for the wrong reasons at the time) about cheap or what's called light sweet oil.

Most analysts believe US output peaked in 1970 and has since declined. Others, like economist and author F. William Engdahl, disagree. He's been researching oil issues since the early 1970s and believes US output peaked at the time but not because of resource depletion. It's "because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap Middle East imports, tariff free, (and) at prices so low (that) many Texas domestic producers could not compete and" had to shutter their operations.

But Hubbert went further as well. He predicted a worldwide peak in "about half a century" that would progress in bell-shaped curve fashion, now called "Hubbert's curve." Here's how it works for all fossil fuels. Hubbert theorized that after discovery, production increases exponentially, but at some point peak output is reached, after which an exponential decline ensues. Hubbert's curve is symmetrical, it peaks when half of all oil (or other fossil fuel) has been produced, and there's only a single peak after which output declines.

Hubbert's analysis was at a time oil nominally cost under $3 a barrel. Inflation-adjusted that's around $23 in 2008 dollars. Today it's around $100, and some analysts see it heading much higher as the supply of cheap oil declines in the face of growing demand. True or false will only be known in the fullness of time, but consider what Hubbert, in fact, said in his 1956 paper. He estimated:

-- a "total ultimate potential reserve of 150 billion barrels of crude oil for both land and offshore areas of the United States" and acknowledged he was "in substantial agreement with Pratt's figure of 170 billion barrels....;"and

-- a potential of 1.250 trillion "barrels (for) the whole world."

So far, Hubbert was referring to what's called "light sweet" or cheap oil. But he went further as well, yet his comments have been largely ignored. He mentioned other type oils and estimated:

-- "the oil obtainable from oil shales in the United States" is one trillion barrels based on current (1956) US Geological Survey figures; outside the US, he estimated oil shale potential in Brazil at between 300 to 500 billion barrels with "negligible" amounts present in other countries;

-- the Athabaska tar sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada are the "largest known deposit(s)....in the world;" its "extractable oil content....is still not accurately known, but current estimates range from about 300 to 500 billion barrels....;" and

-- "other large (nonconventional oil) deposits of uncertain magnitude exist in eastern Venezuela and in Mesopotamia (Iraq);" these and others like them in the world "might be as much as (another) 800 billion barrels."

Hubbert then stated: "....the culmination of world (oil) production (of the cheap variety)....should occur within about half a century (and within) the United States....within the next few decades." However: "This does not necessarily imply that the United States or other parts of the industrial world will soon become destitute of liquid (oil) and gaseous fuels, because these can be produced from other fossil fuels (including tar sands, heavy and extra-heavy oils and shale) which occur in much greater abundance." In 1956, his and other estimates of their amounts were far below today's figures. More on that below.

Current Opposing Views on Peak Oil

The German-based Energy Watch Group (EWG) believes peak oil is real. It's an "international network of scientists and parliamentarians" that published an October 2007 report with that view. It stated world oil production peaked in 2006, output is now declining by several percent a year, and by 2020 to 2030 global oil reserves will be substantially lower than today and a supply gap will exist.

Daniel Yergin's Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) disagrees. Its analysis finds that "the remaining global oil resource base is actually 3.74 trillion barrels - three times as large as the (claimed) 1.2 trillion barrels by (peak oil) proponents." CERA argues further that peak oil reasoning is faulty and, "if accepted, (may) distort critical policy and investment decisions and cloud the debate over the energy future." It states as well that the "global resource base of conventional and unconventional oils....is 4.82 trillion barrels and likely to grow" and bases its analysis on fields now in production and those "yet-to-be produced or discovered."

Its chairman, Daniel Yergin, noted that: "This is the fifth time that the world is said to be running out of oil. Each time....technology and the opening of new frontier areas has banished the specter of decline. There's no reason to think that technology is finished this time."

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (AIE) agrees. It's an energy policy advisor to its 27 member countries that was founded by the OECD in 1974 in the wake of that period's oil crisis. It believes peak oil notions are extreme, says there's "no shortage of available oil and gas in the ground," but new technologies must be found to curb "the world's thirst for them (and to) tap reserves" to increase production. AIE believes as much as 10 trillion barrels of "oil equivalent" conventional oil and gas exist and at least as much non-conventional oil.

In a 2005 report it stated that: "The hydrocarbon resources in place around the world are sufficiently abundant to sustain likely growth in the global energy system for the foreseeable future. The doomsayers are again conveying grim messages through (the media). The AIE has long maintained that none of this is cause for concern."

AIE considers all type oils - the easy to find and produce "light sweet" kind that's likely running out plus potentially huge untapped deposits of heavier oils that will become more important when it does. With this in mind, the Middle East doesn't have two-thirds of world oil reserves as many analysts, the industry, and US Department of Energy claim. It has two-thirds of "proved" cheap oil reserves.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) collects data on all type oils and estimates their amounts. For the year 2000, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and oil industry estimated remaining "proved" light sweet reserves at slightly over one trillion barrels. USGS, however, placed "identified" reserves at 1.1 trillion barrels and "recoverable" reserves at nearly 2.3 trillion or more than double the industry and DOE amounts. In addition, USGS estimates combined non-conventional heavy and tar sands deposits at around 4.250 trillion barrels with about 3.6 trillion of them in the two countries with most of them - Canada and Venezuela.

Other "unconventional" oil estimates differ widely, so take your choice on who to believe. Dutch economists Peter Odell and Kenneth Rosing had an earlier view in their 1980 book "The Future of Oil." They noted predictions of total world reserves ranged from two to 11 trillion barrels and said three trillion was "the more realistic figure" for conventional oil plus another two trillion from unconventional heavy oil and tar sands.

Petroleum Economist magazine calls itself "the authority on energy." It says tar (or oil) sands reserves are huge, they occur in over 70 countries, and Canada has most of them (around 81%) in four regions: Athabasca, Wabasca, Cold lake and Peace River in areas covering around 77,000 km. It estimates technically recoverable reserves at between 280 - 300 billion barrels with total non-recoverable (based on current technology) amounts at between 1.7 - 2.5 trillion barrels. Other than shale, USGS categorizes oil as light, heavy, extra-heavy and natural bitumen or tar/oil sands.

Some analysts believe oil sands can replace conventional oil when its supply runs out while others disagree. One of them is Richard Heinberg, who's written extensively on ecological and peak oil issues. He says that although estimated oil sands reserves equal or exceed all conventional oil extracted to date, processing them reduces their potential for reasons geologist Walter Youngquist explains: because "it takes the equivalent of two out of each three barrels of oil recovered to pay for all the energy and other costs involved in getting oil from the oil sands."

Then, there's the environmental cost. It takes two tons of sand mined to yield one barrel of oil, and extracting it requires huge amounts of natural gas and water. In addition, each barrel recovered yields 2.5 barrels of oily waste that must be disposed of. It's done by pumping it into huge ponds, and Heinberg describes a Syncrude Canada Ltd. one that's 14 miles in circumference in which 20 feet of murky water floats on a 130-foot-thick slurry of sand, silt, clay and unrecovered oil.

It's nightmarish and so environmentally destructive that northern Alberta residents want all oil sands plants shuttered because they've displaced native people, destroyed boreal forests, caused livestock deaths and increased the level of miscarriages. Moreover, Heinberg believes it would take about 700 plants the size of a Syncrude Athabasca one to process enough tar sands to replace conventional oil, and their environmental damage would be unimaginable and too great a cost to bear.

Another resource assessment comes from Petroleum Equities. It's a management consulting firm specializing in oil and gas exploration and production. It estimates combined heavy oil and tar sands worldwide reserves at around 5.4 trillion barrels with 80% of them in the western hemisphere.

For extra-heavy oil alone, the US Department of Energy (on its web site) estimates Venezuela has 1.36 trillion barrels, or 90% of the world total. That's more than all "proved" world reserves combined and in addition to Venezuela's "proved" light sweet resources of around 80 billion barrels that alone ranks it seventh in the world behind the five largest Middle East producers and Canada.

Potential Arctic Oil Reserves

On its web site (arcticoag.com), the Arctic Oil and Gas Corporation states it's "an oil exploration venture company that has filed for the exclusive exploitation, development, marketing and extraction rights to the oil and gas resources of the seafloor and subsurface contained within the 'Arctic Claims.' " It calls the Arctic "the last giant oil frontier on Earth (with its) vast reserves of untapped oil and natural gas (that will) become accessible (when) new deep-sea drilling and hydrocarbons production technology (is) available."

In addition, it states that a preliminary USGS assessment "suggests the Arctic seabed may hold as much as 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves (or around 400 billion barrels of oil alone.)" It further says that Arctic oil source rocks may contain "untold billions of tons of organic sediments" and calls the 80 million acre Arctic Ocean Commons Prospect Claim "the world's largest (potential) material prize."

Here's what USGS, in fact, said in October 2007. It called the above claim "a reporter's mistake" but doesn't rule out that it's true. It explained that the 25% figure came from an assessment of seven oil and gas basins that weren't precisely in the Arctic. One of them in East Siberia lies entirely south of it. Exclude it and what's left is 14%. However, because a 2000 USGS assessment didn't include undiscovered resources from all north of the Arctic basins (numbering many more than seven), the area's potential is vast but undetermined.

USGS explained that it didn't fully assess the area in 2000 because it lacked enough data at the time. However, it's now investigating all Arctic regions, using available geologic information and "a methodology adapted to a general shortage of well and seismic data." USGS concludes that the region's potential is vast, it's largely unexplored, its resources are "poorly understood," and it can only produce a "broad view" of the region's potential "because the (area's) geologic uncertainties are very high and the technical uncertainties (of) oil and gas extraction (feasibility) even higher."

Two Notable Peak Oil Proponents

There's no shortage of peak oil proponents, many are prominent figures, two among them stand out, and one is a media regular on his views, right or wrong. He's Matthew Simmons, chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company, an industry-insider, close associate of Dick Cheney and advisor and possible secret member of Cheney's Energy Task Force representing Big Oil interests. He's also a major Republican donor and author of the 2005 book "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy."

In it, Simmons is alarmist about the world's largest producing country, and he's widely heard and believed. Right or wrong, he states that Saudi oil fields are "at or very near (their) peak sustainable volume (and they'll) likely....go into decline in the very foreseeable future." In addition, there's little chance of discovering new fields to make up the difference. These views make headlines and move markets. So with oil prices around $100 a barrel and Simmons an industry insider and prominent doomsayer, consider the possibility there's something rotten in the oil patch allowing Big Oil to profit hugely.

Further confirmation comes from a February 28 Arabian Business article. In it, Simmons calls $100 oil "cheap" because "the supply is showing some very troubling signs that we might well have already peaked and started (to slow) down....Demand on the other hand shows absolutely no sign of slowing down," so oil prices could top $300 a barrel within five years." Simmons repeats this view on US television.

Geologist Colin Campbell is another peak oil proponent and author of many papers on the subject. He's just as bleak in his outlook and states it in "The Coming Oil Crisis and Oil Depletion - The Heart of the Matter," that he wrote for The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO). He's their founder, former president and currently their honorary chairman.

Campbell believes world output peaked, and in another of his papers, "Peak Oil: an Outlook on Crude Oil Depletion," stated: Peak Oil "is a turning point for Mankind, which will affect everyone....its discovery peaked in the 1960s....gas....will likely peak around 2020....non-conventional oil delays peak only a few years....we're not facing a re-run of the (1970s) Oil Shocks. They were like....tremors....we now face (an) earthquake....It is not a temporary interruption but the onset of a permanent new condition."

Campbell also wrote "Understanding Peak Oil" on APSO's web site in which he further says that debating the precise date of peak oil "misses the point." What really matters is "the long remorseless decline (that's) on the other side of it. The transition to decline threatens to be a time of great international tension. Petroleum Man will be virtually extinct this Century, and Homo sapiens faces a major challenge in adapting to his loss. Peak Oil is by all means an important subject." These type comments and more from Campbell's 2005 book "Oil Crisis" can scare anyone. They also explain today's geopolitics, the strategic importance of oil, the reason its price is so high, and why the US is waging global wars "that won't end in our lifetime."

A Peak Oil Contrarian

F. William Engdahl once accepted peak oil analysis, but no longer does. He explains why in his writing, and this section summarizes his reasoning. It's based on the Russian-Ukrainian theory that oil originated from deep carbon deposits dating as far back as the earth's formation. It's not a fossil fuel or of biological origin, and its potential may be far greater than current hydrocarbon estimates.

According to Engdahl and others sharing this view, peak oil adherents believe oil is a fossil fuel, its origin is biological, its supply finite, and it's only found in areas where it was "geologically trapped millions of years ago....in underground reservoirs (around) 4-6000 feet below the surface of the earth." At times, large amounts may also be in shallow water offshore rock formations in places like the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea or Gulf of Guinea. In any event, prevailing reasoning is that it's running out, and it's a just a matter of deciding how much is left and when it no longer will be available in amounts needed to sustain world economies. Peak oil proponents believe the time is fast approaching.

Petroleum science dates from the year 1757 when Russian scholar Mikhailo Lomonosov hypothesized that oil's origin might be biological. In the early 19th century, two scientists disagreed - German naturalist and geologist Alexander von Humboldt and French chemist and thermodynamicist Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac. Together they proposed that oil is primordial matter, it erupted from deep within the earth, and it has no connection to biological material nearer the surface. Later in the century, others held similar views - most notably the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (the father of the Periodic Table of chemical elements) and French chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Mendeleev, in particular, believed that "petroleum was born in the depths of the earth (called "deep faults"), and it is only there that we must seek its origin."

Modern petroleum science dates from the end of WW II when the Cold War began and the former Soviet Union faced isolation from the West. At the time, its scientists believed the country was in trouble. It had limited reserves and was shut out of many parts of the world for supply. It thus became imperative to find new deposits inside the country.

So its scientists at the Institute of the Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Ukraine Academy of Sciences set out to do it. They studied oil's origin, how reserves are generated, and the most effective exploration methods to extract it.

In 1951, Nikolai Kudryavtsev proposed the first modern deep abiotic oil origins theory at the All-Union petroleum geology congress. He discounted claims about oil's biological origin and was joined by other Russian and Ukrainian geologists, including Vladimir Porfir'yev.

In 1956, Porfir'yev announced their conclusions that even now are largely unacknowledged in the West: that "Crude oil and natural petroleum have no intrinsic connection with biological matter originating near the surface of the earth." They're "primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths," and believing their supply is limited is a hoax to keep prices high at times like now.

The theory rests on the abiotic origin of oil. It's mirror opposite orthodox geology, and, if right, here's what it means - that available oil is only limited by deep earth organic hydrocarbon constituents at the time of the planet's formation, and technological advances will eventually tap them in ultra-deep reservoirs and from old fields believed to be barren.

The theory defies conventional science, but it's paying off. It let Soviet Russia develop huge oil and gas fields in regions previously thought unsuitable. In the 1990s, it was also successfully used in the Dnieper-Donets Basin between Russia and Ukraine in areas considered barren. Sixty-one wells were drilled of which 37 (60%) proved out. Engdahl compares this to US wildcat drilling that produces 90% dry holes.

Russia's success was largely unknown in the West until Pentagon strategists, just recently, considered a disturbing possibility - that the country's geophysicists might know "something of profound strategic importance." If Russian energy know-how exceeds the West, it holds "a strategic trump card of staggering geopolitical import." It also explains why Washington surrounds the country with military bases and targets it with anti-ballistic missiles and radar for offense, not defense. It's "to cut her pipeline and port links to western Europe, China and the rest of Eurasia" as part of a new millennium Great Game to control the world's resources.

In the 1990s, Russia extended its technology to the West, but its offers were spurned and then withdrawn after the US attacked Iraq. Nonetheless, ExxonMobil nearly got a $25 billion stake in Yukos Oil that only unraveled after its chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky's arrest and conviction quashed the deal. Had it gone through, Exxon would have had access to the world's largest resource of abiotic-trained deep drilling experts, now unavailable to their scientists and the West.

It now comes down to this. Western technology is built around fossil fuel development. If the future is abiotic, as Engdahl and Russian scientists believe, "Moscow holds a massive energy trump card." It also faces a hostile US and possible new Cold War confrontation for its advantage and unwillingness to be accommodative the way Boris Yeltsin was in the 1990s.

If abiotic theory proves false or overrated, however, and orthodox geology is right, then controlling world oil reserves is even more important. It means peak oil is real, cheap oil is running out, heavier oils are more important, and cornering what's left will be Priority One for all major world powers.

There you have it - peak oil or vast untapped amounts of the abiotic kind awaiting new technology to access it. Readers can weigh the evidence, find more on their own, and decide what's true or false. In the fullness of time we'll know, but for now we must rely on our best judgment with plenty of ammunition on both sides of the argument to consider.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of major world and national topics with distinguished guests.

=http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8220


Comment
Mary

Here are a couple of key articles on 'Peak Oil' which are well worth reading:
Russia Proves 'Peak Oil' Is A Scam
Go to 12869
http://www.rense.com/general75/zoil.htm

Oil Is NOT A 'Fossil' Fuel - It Is Abiotic
Go to 12868
http://www.rense.com/general67/oils.htm



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