De ware aard van de oorlog tegen het terrorisme...

quote:

- "The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power." (p. xiii)

- "But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book." (p. xiv)

- "For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia" Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." (p.30)

- "America's withdrawal from the world or because of the sudden emergence of a successful rival - would produce massive international instability. It would prompt global anarchy." (p. 30)

- "In that context, how America manages' Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)

- Referring to an area he calls the "Eurasian Balkans" and a 1997 map in which he has circled the exact location of the current conflict - describing it as the central region of pending conflict for world dominance - Brzezinski writes: "Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold." (p.124) [Emphasis added]

- "The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125)

- "It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it." (p148)

- "China's growing economic presence in the region and its political stake in the area's independence are also congruent with America's interests." (p.149)

- "America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe's central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and to America's historical legacy." (p.194)

- "Without sustained and directed American involvement, before long the forces of global disorder could come to dominate the world scene. And the possibility of such a fragmentation is inherent in the geopolitical tensions not only of today's Eurasia but of the world more generally." (p.194)

- "With warning signs on the horizon across Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a Geostrategic design." (p.197)

- "That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America's primacy." (p. 198)

- "The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." (p. 198)

- "In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)

- "Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211) [Emphasis added]


Bron: A War in the Planning for Four Years

ps: ja ik het het boek ook zelf gelezen

quote:

One of the possible strategic reasons for the USA to attack Iraq in 2003 was securing future oil supplies. Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves, and much of it is also relatively cheap to extract and refine.

This strategy was designed by the organisation "Project for the New American Century”, among their members are Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.

The attack upon Iraq is seen by some as part of a wider post 2001 redeployment of American forces, organised by Donald Rumsfeld to the Middle East and the oil rich Caspian basin.

However, the effectiveness of this military strategy has yet to be demonstrated, since the rate of rebuilding oil infrastructure has not greatly outpaced internal sabotage in Iraq.

Bron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_United_States

quote:

The Energy Task Force is commonly known as the Cheney Energy Task Force after Vice President of the United States of America and former CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney.

In his second week in office George W. Bush created the task force, officially known as the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) with Dick Cheney as chairman. This group was supposed to develop an energy policy for the Bush administration. With both Bush and Cheney coming from the energy industry, which had contributed heavily to their campaign, and with the group proceeding in extreme secrecy, critics charged that the energy industry was exercising undue influence over national policy.

Congressmen Henry Waxman and John Dingell prompted the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, to pursue Congress's oversight authority. Eventually the GAO filed a lawsuit known as Walker v. Cheney against the administration. This represented a power struggle between the legislative and executive branches. Judge John D. Bates, a recent Bush appointee, dismissed the case.

The activities of the Energy Task Force remain classified, even though Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (since 19 April 2001) have sought to gain access to its materials. The organisations Judicial Watch and Sierra Club launched a law suit (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia: Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) under the FOIA to gain access to the task force's materials. On 5 March 2002 the US Government was ordered to make a full disclosure; this has not happened, pending appeal. In the Summer of 2003 a partial disclosure of these materials was made by the Commerce Department.

What was obtained were maps and charts, dated March 2001, of Iraq's, Saudi Arabia's and United Arab Emirates' oil fields, pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals and development projects.

Bron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_task_force

quote:

Op donderdag 9 november 2006 19:46 schreef problematiQue het volgende:
goed artikel over dit onderwerp

quote:

Op donderdag 9 november 2006 20:30 schreef meurdoos het volgende:
Die tegenlicht docu's hierover zijn echt de bom

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/

quote:

Europa op de knieen voor Poetin - deel 1

De ex-Sovjet Staten, controle over de exportpijpleidingen naar Europa.

Na Wit Rusland, Armenië, Litouwen, Estland, Letland, Moldavië en Oekraïne is nu Georgië aan de beurt. De boodschap is helder, zodra er een leveringscontract voor aardgas afloopt dwingt Rusland haar “klanten” tot een keuze. Of je betaalt steeds meer, tot aan de Europese marktprijs van 250 dollar per duizend kubieke meter, of je geeft een stuk van je infrastructuur, vrijwel gratis, aan Rusland. Het doel is tweeledig, ten eerste wil Rusland zoveel mogelijk controle krijgen over haar exportpijpleidingen naar Europa die ze door de val van de Sovjetunie verloren is. Ten tweede heeft Rusland veel meer inkomsten nodig, om moeilijk winbare gasreserves af te tappen omdat de productie in haar grote oude gasvelden hard terugloopt. Poetin weet dat de ex-Sovjet staten de marktprijs niet kunnen betalen en dus wel door de knieën moeten gaan. Hieronder een overzicht van de ontwikkelingen in de afgelopen twee jaar.

Bron: Europa op de knieen voor Poetin - deel 1

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Yukos-concurrent achter onbekende bieder

zondag 19 december 2004

De winnaar van de veiling van de productiedivisie van de Russische oliegigant Yukos is naar alle waarschijnlijkheid verbonden aan een concurrent, olieproducent Surgutneftegaz. Heel verrassend kocht de onbekende Baikalfinansgroup zondag 19 december op een veiling Yuganskneftegaz, de belangrijkste dochteronderneming van Yukos. De Baikalfinansgroup heeft 7 miljard euro voor het bedrijf betaald.

Bron: http://www.elsevier.nl/ni(...)tnr/17418/index.html

quote:

Yukos toch in handen van Russische staat

donderdag 23 december 2004

De Russische president Vladimir Poetin is de grote winnaar in de strijd om oliegigant Yukos. Het staatsbedrijf Rosneft is eigenaar geworden van Yuganskneftegaz, de productiedivisie van Yukos.

Rosneft nam donderdag 23 december het onderdeel over van het onbekende investeringsbedrijf Baikalfinansgroup, dat Yuganskneftegaz zondag op een veiling voor 9,35 miljard dollar had gekocht. Hoeveel Rosneft voor het belangrijkste Yukos-onderdeel heeft neergeteld, is niet bekendgemaakt.

Bron: http://www.elsevier.nl/ni(...)tnr/18191/index.html

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Baikalfinansgrup

Baikalfinansgrup (Russian: Байкалфинансгруп) is a Russian limited liability company owned by Rosneft Oil Company. It is best known as the company that won the December 19, 2004 auction for a 76.79% share in Yuganskneftegaz, formerly the core production subsidiary of Yukos Oil Company. Baikalfinansgrup won the auction with a bid of 261 billion rubles (US $9.3 bn), which was somewhere between 37-49% of Yuganskneftegaz’ market value at the time, according to an appraisal made by Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and JPMorgan Chase & Co. [1].

Profile

Baikalfinansgrup was created on December 6, 2004, just two weeks before the Yuganskneftegaz auction, with a share capital of 10,000 rubles ($358 US). Its original registered address was in the north-western Russian city of Tver in a building that houses a vodka bar, a mobile phone shop, a tour operator agency and the offices of several small local companies, but no office of Baikalfinansgrup. Baykalfinansgrup later moved its legal address to the head office of Rosneft Oil Company, which is situated on Sofiyskaya Embankment directly opposite the Kremlin.

Despite its obscurity, Baikalfinansgrup was able to secure a credit of US $1.7 bn from the state-owned Sberbank savings bank as a down-payment for participating in the auction.

On December 21, 2004, Russian president Vladimir Putin admitted that he knew the owners of Baikalfinansgrup. Putin did not disclose their names but noted that they were individuals with ‘many years of experience in the energy business’.

Bron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikalfinansgroup

quote:

Arrested oil tycoon passed shares to banker

LONDON (Agence France-Presse) — Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Sunday Times reported.

Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. Rothschild, 67, under a "previously unknown arrangement" designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares, it said. Mr. Khodorkovsky, 40, whom Russian authorities arrested at gunpoint and jailed pending further investigation last week, was said by the Sunday Times to have made the arrangement with Mr. Rothschild when he realized he was facing arrest.

Mr. Rothschild now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost $13.5 billion, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Moscow. Mr. Khodorkovsky owns 4 percent of Yukos directly and 22 percent through a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, according to Russian analysts. From the figures reported in the Sunday Times, it appeared Mr. Rothschild had received control of all Mr. Khodorkovsky's shares. The two have known each other for years "through their mutual love of the arts" and their positions as directors of the Open Russia Foundation, Yukos' philanthropic branch, it said.

Russian authorities Thursday froze billions of dollars of shares held by Mr. Khodorkovsky and his top lieutenants in Yukos — throwing control of the country's largest oil company into limbo and causing frenzied selling on financial markets. Russian prosecutors said owners of the shares are still entitled to dividends and retain voting rights, but can no longer sell their stakes. They said the freeze was necessary as collateral for the $1 billion that Mr. Khodorkovsky and his associates are accused of misappropriating during the 1990s. Mr. Rothschild is the British head of Europe's wealthy and influential Rothschild family, and runs his own investment empire.

Bron: http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031102-111400-3720r.htm

quote:

Op donderdag 9 november 2006 20:30 schreef meurdoos het volgende:
Die tegenlicht docu's hierover zijn echt de bom

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/

quote:

Op donderdag 9 november 2006 20:27 schreef gorgg het volgende:
Artikel uit de Economist waarom Peak Oil zeer waarschijnlijk niet voor binnenkort is:
Daarbij komt nog eens dat er een erg grote kans bestaat dat er nog grote olievelden diep in de zee onondekt zijn. Zie bv. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51837
Natuurlijk zijn deze allemaal veel duurder uit te baten, de tijd van 10$ per vat zal wel nooit meer terugkomen.

quote:

Artikel Economist

But is the world really starting to run out of oil? And would hitting a global peak of production necessarily spell economic ruin? Both questions are arguable. Despite today's obsession with the idea of “peak oil”, what really matters to the world economy is not when conventional oil production peaks, but whether we have enough affordable and convenient fuel from any source to power our current fleet of cars, buses and aeroplanes. With that in mind, the global oil industry is on the verge of a dramatic transformation from a risky exploration business into a technology-intensive manufacturing business. And the product that big oil companies will soon be manufacturing, argues Shell's Mr Van der Veer, is “greener fossil fuels”.

quote:

To see how that might happen, consider the first question: is the world really running out of oil? Colin Campbell, an Irish geologist, has been saying since the 1990s that the peak of global oil production is imminent. Kenneth Deffeyes, a respected geologist at Princeton, thought that the peak would arrive late last year.

It did not. In fact, oil production capacity might actually grow sharply over the next few years (see chart 1). Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), an energy consultancy, has scrutinised all of the oil projects now under way around the world. Though noting rising costs, the firm concludes that the world's oil-production capacity could increase by as much as 15m barrels per day (bpd) between 2005 and 2010—equivalent to almost 18% of today's output and the biggest surge in history. Since most of these projects are already budgeted and in development, there is no geological reason why this wave of supply will not become available (though politics or civil strife can always disrupt output).

quote:

Peak-oil advocates remain unconvinced. A sign of depletion, they argue, is that big Western oil firms are finding it increasingly difficult to replace the oil they produce, let alone build their reserves. Art Smith of Herold, a consultancy, points to rising “finding and development” costs at the big firms, and argues that the world is consuming two to three barrels of oil for every barrel of new oil found. Michael Rodgers of PFC Energy, another consultancy, says that the peak of new discoveries was long ago. “We're living off a lottery we won 30 years ago,” he argues.

It is true that the big firms are struggling to replace reserves. But that does not mean the world is running out of oil, just that they do not have access to the vast deposits of cheap and easy oil that are left in Russia and members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). And as the great fields of the North Sea and Alaska mature, non-OPEC oil production will probably peak by 2010 or 2015. That is soon—but it says nothing of what really matters, which is the global picture.

quote:

When the United States Geological Survey (USGS) studied the matter closely, it concluded that the world had around 3 trillion barrels of recoverable conventional oil in the ground. Of that, only one-third has been produced. That, argued the USGS, puts the global peak beyond 2025. And if “unconventional” hydrocarbons such as tar sands and shale oil (which can be converted with greater effort to petrol) are included, the resource base grows dramatically—and the peak recedes much further into the future.

quote:

It is also true that oilmen will probably discover no more “super-giant” fields like Saudi Arabia's Ghawar (which alone produces 5m bpd). But there are even bigger resources available right under their noses. Technological breakthroughs such as multi-lateral drilling helped defy predictions of decline in Britain's North Sea that have been made since the 1980s: the region is only now peaking.

Globally, the oil industry recovers only about one-third of the oil that is known to exist in any given reservoir. New technologies like 4-D seismic analysis and electromagnetic “direct detection” of hydrocarbons are lifting that “recovery rate”, and even a rise of a few percentage points would provide more oil to the market than another discovery on the scale of those in the Caspian or North Sea.

Further, just because there are no more Ghawars does not mean an end to discovery altogether. Using ever fancier technologies, the oil business is drilling in deeper waters, more difficult terrain and even in the Arctic (which, as global warming melts the polar ice cap, will perversely become the next great prize in oil). Large parts of Siberia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have not even been explored with modern kit.

quote:

The petro-pessimists' most forceful argument is that the Persian Gulf, officially home to most of the world's oil reserves, is overrated. Matthew Simmons, an American energy investment banker, argues in his book, “Twilight in the Desert”, that Saudi Arabia's oil fields are in trouble. In recent weeks a scandal has engulfed Kuwait, too. Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW), a respected industry newsletter, got hold of government documents suggesting that Kuwait might have only half of the nearly 100 billion barrels in oil reserves that it claims (Saudi Arabia claims 260 billion barrels).

Tom Wallin, publisher of PIW, warns that “the lesson from Kuwait is that the reserves figures of national governments must be viewed with caution.” But that still need not mean that a global peak is imminent. So vast are the remaining reserves, and so well distributed are today's producing areas, that a radical revision downwards—even in an OPEC country—does not mean a global peak is here.

For one thing, Kuwait's official numbers always looked dodgy. IHS Energy, an industry research outfit that constructs its reserve estimates from the bottom up rather than relying on official proclamations, had long been using a figure of 50 billion barrels for Kuwait. Ron Mobed, boss of IHS, sees no crisis today: “Even using our smaller number, Kuwait still has 50 years of production left at current rates.” As for Saudi Arabia, most independent contractors and oil majors that have first-hand knowledge of its fields are convinced that the Saudis have all the oil they claim—and that more remains to be found.

Pessimists worry that Saudi Arabia's giant fields could decline rapidly before any new supply is brought online. In Jeremy Leggett's thoughtful, but gloomy, book, “The Empty Tank”, Mr Simmons laments that “the only alternative right now is to shrink our economies.” That poses a second big question: whenever the production peak comes, will it inevitably prompt a global economic crisis?

quote:

The baleful thesis arises from concerns both that a cliff lies beyond any peak in production and that alternatives to oil will not be available. If the world oil supply peaked one day and then fell away sharply, prices would indeed rocket, shortages and panic buying would wreak havoc and a global recession would ensue. But there are good reasons to think that a global peak, whenever it comes, need not lead to a collapse in output.

For one thing, the nightmare scenario of Ghawar suddenly peaking is not as grim as it first seems. When it peaks, the whole “super-giant” will not drop from 5m bpd to zero, because it is actually a network of inter-linked fields, some old and some newer. Experts say a decline would probably be gentler and prolonged. That would allow, indeed encourage, the Saudis to develop new fields to replace lost output. Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali Naimi, points to an unexplored area on the Iraqi-Saudi border the size of California, and argues that such untapped resources could add 200 billion barrels to his country's tally. This contains worries of its own—Saudi Arabia's market share will grow dramatically as non-OPEC oil peaks, and with it the potential for mischief. But it helps to debunk claims of a sudden change.

The notion of a sharp global peak in production does not withstand scrutiny, either. CERA's Peter Jackson points out that the price signals that would surely foreshadow any “peak” would encourage efficiency, promote new oil discoveries and speed investments in alternatives to oil. That, he reckons, means the metaphor of a peak is misleading: “The right picture is of an undulating plateau.”

What of the notion that oil scarcity will lead to economic disaster? Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of the Cato Institute, an American think-tank, insist the key is to avoid the price controls and monetary-policy blunders of the sort that turned the 1970s oil shocks into economic disasters. Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor and the former chief economist of the IMF, thinks concerns about peak oil are greatly overblown: “The oil market is highly developed, with worldwide trading and long-dated futures going out five to seven years. As oil production slows, prices will rise up and down the futures curve, stimulating new technology and conservation. We might be running low on $20 oil, but for $60 we have adequate oil supplies for decades to come.”

quote:

The good news is that this is not unique. China also has deposits of heavy oil that would benefit from such an advanced approach. America, Canada and Venezuela have deposits of heavy hydrocarbons that surpass even the Saudi oil reserves in size. The Saudis have invited Chevron to apply its steam-injection techniques to recover heavy oil in the neutral zone that the country shares with Kuwait. Mr Naimi, the oil minister, recently estimated that this new technology would lift the share of the reserve that could be recovered as useful oil from a pitiful 6% to above 40%.

All this explains why, in the words of Exxon Mobil, the oil production peak is unlikely “for decades to come”. Governments may decide to shift away from petroleum because of its nasty geopolitics or its contribution to global warming. But it is wrong to imagine the world's addiction to oil will end soon, as a result of genuine scarcity. As Western oil companies seek to cope with being locked out of the Middle East, the new era of manufactured fuel will further delay the onset of peak production. The irony would be if manufactured fuel also did something far more dramatic—if it served as a bridge to whatever comes beyond the nexus of petrol and the internal combustion engine that for a century has held the world in its grip.

quote:

Op vrijdag 10 november 2006 13:06 schreef pberends het volgende:
VS heeft toch Irak aangevallen omdat ze hun olie in euro's wilden verhandelen? En dat zou de alleenheerschappij van de Amerikaanse dollar in gevaar brengen, en dat is met name gevaarlijk omdat Amerika een groot handelstekort heeft.

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Op donderdag 9 november 2006 20:27 schreef gorgg het volgende:
Olie zal imo zeker meegespeeld hebben bij het nemen van de beslissing om Irak en Afganistan binnen te vallen. Maar dan vooral om de stroom olie naar de westerse wereld te vrijwaren, en niet om er rechtstreeks veel geld mee te verdienen. De pijplijn door Afganistan bv. is er nog steeds niet en zal er waarschijnlijk ook in de nabije toekomst niet komen.

quote:

De war on terror is volgens mij gestart omdat er terroristen zijn die aanslagen willen plegen en de paniek daarvoor na 9/11. De aanpak ervan zal best wel wat bijgestuurd worden door belangen her en der, maar de hoofddoelstelling blijft imo.

quote:

Op vrijdag 10 november 2006 14:34 schreef Pietverdriet het volgende:
Wat is nu precies het punt van TS? Dat het om de knaken draait in de wereld?
Wel wel wel
Stop de persen.

quote:

Smoking Gun: The CIA's Interest in Peak Oil

(Special to From the Wilderness)
by Richard Heinberg


Introduction Michael Ruppert

[A recently declassified 1977 CIA study on Peak Oil in the Soviet Union is a telling indicator that Peak Oil issues have been of secret concern to policy makers in the US for a long time. Here, Professor Richard Heinberg, author of the best-selling book "The Party's Over" describes what the CIA was looking at, and offers some insight as to why.

I recently discussed the CIA document with Professor Kjell Aleklett of the University of Uppsala in Sweden, who is the current President for the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (www.peakoil.net). Aleklett shed further light on the current phenomenon of large Russian oil exports by noting that the demise of the Soviet Union and Russian economic crashes of the mid-to-late 1990s effectively delayed Russia's peak for about ten years. This is the so-called "second peak" for Russia, which production graphs currently show.

What this also means is that while Russia is currently a major oil exporter, selling oil hand over fist, it will not be able to sustain either its economic recovery or its current production rates for more than a few more years. Russia's continued salvation and future economic clout will no doubt be based upon the fact that it possesses half of all the natural gas reserves on the planet. Current business and economic developments with Britain and Western Europe indicate that Europe, and especially Britain -- already experiencing severe gas shortages – are well aware of this reality.

For those who have not already read Heinberg's book "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies," I cannot encourage it enough. It is the blueprint for what is to come, even as a massive and yet unexplained power outage cripples the Northeast US and parts of Canada. Whatever the cause of this blackout it is a future-image of what is coming for all of us. FTW now has the book for sale at discount rate at www.fromthewilderness.com. It's about the best investment for your future that I can think of. – MCR]


August 15, 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW) -- A recently declassified CIA document casts new light on some of the most significant geopolitical events of the past quarter century. This document, an Intelligence Memorandum titled "The Impending Soviet Oil Crisis (ER 77-10147)," was issued in March 1977 by the Office of Economic Research and classified "Secret" until its public release in January 2001 in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. (1) Until now, the document has prompted little discussion.

The Memorandum predicts an impending peak in Soviet oil production "not later than the early 1980s" (the actual peak occurred in 1987 at 12.6 million barrels per day, following a preliminary peak in 1983 of 12.5 Mb/d). "During the next decade," the unnamed authors of the document conclude, "the USSR may well find itself not only unable to supply oil to Eastern Europe and the West on the present scale, but also having to compete for OPEC oil for its own use." The Memorandum predicts that the oil peak will have important economic impacts: "When oil production stops growing, and perhaps even before, profound repercussions will be felt on the domestic economy of the USSR and on its international economic relations."

The significance of the document requires some unpacking. First, we must understand the historical context in which it appeared.

Oil production in the US had peaked in 1970, just a few years earlier. This was arguably the most important economic event of the past half-century: until then America was the world's foremost oil producer; for much of the twentieth century it was also the world's foremost oil exporter. American oil won both World Wars for the Allies and made the US the world's richest and most powerful nation. Meanwhile, throughout most of this same period the USSR remained the world's second foremost oil-producing nation.

The American oil peak signaled the end of an era: from that point on, the US would become increasingly dependent on imports—and this dependence would entail serious costs, as became apparent with the Arab OPEC oil embargo of 1973, which sent the US economy into a tailspin. (2) Clearly, CIA analysts in 1977 understood the importance of the American oil peak and believed that a peak of petroleum production in the USSR would have similar or even graver consequences for that nation.

This much is clear and undisputable. Less clear is what was done with the information. Soon after assuming office in 1981, the Reagan Administration abandoned the established policy of pursuing détente with the Soviet Union and instead instituted a massive arms buildup; it also fomented proxy wars in areas of Soviet influence, while denying the Soviets desperately needed oil equipment and technology. Then, in the mid-1980s, Washington persuaded Saudi Arabia to flood the world market with cheap oil. Throughout the last decade of its existence, the USSR pumped and sold its oil at the maximum possible rate in order to earn foreign exchange income with which to keep up in the arms race and prosecute its war in Afghanistan. Yet with markets awash with cheap Saudi oil, the Soviets were earning less even as they pumped more. Two years after their oil production peaked, the economy of the USSR crumbled and its government collapsed.

Did the Reagan administration base its Cold War strategy on the CIA study, in the expectation that a Soviet Union economically weakened by oil depletion would collapse if pushed hard on other fronts?

That question is mostly of historical interest. But the Agency's focus on the phenomenon of oil peaks has important implications for the present. For the past decade, oil experts have been debating when global oil production will peak. Pessimists say the global peak may already have occurred in 2000; optimists say it won't come until 2025 or so. A growing consensus of petroleum geologists places this pivotal event in the mid-range period of 2006 to 2015. (3) From a certain perspective, the amount of time in dispute is not of great significance: whether we have a year or two or a decade or two before the supply of oil can no longer meet demand is relatively trivial from a historical, analytical point of view (though of considerable significance for billions of individual humans needing to make plans for the years ahead); the result in either case will be the same—a slow motion global economic and industrial collapse.

The 1977 CIA document shows clear and detailed awareness of oil issues, including depletion, extraction technologies, pipelines, areas of likely new discovery, the quality of existing reserves, and the dynamics of the global oil market. The CIA has obviously been studying oil very carefully for some time and must therefore understand the issue of global oil peak.

This begs the questions: Does the Agency have a strategy for dealing with this impending mega-event? Or is the Agency's job merely to provide information, and allow the current Administration to formulate policy?

Here we must speculate. The developing semi-public row between the neoconservatives of the present Administration and CIA insiders suggests that the Bush team's plan for invading Iraq and subsequently redrawing the map of the Middle East may not exactly coincide with Agency recommendations. We know that the Bush-Cheney team is independently aware of the issue of peak oil because international oil investment banker Matthew Simmons, who has written extensively and forcefully on depletion issues, was an advisor to Vice President Cheney's now-infamous Energy Task Force in 2001. (4)

If policy makers and their intelligence analysts understand the phenomenon of peak oil, and perhaps even used it strategically during the 1980s to undermine the Soviet Union, and are aware of the upcoming global peak, they must be interested to direct geopolitical events accordingly. What thoughts may be occurring to them in this regard?

The Middle East boasts 70% of global proven reserves of oil. Saudi Arabia has the world's largest reserves (25% of the total), and most of the 9/11 hijackers are alleged to have come from that country. Osama bin Laden is a Saudi native, and his published statements center on the project of ejecting American influence from the nation of Medina and Mecca.

If, as the neoconservatives have repeatedly hinted, Iraq is only the first stage in a larger project of regional regime change, then the real prize must lie just to the south in the giant fields east of Riyadh. One cannot help but wonder if the long-coddled Saudi government is even now being set up for a fall.

As events unfold, it will be of more than passing interest to see whether the CIA and the Bush Administration reconcile their differences, or whether the neoconservatives' hubris and ideological monomania will be their undoing.

Meanwhile, the real motives and long-term strategies of policy makers and intelligence gatherers alike will likely remain opaque to citizens who pay in blood and dollars for their government's military adventures. "The Impending Soviet Oil Crisis" gives us a rare, limited glimpse into the machinery of covert information analysis and decision-making that shape history as we live it.

Bron: http://www.fromthewildern(...)03_cia_russ_oil.html

quote:

The New Geopolitics

by Michael Klare

The war in Iraq has reconfigured the global geopolitical landscape in many ways, some of which may not be apparent for years or even decades to come. It has certainly altered the U.S. relationship with Europe and the Middle East. But its impact goes well beyond this. More than anything else, the war reveals that the new central pivot of world competition is the south-central area of Eurasia.

[knip]

This ideology disappeared to some degree during the Cold War in favor of a model of ideological competition. That is to say, geopolitical ideology appeared inconsistent with the high-minded justifications (in which “democracy” and “freedom” largely figured) given for interventions in the third world.

But really, if you study the history of the Cold War, the overt conflicts that took place were consciously framed by a geopolitical orientation from the American point of view. The United States had to control the Middle East and its oil. That was the basis of the Truman Doctrine and the Eisenhower Doctrine and the Carter Doctrine. The United States had to control parts of Africa because of its mineral wealth in copper, cobalt, and platinum. That’s why the United States backed the apartheid regime in South Africa. And the reason for both the Korean War and the Vietnam War was understood at the highest levels in terms of the U.S. interest in control of the Pacific Rim.

Today, we are seeing a resurgence of unabashed geopolitical ideology among the leadership cadres of the major powers, above all in the United States. In fact, the best way to see what’s happening today in Iraq and elsewhere is through a geopolitical prism. American leaders have embarked on the classical geopolitical project of assuring U.S. dominance of the most important resource areas, understood as the sources of power and wealth. There is an ideological consistency to what they’re doing, and it is this geopolitical mode of thinking.

Perhaps there is some question as to exactly how conscious this is, but you can see this way of thinking in the overt discourse of many contemporary leaders. Dick Cheney and some prominent neoconservatives especially, but also Democrats such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, speak in this manner. They openly state that the United States is engaged in a struggle to maintain its power vis-à-vis other contending great powers and that America must prevail.

Now, you might ask, what contending great powers? From our point of view it is far from obvious that any exist. But if you read what these folks write and hear what they say, you will find that they are absolutely obsessed by the potential emergence of rival great powers; Russia, China, a European combination of some sort, Japan, and even India.

This is the essence of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, first articulated in the Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guidance document for 1994–1999, first leaked to the press in February 1992. This document calls for proactive U.S. military intervention to deter and prevent the rise of a contending peer (or equal) competitor, and asserts that the United States must use any and all means necessary to prevent that from happening. At the time this statement was met with such howls of outrage from U.S. allies that then President Bush had to squelch the document, and it was revised to take out this language.

But this doctrine lingered in the think-tank writings of the 1990s, re-emerging as the official global military policy of the Bush II administration. It has now been incorporated as the core principle of the document known as the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (September 2002), available for download from the White House website. This document states explicitly that the ultimate purpose of American power is to prevent the rise of a competing great power, and that the United States shall use any means necessary to prevent that from happening, including preventive military force when needed, but also through spending so much money on defense that no other peer competitor can ever arise.

Against this background, it can hardly be questioned that the purpose of the war in Iraq is to redraw the geopolitical map of Eurasia so as to insure and embed American power and dominance in this region vis-E0-vis these other potential competitors.

Now let us step back for a minute and return to the classical geo-political thinking of the early part of the last century, particularly the views of Sir Halford Mackinder of Great Britain. This perspective held that Eurasia was the most important part—the “heartland” of the civilized world, and that whoever controlled this heartland by definition controlled the rest of the world because of the concentration there of population, resources, and industrial might. In classical geopolitical thinking, world politics is essentially a struggle over who will control the Eurasian heartland.

The strategists of the turn of the twentieth century saw two ways through which global dominance could arise. One was through the emergence of a continental power (or a combination of continental powers) that dominated Eurasia and was, therefore, the master of the world. It was precisely this fear—that a German-controlled continental Europe and Russia, together with a Japanese-dominated China and Southeast Asia, would merge into a vast continental power and dominate the Eurasian heartland, thereby reducing the United States to a marginal power—that galvanized American leaders at the onset of the Second World War. Franklin D. Roosevelt was deeply steeped in this mode of analysis, and it is this ideological–strategic view that triggered U.S. intervention in the Second World War.

The other approach to global dominance perceived by early twentieth century geopolitical strategists was to control the “rimlands” of Eurasia—that is, Western Europe, the Pacific Rim, and the Middle East—and thereby contain any emerging “heartland” power. After the Second World War, the United States determined that it would in fact maintain a permanent military presence in all of the rimlands of Eurasia. This is what we know of as the “containment” strategy. And it was this outlook that led to the formation of NATO, the Marshall Plan, SEATO, CENTO, and the U.S. military alliances with Japan and Taiwan. For most of the time since the Second World War, the focus was on the eastern and western ends of Eurasia—Europe and the Far East.

What is happening now, I believe, is that U.S. elites have concluded that the European and East Asian rimlands of Eurasia are securely in American hands or less important, or both. The new center of geopolitical competition, as they see it, is South-Central Eurasia, encompassing the Persian Gulf area, which possesses two-thirds of the world’s oil, the Caspian Sea basin, which has a large chunk of what’s left, and the surrounding countries of Central Asia. This is the new center of world struggle and conflict, and the Bush administration is determined that the United States shall dominate and control this critical area.

Until now, the contested rimlands of Eurasia were the base of U.S. power, while in the south-central region there was but a very modest presence of U.S. forces. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the primary U.S. military realignment has entailed the drawdown of American forces in East Asia and Europe along with the buildup of forces in the south-central region. U.S. bases in Europe are being closed, while new military bases are being established in the Persian Gulf area and in Central Asia.

It is important to note that this is a process that began before 9/11. September 11 quickened the process and gave it a popular mandate, but this was entirely serendipitous from the point of view of U.S. strategists. It was President Clinton who initiated U.S. military ties with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, and who built up the U.S. capacity to intervene in the Persian Gulf / Caspian Sea area. The U.S. victory in Iraq was not a victory of Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld; it was Clinton’s work that made this victory possible.

The war against Iraq was intended to provide the United States with a dominant position in the Persian Gulf region, and to serve as a springboard for further conquests and assertion of power in the region. It was aimed as much, if not more, at China, Russia, and Europe as at Syria or Iran. It is part of a larger process of asserting dominant U.S. power in south-central Eurasia, in the very heartland of this mega-continent.

But why specifically the Persian Gulf/Caspian Sea area, and why now? In part, this is so because this is where most of the world’s remaining oil is located—approximately 70 percent of known petroleum reserves. And you have to think of oil not just as a source of fuel—although that’s very important—but as a source of power. As U.S. strategists see it, whoever controls Persian Gulf oil controls the world’s economy and, therefore, has the ultimate lever over all competing powers.

In September 1990, then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Saddam Hussein would acquire a “stranglehold” over the U.S. and world economy if he captured Saudi Arabia’s oilfields along with those of Kuwait. This was the main reason, he testified, why the United States must send troops to the area and repel Hussein’s forces. He used much the same language in a speech last August to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I believe that in his mind it is clear that the United States must retain a stranglehold on the world economy by controlling this area. This is just as important, in the administration’s view, as retaining America’s advantage in military technology.

Ten years from now, China is expected to be totally dependent on the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea area for the oil it will need to sustain its economic growth. Europe, Japan, and South Korea will be in much the same position. Control over the oil spigot may be a somewhat cartoonish image, but it is an image that has motivated U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War and has gained even more prominence in the Bush-Cheney administration.

This region is also the only area in the world where the interests of the putative great powers collide. In the hotly-contested Caspian Sea area, Russia is an expanding power, China is an expanding power, and the United States is an expanding power. There is no other place in the world like this. They are struggling with one another consciously and actively. The Bush administration is determined to dominate this area and to subordinate these two potential challengers and prevent them from forming a common front against the United States. (For more on the emerging power struggle in the Caspian Sea basin, see my Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict [Henry Holt/Metropolitan, 2001].)

What then are the implications of this great realignment of U.S. geo-political strategy made possible by the Cold War defeat of the Soviet Union?

It is obviously much too early to draw any definitive conclusions on this, but some things can be said. First, Iraq is just the beginning of a U.S. drive into this area. We will see further extensions and expressions of U.S. power in the region. This will provoke resistance and self-conscious opposition to the United States by insurgent groups and regimes. But the United States will also become enmeshed in local conflicts that arose long before America’s involvement in the region. For example, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and that between Abkhazia and Georgia—both of which have a long history—will come to impact on U.S. security as the United States becomes dependent on a newly-constructed trans-Caucasian oil pipeline. The Chechen and Afghani wars continue and bracket the region. In all such disputes there is a likelihood of indirect or direct, covert or overt intervention by the United States and the other contending powers.

We are at the beginning, I believe, of a new Cold War in south-central Eurasia, with many possibilities for crises and flare-ups, because nowhere else in the world are Russia and China directly involved and supporting groups and regimes that are opposed to the United States. Even during the height of the Cold War, there wasn’t anything quite comparable to this. American troops will be there for a long time, with a high risk of violent engagement and the potential for great human suffering. It appears, then, that the U.S. and international peace movement will have a lot of work ahead!


Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the author, most recently, of Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict

Bron: http://www.monthlyreview.org/0703klare.htm

quote:

Op zondag 12 november 2006 14:29 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

Dat speelt het al veel langer. Japan heeft in WO2 Pearl Harbor aangevallen, omdat ze te maken hadden met een olieboycot van de VS.
Hitler liet zijn legers in 1942 richting Kaukasus oprukken vanwege de olie die daar zat.

Het ligt nogal voor de hand dat omdat in de huidige economie olie belangrijk is, het ook belangrijk is om de levering van olie (op zijn minst enigszins) onder controle te hebben. Je wilt daarin niet afhankelijk zijn van landen/regeringen die je slechtgezind zijn, want dan kunnen ze je economie lamleggen.

quote:

Ik denk dat de War on Terror op zichzelf wel bedoeld is om terrorisme te bestrijden, maar dat Irak er met de haren bijgesleept is vanwege de olie die daar is. Dus dat Bush de War on Terror gebruikt om de olie veilig te stellen.

Dito met het argument dat Saddam Hussein zo'n verschrikkelijke dictator is. Dat klopt, maar die zijn er wel meer, die blijven zitten omdat er in hun land geen olie is, en de VS er dus geen baat bij hebben om daar binnen te vallen.

Overigens hebben we zelf ook baat bij een stabiele olievoorziening. Wat voor mij geen reden was om Irak binnen te vallen.

quote:

Op zondag 12 november 2006 14:58 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

Dat weet ik wel dat ik dat schreef Die twee dingen die ik schrijf zijn niet tegenstrijdig.
9/11 noopte Bush/de VS tot een reactie, namelijk iets tegen het terrorisme te doen. Dus: war on terror. In eerste instantie vallen ze dan Afghanistan aan, een duidelijke link met terrorisme, want de Al Qaida had banden met de Taliban.

Vervolgens heb je Afghanistan, en richt Bush zich op Irak. Daar is geen link meer met terrorisme. Saddam Hussein had niets met 9/11 te maken en geen banden met de Al Qaida. Het was wel een wrede dictator, maar na de eerste Golfoorlog geen bedreiging meer voor de VS. Niettemin toch aangevallen, waarom? Omdat daar olie zit. En er is daar aangevallen op basis van valse argumenten (dat Saddam met terrorisme te maken had en massavernietigingswapens had. Dus: war on terror is er met de haren bijgesleept.
[..]

Dat de VS hand hebben gehad in 9/11 zijn we het niet over eens, maar dat wisten we al
Ik denk niet dat de aanval op Afghanistan veel te maken heeft gehad met olie, die was imo toch voornamelijk bedoeld om de dreiging van de Al Qaida te beperken. Dus: hier meer war on terror als war for oil.
[..]

De voortzetting van de war on terror zoals die nu wordt uitgevoerd heeft idd weinig meer met de war on terror te maken, maar wel degelijk zitten er nog een aantal van de doelstellingen van de war on terror in. Niettemin is dit niet meer de oorspronkelijke war on terror, dat ben ik dan wel weer met je eens.

quote:

The Anglo-American War of Terror: An Overview

By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, December 21, 2005


Introduction

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. In the largest display of military might since the Second World War, the United States and its indefectible British ally have embarked upon a military adventure, which threatens the future of humanity.

An understanding of the underlying historical background is crucial. This war agenda is not the product of a distinct neo-conservative project. From the outset of the Cold War Era, there is a consistent thread, a continuum in US military doctrine, from the "Truman doctrine" to Bush's "war on terrorism".

Foreign Policy adviser George F. Kennan had outlined in a 1948 State Department brief what was later described as the "'Truman doctrine."

What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign policy, from "Containment" to "Pre-emptive" War. In this regard, the Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a post World War II foreign policy framework. The latter has been marked by a succession of US sponsored wars and military interventions in all major regions of the World. From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the "Truman Doctrine" at the outset of the Cold War.

Despite significant policy differences, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush have carried out this global military agenda.

Moreover, Kennan's writings pointed to the formation of an Anglo-American alliance, which currently characterizes the close relationship between Washington and London. This alliance responds to powerful economic interests in the oil industry, defense and international banking. It is, in many regards, an Anglo-American extension of the British Empire, which was officially disbanded in the wake of the Second World War.

The Truman doctrine also points to the inclusion of Canada in the Anglo-American military axis. Moreover, Kennan had also underscored the importance of preventing the development of a continental European power that could compete with the US.

With regard to Asia, including China and India, Kennan hinted to the importance of articulating a military solution:

"The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better"


[...]


The "War on Terrorism"

Amply documented, the war on terrorism is a fabrication. Al Qaeda is a US sponsored "intelligence asset". Saudi-born Osama bin Laden is a creation of U.S. foreign policy. He was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders." During the Cold War, but also in its aftermath, the CIA — using Pakistan’s Military Intelligence apparatus as a go-between —played a key role in training the Mujahideen.

With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan Jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad. (Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999)

Both the Clinton and Bush administrations have supported the so-called "Militant Islamic Base", including Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, as part of their military-intelligence agenda. The links between Osama bin Laden and the Clinton administration in Bosnia and Kosovo are well documented by congressional records.

Ironically, the U.S. Administration’s undercover military-intelligence operations in Bosnia were fully documented by the Republican Party. A lengthy Congressional report by the Republican Party Committee (RPC) published in 1997 accused the Clinton administration of having "helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base" leading to the recruitment, through the so-called "Militant Islamic Network", of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world:

The Clinton administration’s ‘hands-on’ involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials … the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization … has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. … TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing) and Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. (Congressional Press Release, Republican, Party Committee (RPC), U.S. Congress, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, Washington DC, 16 January 1997. The original document is on the website of the U.S. Senate Republican Party Committee (Senator Larry Craig), at

http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm [emphasis added].


Counter-Terrorism

The CIA has created it own terrorist organizations including "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" which is led by Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. And at the same time, it creates its own terrorist warnings concerning the terrorist organizations, which it has itself created. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program "to go after" these terrorist organizations.

Counterterrorism and war propaganda are intertwined. The propaganda apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The terror warnings must appear to be "genuine". The objective is to present the terror groups as "enemies of America." The underlying objective is to galvanize public opinion in support of America's war on terrorism" agenda.
The "war on terrorism" requires a humanitarian mandate. The war on terrorism is presented as a "Just War", which is to be fought on moral grounds "to redress a wrong suffered." To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism must remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly reminded of the terrorist threat. The propaganda campaign presents the portraits of the leaders behind the terror network. In other words, at the level of what constitutes an "advertising" campaign, "it gives a face to terror."

Bron: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20051221&articleId=1576

quote:

Revisited - The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq

by William Clark

Although a collective switch by OPEC would be extremely unlikely barring a major panic on the U.S. dollar, it would appear that a gradual transition is quite plausible. Furthermore, despite Saudi Arabia being our `client state,' the Saudi regime appears increasingly weak/threatened from massive civil unrest. Some analysts believe civil unrest might unfold in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Gulf states in the aftermath of an unpopular U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq [3]. Undoubtedly, the Bush administration is acutely aware of these risks. Hence, the neo-conservative framework entails a large and permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf region in a post-Saddam era, just in case we need to surround and control Saudi's large Ghawar oil fields in the event of a Saudi coup by an anti-western group. But first back to Iraq.

"Saddam sealed his fate when he decided to switch to the euro in late 2000 (and later converted his $10 billion reserve fund at the U.N. to euros) -- at that point, another manufactured Gulf War become inevitable under Bush II. Only the most extreme circumstances could possibly stop that now and I strongly doubt anything can -- short of Saddam getting replaced with a pliant regime.

"Big Picture Perspective: Everything else aside from the reserve currency and the Saudi/Iran oil issues (i.e. domestic political issues and international criticism) is peripheral and of marginal consequence to this administration. Further, the dollar-euro threat is powerful enough that they will rather risk much of the economic backlash in the short-term to stave off the long-term dollar crash of an OPEC transaction standard change from dollars to euros. All of this fits into the broader Great Game that encompasses Russia, India, China."

This information about Iraq's oil currency is not discussed by the U.S. media or the Bush administration as the truth could potentially curtail both investor and consumer confidence, reduce consumer borrowing/spending, create political pressure to form a new energy policy that slowly weans us off Middle-Eastern oil, and of course stop our march towards a war with Iraq. This quasi `state secret' is addressed in a Radio Free Europe article that discussed Saddam's switch for his oil sales from dollars to the euros, to be effective November 6, 2000:

"Baghdad's switch from the dollar to the euro for oil trading is intended to rebuke Washington's hard-line on sanctions and encourage Europeans to challenge it. But the political message will cost Iraq millions in lost revenue. RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel looks at what Baghdad will gain and lose, and the impact of the decision to go with the European currency." [4]

At the time of the switch many analysts were surprised that Saddam was willing to give up approximately $270 million in oil revenue for what appeared to be a political statement. However, contrary to one of the main points of this November 2000 article, the steady depreciation of the dollar versus the euro since late 2001 means that Iraq has profited handsomely from the switch in their reserve and transaction currencies. Indeed, The Observer surprisingly divulged these facts in a recent article entitled: `Iraq nets handsome profit by dumping dollar for euro,' (February 16, 2003).

"A bizarre political statement by Saddam Hussein has earned Iraq a windfall of hundreds of millions of euros. In October 2000 Iraq insisted upon dumping the US Dollar -- `the currency of the enemy' -- for the more multilateral euro." [5]

Although Iraq's oil currency switch appears to be completely censored by the U.S. media conglomerates, this UK article illustrates that the euro has gained almost 25% against the dollar since late 2001, which also applies to the $10 billion in Iraq's U.N. `oil for food' reserve fund that was previously held in dollars has also gained that same percent value since the switch. It was reported in 2003 that Iraq's UN reserve fund had swelled from $10 billion dollars to 26 billion euros. According to a former government analyst, the following scenario would occur if OPEC made an unlikely, but sudden (collective) switch to euros, as opposed to a gradual transition.

"Otherwise, the effect of an OPEC switch to the euro would be that oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their (central bank) reserve funds and replace these with euros. The dollar would crash anywhere from 20-40% in value and the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse and massive inflation (think Argentina currency crisis, for example). You'd have foreign funds stream out of the U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets, there'd surely be a run on the banks much like the 1930s, the current account deficit would become unserviceable, the budget deficit would go into default, and so on. Your basic 3rd world economic crisis scenario.

"The United States economy is intimately tied to the dollar's role as reserve currency. This doesn't mean that the U.S. couldn't function otherwise, but that the transition would have to be gradual to avoid such dislocations (and the ultimate result of this would probably be the U.S. and the E.U. switching roles in the global economy)."

Although the above scenario is unlikely, and most assuredly undesirable, under certain economic conditions it is plausible. In fact, one of the conditions that could create such an environment is a near unilateral U.S. led war in the Middle East. For example, a large spike in oil prices could create huge problems for the imperiled Japanese banking system, the world's largest holder of U.S. dollar reserves. Unfortunately the current Bush administration has chosen a military option instead of a multilateral conference on monetary reform to resolve these issues. In the aftermath of toppling Saddam it is clear the U.S. will keep a large and permanent military force in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, there is no talk of an `exit strategy,' as the military will be needed to protect the newly installed regime, and to send a message to other OPEC producers that they too might receive `regime change' if they convert their oil payments to euros.


[knip]


On April 28, 2003, I read the first article in the mainstream US media (msnbc.com) since the autumn of 2000 that addressed some of the issues regarding Iraqi oil exports in the euro. Apparently until the U.N. sanctions were lifted; Iraq's oil was to remain under UN control in the "oil for food" program. However, UN Resolution 1483 passed on May 22, 2003 establishing a joint US/UK administered "Iraqi Assistance Fund" which provided the mechanism to quietly and legally reconvert Iraqi's oil exports back to the dollar. To reiterate, the following excerpts from this forthright msnbc.com article is the only mainstream US media reference that I could locate during 2003 that discussed the Iraq war and the underlying petrodollar versus petroeuro issues. It was entitled "In Round 2, It's the Dollar versus the Euro" (implying the Iraq war was `Round 1').

A new world is being created. Ironically, the most troublesome clash of civilizations in it may not be the one the academics expected: not Islamic fundamentalists vs. the West in the first instance, but the United States against Europe.

To oversimplify, but only slightly, it's the dollar vs. the euro.

. . . The Europeans and the United Nations want the inspections regime to resume because as long as it is in place, the U.N. "oil-for-food" program remains in effect. Not only does France benefit directly-its banks hold the deposits and its companies have been involved in the oil sales-the entire EU does as well, if for no other reason than many of the recent sales were counted not in dollars but in euros. The United Nations benefits because it has collected more than a billion dollars in fees for administering the program. As long as the 1990 sanctions remain in effect, Iraq can't "legally" sell its oil on the world market. At least, to this point, tankers won't load it without U.N. permission, because they can't get insurance for doing so.

Sometime in the next few weeks, push will come to shove. There are storage tanks full of Iraqi crude waiting in Turkish ports. For now, Rumsfeld and Powell are playing "bad cop, bad cop." "This isn't on the president's radar screen right now," an aide told me. "Powell is totally on board, though. He is as angry at the French as anyone else, maybe more. There may come a time when the smart thing to do is turn the whole Iraq situation over to the U.N. This is not that time." Meanwhile, if the rest of the world tries to block any and all Iraq oil sales, it's possible that American companies will find a way to become the customer of first and last resort.

And we'll pay in dollars. [55]

Although the author addressed this subject somewhat obliquely, his final sentence is quite candid. Indeed, my original hypothesis from December 2002 was reinforced in a Financial Times article dated June 5th 2003 which confirmed Iraqi oil sales returning to the international markets were once again denominated in U.S. dollars, not euros. Not surprisingly, this detail was never mentioned in our imperialist, corporate-controlled US media, but confirmation of this fact provides insight into one of the crucial -- yet overlooked -- rationales for the Iraq war.

Bron: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.pdf
Website: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

quote:

Bush Says U.S. Pullout Would Let Iraq Radicals Use Oil as a Weapon

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 5, 2006; Page A06

GREELEY, Colo., Nov. 4 -- During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and his aides sternly dismissed suggestions that the war was all about oil. "Nonsense," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared. "This is not about that," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Now, more than 3 1/2 years later, someone else is asserting that the war is about oil -- President Bush.

As he barnstorms across the country campaigning for Republican candidates in Tuesday's elections, Bush has been citing oil as a reason to stay in Iraq. If the United States pulled its troops out prematurely and surrendered the country to insurgents, he warns audiences, it would effectively hand over Iraq's considerable petroleum reserves to terrorists who would use it as a weapon against other countries.

"You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," he said at a rally here Saturday for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following. And the following would be along the lines of, well, 'Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision.' "

Bush said extremists controlling Iraq "would use energy as economic blackmail" and try to pressure the United States to abandon its alliance with Israel. At a stop in Missouri on Friday, he suggested that such radicals would be "able to pull millions of barrels of oil off the market, driving the price up to $300 or $400 a barrel."

Oil is not the only reason Bush offers for staying in Iraq, but his comments on the stump represent another striking evolution of his argument on behalf of the war. The slogan of "no blood for oil" became a rallying cry for antiwar activists prior to the March 2003 invasion and angered administration officials. "There are certain things like that, myths, that are floating around," Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS Radio in November 2002. "It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Saturday that Bush's latest argument does not reflect a real shift. "We're still not saying we went into Iraq for oil. That's not true," he said. "But there is the realistic strategic concern that if a country with such enormous oil reserves and the corresponding revenues you can derive from that is controlled by essentially a terrorist organization, it could be destabilizing for the region."

[knip]

Even if Iraq did not sell oil to the United States, it would not matter as long as it sold it to someone because the international market is fungible and what counts is the overall supply and overall demand, according to analysts. If Iraq cut off exports altogether, it still would not have the dire effect on the world market that Bush predicts, they said. The price of oil began rising dramatically in 2002 as the confrontation with Iraq loomed, but many factors contributed, including increasing demand by China and problems in Nigeria, Venezuela and elsewhere.

Bron: http://www.washingtonpost(...)AR2006110401025.html

quote:

Op zondag 12 november 2006 19:57 schreef Freak187 het volgende:
Ach de huidige bronnen zitten nog zeker voor zo'n 50% vol, de bedrijven hebben alleen grote moeite om het op te pompen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 14 november 2006 02:06 schreef gorgg het volgende:

[..]

Geloof me of niet, maar eigenlijk wist ik niet dat dit in het artikel stond (had het niet gelezen, (tsk tsk) alleen gezien dat het over die ene vondst ging). Ik geloof niet dat olie abiotisch is.
Waar ik op doelde was het feit dat er 2 maanden geleden een behoorlijk groot olieveld werd gevonden (bevestigd eigenlijk) op een diepte van zo'n 8500 meter onder de zeespiegel en ongeveer 6400 meter onder de zeebodem.
Artikels waar ik beter naar verwezen had:
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17487/page1/
http://www.businessweek.c(...)news+index_investing
Slotzin bij dat laatste artikel:

quote:

On September 5, a consortium of three oil-industry giants, Chevron, Devon, and Statoil, announced the results of a well test in the Jack Field located about 270 miles south of New Orleans and 175 miles offshore. It may be the largest discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay in 1968, and it is almost entirely due to recent advances in exploration technology.

[knip]

The well sustained a flow rate of about 6,000 barrels a day, strong enough to encourage analysts to predict that the field may contain anywhere from three billion to fifteen billion barrels of oil, although the results of a second well test scheduled for 2007 will sharpen the accuracy of those figures considerably. If the higher-end estimate is correct, though, the discovery would approach Prudhoe Bay in size, and possibly increase total U.S. reserves by some 50 percent.

quote:

One huge oil reserve, even if it could rival the 1968 discovery of Prudhoe Bay and increase U.S. reserves by up to 50%, will not turn around the world's tight energy markets, of course. It won't even bring the U.S. close to energy independence when oil and gas get into full-fledged production four or five years from now.

But the capability to find and recover petroleum at extreme depths, temperatures, and pressures, as demonstrated by the Chevron team, may indeed tip the balance of supply and demand in the long term. There will be a new frenzy of drilling at these depths in the Gulf of Mexico, where about a dozen promising exploration wells have already been drilled.

[knip]

Earlier drilling had established promising reserves in an area of the Gulf 300 miles long and 80 miles wide, but the Chevron project found a flow rate of more than 6,000 bbl. a day of light, sweet crude. The discovery confirmed the area's commercial viability, strengthening hopes that as much as 15 billion barrels of oil could be recovered in the vicinity.

[knip]

But given the powerful combination of high oil prices and new technology, the industry is gaining confidence that supplies will grow. It's pushing hard to produce oil and gas from difficult tar sand and shale fields as well as rejuvenating older fields with enhanced recovery methods. Cambridge Energy Research Associates predicts world oil and natural gas liquids capacity could increase as much as 25% by 2015. Says Robert W. Esser, a director of CERA: "Peak Oil theory is garbage as far as we're concerned."

quote:

- The underlying analytical model formulated by the late M. King Hubbert both fails to recognize that recoverable reserve estimates evolve with time and are subject to significant change, and it also underplays the substantial impact of technological advances. Consequently, total annual production at the high point in 1970 was 600 million barrels higher – 20 percent -- than Hubbert’s projection of peak production for the US Lower 48, although he correctly anticipated its timing within two years.

- Hubbert’s method requires accurate knowledge of the ultimate recoverable reserves of an area, but his 1956 analysis could never have incorporated the impact of giant discoveries in Alaska and the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, and therefore couldn’t have predicted the production profile for the U.S. As a result, total cumulative U.S. production between the high point in 1970 and 2005 exceeded Hubbert’s predictions by the equivalent of more than 10 years of US production at present rates.

- Hubbert-posited post-peak reservoir decline curve assumptions are rebutted by observation that the geometry of typical oilfield production profiles is often distinctly asymmetrical and does not generally show a precipitous mirror-image decline in production after an apparent peak, even without the application of new technology or enhanced oil recovery techniques. As a result, in the US Lower 48 where Hubbert came closest to accurately forecasting a peak, oil production in 2005 was some 66 percent higher than projected by Hubbert, and cumulative production between 1970 and 2005 was some 15 billion barrels higher, a variance equal to more than eight years of US production at present rates.

- Those who believe a peak is imminent tend to consider only proven remaining reserves of conventional oil, which they currently estimate at about 1.2 trillion barrels. In the view of many petroleum geologists, this is a pessimistic estimate because it excludes the enormous contribution likely from probable and possible resources, those yet to be found, and plays down the importance of unconventional reserves in the Canadian oil sands, the Orinoco tar belt, oil shale and GTL projects. CERA believes the global inventory is some 4.8 trillion barrels, of which about 1.08 trillion barrels have been produced, leaving 3.72 trillion conventional and unconventional barrels, an order of magnitude that will allow productive capacity to continue to expand well into this century.

- The “peak oil” argument is frequently supported with data indicating that new exploration finds are not sufficient to replace annual production. Their data sets have serious deficiencies. The peak argument is an incomplete and therefore misleading analysis because it ignores the role of development (vs exploration) projects in expanding reserves, fails to understand economic factors that can point company and national strategies to emphasize development vs exploration work. By focusing on “discovery” and ignoring the increased knowledge and confidence about field volumes, it disregards the fact that revisions, additions and exploration together have generated resource growth of 320 billion barrels – 80 billion barrels more, or one-third more, than total production – during the period from 1995 to 2003. CERA draws both on its own data bases and those of its parent company IHS, which has the world’s most complete proprietary data bases on oil production and resources.

- Hubbert’s method does not incorporate economic or technical factors that influence productive capacity; most importantly, it ignores the impact of both price and demand, both major drivers of production.

quote:

- Based on a detailed bottom-up approach, CERA sees no evidence of a peak before 2030. Moreover, global production will eventually follow an undulating plateau for one or more decades before declining slowly. Global resources, including both conventional and unconventional oils, are adequate to support strong production growth and a period on an undulating plateau.

- Despite his valuable contribution, M. King Hubbert's methodology falls down because it does not consider likely resource growth, application of new technology, basic commercial factors, or the impact of geopolitics on production. His approach does not work in all cases-including on the United States itself-and cannot reliably model a global production outlook. Put more simply, the case for the imminent peak is flawed. As it is, production in 2005 in the Lower 48 in the United States was 66 percent higher than Hubbert projected.

- The debate should now move toward a better understanding of the key drivers of production, including the scale of global resources and the likely production outlook, which form the core of current disagreements and confusion.

quote:

Je noemt Jerome R. Corsi en Craig R. Smith (terecht imo) omstreden. Mensen als Ruppert en Chossudovsky zijn toch ook erg omstreden? Veel aanhang bij wetenschappers in relevante vakgebieden hebben ze imo alleszins niet, toch baseer je je wereldbeeld volgens mij voor een groot stuk op hun meningen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 14 november 2006 22:17 schreef gorgg het volgende:

[..]

Ik vind die Willem Middelkoop een ongeloofelijke idioot en snap niet hoe die op zo'n functie is terecht kunnen komen, maar dat terzijde.

De oliemarkt werkt net als alle andere niet-gereguleerde markten (qua prijzen) naar gelang vraag en aanbod. Bij een vraagoverschot stijgen de prijzen tot het evenwicht hervonden wordt, bij vraagtekort dalen de prijzen tot het evenwicht gevonden wordt. De oliemarkt is hier natuurlijk geen uitzondering op. Het is onmogelijk dat er over een langere periode een tekort zou zijn zonder dat dit bijgesteld wordt.

Dat Middelkoop een idioot is, bewijst hij imo nog maar eens met deze 'vondst' van hem. Hij vindt een tabelletje met wat cijfers in, ziet total world demand en total world supply en ziet dat die niet overeenkomen en denkt weer te moeten aankondigen dat het einde der wereld naderbij komt. Ten eerste zijn de cijfers die hij gebruikt duidelijk afrondingen. Maar vooral dat hij niet eens naar de definitie van die kolommen kijkt, niet eens de erg korte uitleg van EIA zelf leest en zich blijkbaar ook niet eens afvraagt waarom iets dat economisch onmogelijk lijkt toch voorspelt wordt door een dergelijke organisatie.

De cijfers die hij gebruikt zijn niet het totale aanbod van olie in die periodes. De definitie zegt: "b Includes production of crude oil ". Enkel productie dus. Landen leggen voorraden aan en die voorraden zijn niet steeds evengroot. Als een land zijn voorraad verkleint, komt die voorraad ook op de markt. De som van die voorraadverschuivingen kan er dus toe leiden dat de vraag groter of kleiner is dan aangeboden olie ten gevolge van de productie over die periode. Wat zien we in de tabel: die vooraadverschuivingen zijn ook terug te vinden. Als rij 44 (totaal voorraadverandering) meegeteld wordt, is het totale aanbod en de totale vraag steeds exact hetzelfde (afrondingen niet meegeteld).

Uit de IAE zijn korte analyse van de cijfers:
[..]

Tada, raadsel opgelost. Voorraaddalingen in precies die periodes die hij rood aankleurt. Ze verwachten dat de totale voorraad op het einde van 2007 lager zal zijn dan nu (want ze vinden de huidige voorraden aan de hoge kant) en vandaar dus die 200.000 en 100.000 (maar even afrondingen behandelen zoals Willem).

Het heeft niets maar dan ook niets te maken met de onmogelijkheid om meer te produceren. De OPEC produceert (naar eigen zeggen) nu al 1.2 million barrels per day (bbl/d) minder om de recente prijsdaling tegen te gaan (en heeft al aangekondigd dat er eventueel nog meer beperkingen kunnen volgen als de prijs nog zou dalen).

Tabel van EIA:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/3tab.html
Tabel van Middelkoop met totaal nutteloze rode markeringen:
http://www.rtl.nl/compone(...)emand_2007_year.xls.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2006 01:09 schreef Perun het volgende:

[..]

Ik noem maar een van de vele argumenten die tegen deze stelling aan te voeren zijn, heb geen zin veel tijd te besteden aan discussie met complottheoretici.
Er is een enorm verschil tussen de geopolitieke situatie voor grofweg 1990 en na 1990. De prioriteiten op het gebied van buitenlands beleid van veel landen, in het bijzonder de VS, zijn na het einde van de Koude Oorlog zeer veranderd. En natuurlijk hebben ook grote veranderingen plaatsgevonden binnen de periodes 1945-1990 en 1990-2006. Het is zeer ongeloofwaardig dat er vanuit zo'n vastomlijnde doelstelling als 'macht verkrijgen over het Midden-Oosten om olie veilig te stellen' al die tijd beleid is gevoerd, en dat ook nog door een of andere duistere 'elite', die dan blijkbaar onder de oppervlakte van het politieke spectrum geopereerd zou hebben.

quote:

Now let us step back for a minute and return to the classical geo-political thinking of the early part of the last century, particularly the views of Sir Halford Mackinder of Great Britain. This perspective held that Eurasia was the most important part—the “heartland” of the civilized world, and that whoever controlled this heartland by definition controlled the rest of the world because of the concentration there of population, resources, and industrial might. In classical geopolitical thinking, world politics is essentially a struggle over who will control the Eurasian heartland.

Bron: http://www.monthlyreview.org/0703klare.htm

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2006 11:36 schreef CeeJee het volgende:

[..]

Een veelgemaakte fout. Olie is geen voedsel maar een brandstof voor zo'n beetje elke economische activiteit. Met meer dan 25% van het BNP van de wereld is het niet meer dan logisch dat een kwart van de olie in de VS wordt verbruikt.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2006 16:12 schreef Perun het volgende:
Eh, de VS is rijk genoeg om haar energievoorziening tot het eind van de olie gewoon met dollars veilig te stellen. Ze kunnen veel meer bieden per vat dan China, India en Rusland bij elkaar.

quote:

Naar mijn mening is de War on Terror voor een deel een wraakoefening voor 11 september, voor een deel werkelijk een oorlog tegen terroristen (in hoeverre succesvol is natuurlijk de vraag), en voor een deel een deels uit veiligheidsoverwegingen en deels uit idealisme geboren Amerikaanse expeditie tegen gevaarlijke dictatoriale regimes.
De Golfoorlog van 90-91 had heel andere motieven en ook Israël is weer een aparte geschiedenis.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2006 11:36 schreef CeeJee het volgende:

Een veelgemaakte fout. Olie is geen voedsel maar een brandstof voor zo'n beetje elke economische activiteit. Met meer dan 25% van het BNP van de wereld is het niet meer dan logisch dat een kwart van de olie in de VS wordt verbruikt.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2006 15:05 schreef OpenYourMind het volgende:

Ik post het als feit en onderbouwing voor het feit dat de economie van de VS afhankelijk is van deze olie voor het voorzien in haar behoeften, levenstijl en de voortzetting van economische groei.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2006 16:12 schreef CeeJee het volgende:

De VS en iedere andere economie in de wereld verbruiken olie, dit is de constatering van een feit dat bij elke denkbare theorie ingezet kan worden.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2006 18:47 schreef Gebleekte het volgende:
>TRU?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2006 16:04 schreef Perun het volgende:

[..]

Dat geloof ik graag, er zijn complotdenkers genoeg.
[..]

Er kan zo veel fout gaan aan zo'n complot, en zeker wanneer het een langere periode betreft, dat de meeste van de complottheorieën alleen al vanuit het oogpunt van kansberekening zeer twijfelachtig zijn. Meestal zijn er veel waarschijnlijker verklaringen voor bepaalde verschijnselen dan dat er een complot achter zit. Verder zijn er altijd ook nog tal van goede tegenargumenten die met behulp van bewijzen een complottheorie ontkrachten. Tuurlijk, er zal af en toe wel eens een geheim samenwerkingsverband zijn, maar zoiets reusachtigs als in deze discussie wordt voorgesteld is vrijwel onmogelijk. Mensen moeten eens wat minder naar Hollywoodfilms kijken.

quote:

Gazprom wil gasprijs voor Europa verhogen

Uitgegeven: 27 november 2006 17:25
Laatst gewijzigd: 27 november 2006 17:44

MOSKOU - Het Russische gasconcern Gazprom wil de gasprijs voor Europa volgend jaar met 15 procent verhogen. Bronnen bij de door de staat gecontroleerde onderneming bevestigden maandag een bericht van die strekking in de Russische krant Vedomosti.

Concreet zou de prijs voor Russisch gas in Europa omhoog gaan van ongeveer 250 naar 293 dollar per 1000 kubieke meter. In Duitsland, dat eenderde van zijn gas uit Rusland haalt, is verrast gereageerd. Importeur Ruhrgas wijst erop dat Moskou de olieprijs zou moeten volgen. Omdat die recentelijk is gedaald, ligt een daling van de gasprijs meer voor de hand.

Volgens de Russische media moeten ook diverse voormalige Sovjet-republieken rekening houden met een prijsverhoging. Zo moet Wit-Rusland vier keer zoveel voor gas uit Rusland gaan betalen.

Begin dit jaar leidde een prijsverhoging tot een conflict tussen Oekraïne en Rusland. Moskou besloot de gaskraan dicht te draaien omdat Oekraïne niets van een prijsverhoging wilde weten. Daardoor kregen diverse Europese landen te maken met een verminderde gastoevoer.

Bron: http://www.nu.nl/news/900(...)Europa_verhogen.html

quote:

Europa op de knieën voor Poetin - deel 1

De Europese leiders leunen rustig achterover, ze zijn weer in slaap gesust na het gasprobleem in Oekraïne. Niet dat ze veel kunnen doen, Rusland zet Europa momenteel schaakmat als het gaat om de levering van aardgas. Deel 1 van een drieluik over de toenemende invloed van Rusland in de wereld dankzij aardgas.


Deel 1) De ex-Sovjet Staten, controle over de exportpijpleidingen naar Europa.

Na Wit Rusland, Armenië, Litouwen, Estland, Letland, Moldavië en Oekraïne is nu Georgië aan de beurt. De boodschap is helder, zodra er een leveringscontract voor aardgas afloopt dwingt Rusland haar “klanten” tot een keuze. Of je betaalt steeds meer, tot aan de Europese marktprijs van 250 dollar per duizend kubieke meter, of je geeft een stuk van je infrastructuur, vrijwel gratis, aan Rusland. Het doel is tweeledig, ten eerste wil Rusland zoveel mogelijk controle krijgen over haar exportpijpleidingen naar Europa die ze door de val van de Sovjetunie verloren is. Ten tweede heeft Rusland veel meer inkomsten nodig, om moeilijk winbare gasreserves af te tappen omdat de productie in haar grote oude gasvelden hard terugloopt. Poetin weet dat de ex-Sovjet staten de marktprijs niet kunnen betalen en dus wel door de knieën moeten gaan. Hieronder een overzicht van de ontwikkelingen in de afgelopen twee jaar.


1) Wit Rusland, eind 2003, 47 dollar per duizend kubieke meter. Wit Rusland weigert om marktprijzen te betalen. Gazprom draait de gaskraan meerdere malen dicht als pressiemethode. Op 8 juni 2004 komen de landen tot een akkoord, in december 2005 wordt dit definitief ondertekend. Wit Rusland krijgt aardgas van Rusland tegen de oude prijs van 46,68 dollar. Gazprom krijgt een zeer goedkoop doorvoertarief voor zijn gas door Wit Rusland plus eigenschap over de voorheen Wit Russische sectie van de Yamal-Europa pijpleiding, welke 50% van de export capaciteit van Rusland in het land doorvoert. Na de verkiezingen in Wit Rusland in 2006 kondigd Gazprom opnieuw aan dat het land marktprijzen moet betalen. De op te zetten joint venture met het staatstransportbedrijf Beltranzgas komt namelijk niet van de grond. Gazprom zou voor 50% eigenaar worden van Beltranzgas voor een spotprijsje zodat Rusland een vinger in de pap krijgt in de gehele gasinfrastructuur van Wit Rusland. Laatste nieuws is dat Belarus volgend jaar gewoon 180 tot 200 dollar per kubieke meter moet betalen, wat een jaarlijks begrotingsgat van 2 miljard dollar oplevert voor Wit Rusland. Gazprom heeft geduld en wacht tot Wit Rusland verder op de knieën gaat. Wit Rusland dreigt terug met een hoop gebakken lucht.

2) Oekraïne, begin 2005, 50 dollar per duizend kubieke meter. Gazprom vraagt marktprijzen voor haar gas, Oekraïne wil in ruil hogere doorvoertarieven van Gazprom. Het lukt niet om tot een akkoord te komen en gazprom draait op 1 januari 2006 de kraan dicht. Grote onrust in de Europese Unie wanneer blijkt dat Oekraïne “illegaal” Russisch aardgas voor eigen verbruik aftapt en niet doorvoert naar de EU. Na een hoop politieke druk vanuit de EU komen Oekraïne en Rusland tot een akkoord. Specifiek is er weinig bekend over de afspraken, Oekraïne zou 95 dollar per kubieke meter betalen. Gazprom moet veel meer betalen voor het doorvoertarief aan Oekraïne. Netto komt het erop neer dat Oekraïne niks extra kwijt is voor haar aardgas. Naar verwachting van veel analisten zal de prijs binnenkort echter weer omhooggaan. Rusland voert namelijk goedkoop Turkmeense gas door naar Oekraïne, maar de prijs van Turkmeens gas gaat vanaf begin volgend jaar met 40 dollar per duizend kubieke meter omhoog tot aan 2008. Gazprom zou van plan zijn om deze prijsverhoging door te berekenen aan Oekraïne.

3) Armenië, begin 2006, 56 dollar per duizend kubieke meter. Gazprom wil 110 dollar per kubieke meter voor haar aardgas. Na een kleine strubbeling is de Armeense regering in april akkoord met de prijsverhoging. De prijs van 110 dollar per kubieke meter is vastgelegd tot eind 2008. Ook is de Armeense regering akkoord gegaan om Gazprom een meerderheidsaandeel te laten verkrijgen in ArmRosGazprom, de energy joint venture die de gehele gasinfrastructuur in Armenië verzorgt. Vooralsnog had Gazprom een aandeel van 45% in dit bedrijf. Zij koopt nu een meerderheidsaandeel in van 58% voor 118 miljoen dollar van de Armeense staat die tot nog toe ook 45% van het bedrijf bezat. Gazprom krijgt hiermee controle over de nieuwe gaspijpleiding van Iran naar Armenië. Volgens de geruchten kan Gazprom zelfs het gehele Armeense gedeelte van de Iran-Armenië pijpleiding opkopen. Naast het meerderheidsaandeel is de Armeense overheid ook akkoord gegaan met de Russische aankoop van de vijfde grote gasgestookte elektriciteitscentrale in Hrazdan voor 430 miljoen dollar. Nummer 1 tot 4 zijn al in handen van de Russische overheid, die ze in ruil voor het aflossen van schulden in 2002/2003 heeft gekregen. Deze centrales produceren elektriciteit dat geruild wordt met Iran voor aardgas. Rusland heeft hiermee en de gasinfrastructuur van Armenië in handen en de belangrijkste elektriciteitsinfrastructuur.

4) Litouwen, Estland en Letland, begin 2005, 85 á 95 dollar per duizend kubieke meter. Letland en Estland ging gemakkelijk door de knieën en betalen inmiddels 120 dollar per duizend kubieke meter gas. In Litouwen liep het verhaal wat anders, eerder had Gazprom een aandeel verkregen in het Litouwse gastransportbedrijf Lietuvos Dujos evenals het Duitse E.on Ruhrgas. Na een aantal onderhandelingsrondes in 2004 zou Gazprom 15 jaar lang goedkoop aardgas leveren onder een aantal voorwaarden. Belangrijkste was dat de overheidsregulatie voor grote gasverbruikers weggenomen moest worden. Die afspraak kwam de regering niet na, tot grote irritatie voor Gazprom. Inmiddels is de gasprijs naar het land al tweemaal verhoogd, men betaalt nu 150 dollar per duizend kubieke meter. Rusland laat het hier niet bij, in 2007 moet Litouwen gewoon de marktprijs betalen, rond de 200 dollar per duizend kubieke meter.

5) Moldavië, 80 dollar per duizend kubieke meter in 2005. Moldavië vroeg om 80 dollar maar moest 110 dollar betalen in de eerste helft van 2006. De regering van Moldavië dacht Gazprom met een aantal energieprojecten tevreden te stellen, maar die sloeg het concern af. Gazprom wil namelijk haar aandeel in Moldovagaz, de pijpleidingmaatschappij van het land, verhogen van 50% naar 100%. Vooralsnog heeft Gazprom alleen het aandeel van 13.4% dat eerst in bezit was van Transnistria gekregen, waardoor Moldovagaz voor 64.4% in haar handen is. Later kondigde Gazprom aan om de prijs voor de rest van 2006 te verhogen naar 160 dollar per duizend kubieke meter.

6) Georgië, 68 dollar per duizend kubieke meter in 2005. Begin 2006 moest het land 110 dollar per duizend kubieke meter betalen, maar daar bleef het niet bij. Sinds de Georgische regering 4 Russische spionnen uitgeleverde op 3 oktober aan de Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) neemt het Kremlin stevige maatregelen. Al het lucht, vracht, water en postverkeer met Georgië is gestopt evenals banktransfers. Tevens eiste het Kremlin dat direct de 147 miljoen dollar aan uitstaande schuld terugbetaald werd. De deportatie van ethnische georgiërs uit Rusland nam dramatisch toe, met meer dan duizend in de afgelopen paar weken. Rusland dreigt zelfs om alle handel met het land stop te zetten. Op het gebied van energie heeft Gazprom aangekondigd dat Georgië vanaf 1 januari volgend jaar 221 of 250 dollar per duizend kubieke meter moet betalen t.o.v. de 110 nu. In wanhoop probeert Georgië nu zo snel mogelijk afspraken te maken met Iran en Azerbeidjaan voor de import van elektriciteit en aardgas.

Bron: http://www.peakoil.nl/?p=1000#more-1000

quote:

Europa op de knieën voor Poetin - deel 2

De Europese leiders leunen rustig achterover, ze zijn weer in slaap gesust na het gasprobleem in Oekraïne. Niet dat ze veel kunnen doen, Rusland zet Europa momenteel schaakmat als het gaat om de levering van aardgas. Deel 2 van een drieluik over de toenemende invloed van Rusland in de wereld dankzij aardgas.


Deel 2) De Gaspec, Rusland en haar opkomende gas-alliantie met Algerije en Iran.

Tot eergisteren was het allemaal pure speculatie. Rusland die de gaslanden achter zich schaart om zoveel mogelijk controle over de toekomstige gasmarkt te krijgen. Tot eergisteren.. want toen lekte een geheim rapport van topeconomen van de NAVO. Rusland zou in de beginfase zijn om een Gaspec te vormen samen met Libië, Algerije, Qatar, Iran en Centraal Azië. Eerder waarschuwde het Internationaal Energie Agentschap hiervoor.

Het vormen van een gaskartel is eigenlijk heel makkelijk, Qatar, Rusland & Iran bezitten samen 56% van de gasreserves in de wereld, pak daar nog een paar kleine strategische spelers bij, en je hebt de gasmarkt van de wereld in handen. Om Europa politiek te chanteren is Algerije van centraal belang, omdat zij de 2de leverancier van gas is aan de EU, na Rusland. De geluiden in de media zijn alleen divers, velen doen de mogelijke Gaspec af als grootscheepse onzin, waaronder uiteraard de Russen zelf. Zij gebruiken hiervoor woordvoerder Dmitry Peskov, dezelfde man die de verheerlijking van verkrachting door Putin even in context probeerde te plaatsen.


Rusland heeft ondertussen de banden met Algerije flink aangehaald. Afgelopen augustus ondertekende Gazprom en Sonatrach, het staatsenergiebedrijf van Algerije, een “memorandum of understanding”. De Russische en Algerijnse energiegiganten willen op het gebied van exploratie, productie, transmissie & distributie van aardgas en olie in Algerije, Rusland en andere landen meer gaan samenwerken. De exacte details zijn zoals gewoonlijk niet bekend. Een jaar eerder werdt er in Algerije een nieuwe wet aangenomen, waarin is vastgelegd dat Sonatrach een aandeel van minstens 51% moet verkrijgen in alle productiecontracten. Daarmee behoudt de staatsmaatschappij haar invloed op de olie & gas sector. Naast meer samenwerking op het gebied van energie hebben de Russen ook voor miljarden aan wapens verkocht aan Algerije in het begin van 2006. Sommigen speculeren dat de wapens gedeeltelijk geruild zijn voor meer toegang tot olie & gasvelden in Algerije.

Met Algerije heeft Rusland een van de hoofdspelers in het Europese gasspel te pakken, maar daarmee is ze er nog niet. Hoewel er weinig andere Afrikaanse spelers van echt belang zijn kan het Midden-Oosten nog veel roet in het eten gooien. Iran en Rusland onderzoeken echter de mogelijkheid om verder samen te werken op het gebied van olie & gas inclusief transport. Gazprom gaat waarschijnlijk meehelpen met de bouw van een Iraans-Indiase pijpleiding. Gazprom heeft daarnaast ook een aandeel verworven in de nieuwe gaspijpleiding Iran-Armenië. Hiermee blijven Armenië en Georgië voor gaslevering geheel onder invloed van Rusland.

Om de klus af te maken probeert Gazprom zoveel mogelijk invloed te krijgen op oude & nieuwe gaspijpleidingen in de regio. Belangrijk is dat gasleverantie uit de andere landen in Centraal Azië en het Midden-Oosten zolang mogelijk tegengehouden wordt. De Noord Europese markt is al voorzien via de nieuwe Russische pijpleiding naar Duitsland, maar de toekomstige Gazprom monopolie op de Zuid-Europese markt moet nog verder verzekerd worden. Europa dacht een start te maken met haar diversificatie van aardgaslevering via de Nabucco pijpleiding. Deze pijpleiding zou gas kunnen leveren uit Centraal Azië, Iran en verder weg liggende landen uit het Midden-Oosten. Veel landen hebben al een niet bindende verklaring tot samenwerking getekend voor dit project. Oostenrijk zou in het Nabucco project de nieuwe gashub voor Zuid Europa worden. Na Nabucco 1 zouden nog meerdere van dergelijke pijpleidingen volgen, zodat tegen 2025 zo’n 10 á 15 procent van het gas via pijpleidingen uit het Midden-Oosten kan komen.

Gazprom benaderde echter dezelfde landen die in het Nabucco project deelnemen. Hongarije hapte en inmiddels is Gazprom samen met het staatsenergiebedrijf Mol van Hongarije bezig met een onderzoek naar project blue stream, een pijpleiding van Rusland naar Turkije richting Hongarije. Een gedeelte van Blue stream ligt er al, welke in een joint venture tussen de Italiaanse energiemaatschappij ENI en Gazprom gebouwd is. Eergisteren tekende ENI een contract wat Gazprom directe toegang geeft tot de Italiaanse markt.

In project Blue stream zou Hongarije echter de hub van gaslevering aan Zuid Europa worden. Tevens heeft Gazprom beloofd dat als Hongarije meewerkt dat ze gegarandeerde gaslevering krijgt. Dat klonk vooralsnog de Hongaarse machthebbers wel zeer aanlokkelijk in de oren. Volgend jaar gaat Hongarije een beslissing nemen over welk project het definitief wordt, Nabucco of Blue Stream. Ondertussen bood de Duitse gaskampioen E.ON Ruhrgas een gedeelte van haar distributienetwerk in Hongarije aan Gazprom aan in ruil voor een aandeel van 25% in het Siberische Yuzhno-Russky gasveld. Het gas uit dat veld is een van de hoofdleveranciers voor de Noord-Europese pijpleiding. Zodoende verhoogd Duitsland haar eigen zekerheid als het gaat om gaslevering.

De tweede kink in de kabel op dit gebied voor Europa is Georgië. Een groot gedeelte van de te bouwen gaspijpleidingen uit het Midden-Oosten en Centraal-Azië zullen door Georgië gaan lopen. Niet voor niets zal Gazprom daarom de duimschroeven op Georgië in de komende weken en maanden aandraaien.

Gazprom heeft hiermee voldoende kaarten in handen om bijna volledige invloed te krijgen op de gasleveranties via pijpleidingen in Europa.

Bron: http://www.peakoil.nl/?p=1011#more-1011

quote:

In het licht van de onvermijdelijke herverkiezing van Poetin kijkt Tegenlicht terug op diens greep naar de macht vier jaar geleden. De bomaanslagen op twee flatgebouwen in Moskou zorgden in die tijd voor het creëren van een soort noodtoestand, waarin Poetin naar voren werd geschoven als sterke man. Poetin wist binnen een kwartier wie de daders van de aanslag waren: Tsjetsjeense terroristen. En zijn oplossing was een nieuwe oorlog te beginnen.

De inmiddels geëmigreerde oligarch Boris Berezovski liet een film "Attacks made in Russia, all roads lead to the Kremlin" maken op basis van zijn vermoeden dat Poetin en de Russische binnenlandse veiligheidsdienst FSB zelf achter de explosies zaten. De voormalige FSB-officier Alexander Litvinenko, ook gevlucht, schreef een boek met dezelfde strekking. En de onder dramatische omstandigheden vertrokken Rybkin, die zijn campagne voor het presidentschap vanuit Londen zal voortzetten, heeft ook zo zijn vermoedens.

Documentairemaker Jos de Putter spreekt met Berezovski, Litvinenko en Rybkin en toont fragmenten uit voornoemde film. Verder proeft Masja Novikova in Moskou de sfeer en volgt ze de verkiezingscampagne van de enig overgebleven liberale kandidaat Irina Hakamada. Hakamada lijkt een volslagen kansloze en eenzame strijd te voeren voor een transparante democratie.

quote:

Russia: biggest spy threat to Britain

The Russian intelligence services, the prime suspects behind the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, have a network of more than 30 spies operating in Britain, it can be revealed.

The sophisticated ring represents the greatest espionage threat facing Britain, Whitehall sources told The Sunday Telegraph. The agents, equivalent to one in five of the Moscow government officials based in Britain, are known to be monitoring the movements and activities of Russian emigres and opponents of the Putin regime. But they are also involved in a widespread operation targeting businessmen, MPs and scientists in an attempt to steal commercial and state secrets. Only the United States, it is understood, has more Russian agents operating on its soil. Whitehall sources claim that the agents are as active today as they were at the height of the Cold War, despite the fact that the Kremlin is now one of Britain's major allies in the war on terrorism.

The startling intelligence was presented last week to Cabinet ministers at a Cobra meeting, where they are briefed on issues of national security. They were also told that Mr Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, who died 10 days ago, was "most probably" murdered by "state sponsored" assassins, with the radioactive poison polonium 210 and that suspicion centred firmly on Moscow. A source said: "The Russian intelligence services are highly bureaucratic and legalistic. There isn't a great deal of room for personal initiative, everything has to be officially authorised and signed off. And this murder would have been a highly complex operation involving many people not one or two acting in isolation."

During the Cobra meeting, government officials and the police were briefed that Russia is being ruled by a "brutal regime" that regards dissidents such as Mr Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch, living in exile in Britain, as terrorists. The Russian state is suspected of ordering the murder of five people in the past two decades.

Whitehall sources said that Russia continues to spy on Britain because of its "insatiable" appetite for other countries' state secrets. The main areas of interest include finance, the energy industry, defence, and electronics.

Meer...

Bron: http://www.telegraph.co.u(...)006/12/03/nspy03.xml

quote:

"Iraq is important to world energy markets because it holds more than 112 billion barrels of oil - the world's second largest reserves. Iraq also contains 110 trillion cubic feet of gas." [ US Government's Country Analysis Brief on Iraq, December 1999. ]

"No matter what decision the president makes [on Iraq], the United States will always be better off with a policy that provides more energy independence" (Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman) [ Miami Herald (from Reuters), "White House: No Link Between Iraq Policy, Oil Price", 6 September 2002 ]

quote:

Op woensdag 20 december 2006 18:54 schreef siggi het volgende:
De ware aard van de oorlog tegen het terrorisme...

De ware aard van de oorlog tegen het terrorisme...

De ware aard van de oorlog tegen het terrorisme...

Hoi OpenYourMind met als statement Question Everything. Wordt het niet eens tijd dat je je naam wijzigt? Jij hebt je eigen standpunt waar je lekker stug aan vast houdt, niks geen Opening Your Mind en wat betreft je: "Question Everything"; dat kun je beter vervangen met: "I Only Question Each & Every Good & Valid Argument Brought Against Me."

En trouwens; het Stenen Tijdperk is ook niet afgelopen omdat de Stenen op waren.

quote:

The Emerging Russian Giant Plays its Cards Strategically

By F. William Engdahl, October 9, 2006 / Updated Ocotober 20, 2006

On October 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to the German city of Dresden for a summit on energy issues with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. On the agenda were proposed plans to more than double German import of Russian natural gas. Putin told the German Chancellor that Russia would ‘possibly’ redirect some of the future natural gas from its giant Shtokman field in the Barents Sea. The $20 billion project is due to come online 2010. Putin’s Dresden talks followed an earlier summit in Paris in late September with Putin and French President Chirac and Merkel. A week after his Dresden talks, the Indonesian Navy Chief of Staff announced a remarkable shift away from that country’s traditional purchases of NATO military equipment. Indonesia will buy twelve modern Kilo-Class and Lada-Class Russian submarines. Indonesia cited advantages of cost and reliability over NATO French or German equivalents.

These developments underscore the re-emerging of Russia as a major global power. The new Russia is gaining in influence through a series of strategic moves revolving around its geopolitical assets in energy—most notably its oil and natural gas. It’s doing so by shrewdly taking advantage of the strategic follies and major political blunders of Washington. The new Russia also realizes that if it does not act decisively, it soon will be encircled and trumped by a military rival, USA. The battle, largely unspoken, is the highest stakes battle in world politics today. Iran and Syria are seen by Washington strategists as mere steps to this great Russian End Game.

In recent years major attention has been paid to the emergence of a China economic colossus. What is generally missing in these discussions is the fact that China will not be able to emerge as a truly independent global power over the coming decade unless it is able to solve two strategic vulnerabilities—its growing dependence on energy imports for its economic growth, and its inability to pose a credible nuclear deterrence to a US nuclear first strike.

Russia is the one remaining power which still has sufficient military deterrence potential in its strategic nuclear arsenal, and is expanding same, as well as abundant energy to make a credible counterweight to global US military and political primacy. A Eurasian combination of China and Russia and allied Eurasian states, essentially the states in and around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, do present a potential counterweight to unilateral USA dominance. An understanding of recent Russian developments in this light is essential to understand United States foreign policy as well as global politics at present.


Russia`s Strategic Dilemma

Since the devastating setbacks two years ago from the US-sponsored ‘color revolutions’ in Georgia, and then Ukraine, Russia has begun to play its strategic energy cards extremely carefully, from nuclear reactors in Iran to military sales to Venezuela and other Latin American states, to strategic market cooperation deals in natural gas with Algeria.

At the same time, the Bush Administration has dug itself deeper into a geopolitical morass, through a foreign policy agenda which has reckless disregard for its allies as well as its foes. That reckless policy has been associated with former Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, more than any other figure in Washington.

The ‘Cheney Presidency,’ which is what historians will no doubt dub the George W. Bush years, has been based on a clear strategy. It has often been misunderstood by critics who had overly focused on its most visible component, namely, Iraq, the Middle East and the strident war-hawks around the Vice President and his old crony, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.

The ‘Cheney strategy’ has been a US foreign policy based on securing direct global energy control, control by the Big Four US or US-tied private oil giants - ChevronTexaco or ExxonMobil, BP or Royal Dutch Shell. Above all, it has aimed at control of all the world`s major oil regions, along with the major natural gas fields. That control has moved in tandem with a growing bid by the United States for total military primacy over the one potential threat to its global ambitions - Russia. Cheney is perhaps the ideal person to weave the US military and energy policies together into a coherent strategy of dominance. During the early 1990s under father Bush, Cheney was also Secretary of Defense.

The Cheney-Bush administration has been dominated by a coalition of interests between Big Oil and the top industries of the American military-industrial complex. These private corporate interests exercise their power through control of the government policy of the United States. An aggressive militaristic agenda has been essential to it. It is epitomized by Cheney`s former company, Halliburton Inc., at one and the same time the world`s largest energy and geophysical services company, and the world`s largest constructor of military bases.

To comprehend the policy it`s important to look at how Cheney, as Halliburton CEO, viewed the problem of future oil supply on the eve of his becoming Vice President.


‘Where the Prize Ultimately Lies’: Cheney`s 1999 London speech

Back in September 1999, a full year before the US elections which made him the most powerful Vice President in history, Cheney gave a revealing speech before his oil industry peers at the London Institute of Petroleum. In a global review of the outlook for Big Oil, Cheney made the following comment:

By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world‘s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow. It is true that technology, privatisation and the opening up of a number of countries have created many new opportunities in areas around the world for various oil companies, but looking back to the early 1990‘s, expectations were that significant amounts of the world‘s new resources would come from such areas as the former Soviet Union and from China. Of course that didn‘t turn out quite as expected. Instead it turned out to be deep water successes that yielded the bonanza of the 1990‘s.

The Cheney remarks are worth a careful reading. He posits a conservative rise in global demand for oil by the end of the present decade, i.e. in about 4 years. He estimates the world will need to find an added 50 million barrels of daily output. Total daily oil production at present hovers around the level of some 83 million barrels oil equivalent. This means that to avert catastrophic shortages and the resultant devastating impact on global economic growth, by Cheney`s 1999 estimate, the world must find new oil production equal to more than 50% of the 1999 daily global output, and that, by about 2010. That is the equivalent of five new oil regions equal to today`s Saudi Arabian size. That is a whopping amount of new oil.

Given that it can take up to seven years or more to bring a new major oilfield into full production, that`s also not much time if a horrendous energy crunch and sky-high oil and gas prices are to be averted. Cheney`s estimate was also based on an overly conservative estimate of future oil import demand in China and India, today the two fastest growing oil consumers on the planet.

A second notable point of Cheney`s 1999 London comments was his remark that, ‘the Middle East with two thirds of the world‘s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.’ However, as he revealingly remarked, the oil ‘prize’ of the Middle East was in national or government hands, not open to exploitation by the private market, and thus, hard for Cheney`s Halliburton and his friends in ExxonMobil or Chevron or Shell or BP to get their hands on.

At that time, Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, was under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iran, which has the world`s second largest reserves of natural gas, in addition to its huge oil reserves, was ruled by a nationalist theocracy which was not open to US private company oil tenders. The Caspian Sea oil reserves were a subject of bitter geopolitical battle between Washington and Russia.

Cheney`s remark that ‘Oil remains fundamentally a government business,’ and not private, takes on a new significance when we do a fast forward to September 2000, in the heat of the 2000 Bush-Cheney election campaign. That month Cheney, along with Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and many others who went on to join the new Bush Administration, issued a policy report titled, ‘Re-building America`s Defenses.’ The paper was issued by an entity named Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Cheney`s PNAC group called on the new US President-to-be to find a suitable pretext to declare war on Iraq, in order to occupy it and take direct control over the second largest oil reserves in the Middle East. Their report stated bluntly, ‘While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification (sic), the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein ...’

Cheney signed on to a policy document in September 2000 which declared that the key issue was ‘American force presence in the Gulf,’ and regime change in Iraq, regardless whether Saddam Hussein was good, bad or ugly. It was the first step in moving the US military to ‘where the prize ultimately lies.’

No coincidence that Cheney immediately got the task of heading a Presidential Energy Task Force review in early 2001, where he worked closely with his friends in Big Oil, including the late Ken Lay of Enron, with whom Cheney earlier had been involved in an Afghan gas pipeline project, as well as with James Baker III.

Buried in the debate leading to the US bombing and occupation of Iraq in March 2003 was a lawsuit under the US Freedom of Information Act brought by Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, initially to find data on Cheney`s role in the California energy crisis. The suit demanded that Vice President Cheney make public all documents and records of meetings related to his 2001 Energy Task Force project.

The US Commerce Department in summer 2003 ultimately released part of the documents, over ferocious Cheney and White House opposition. Amid the files of the domestic US energy review was, curiously enough, a detailed map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and ‘Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.’ The ‘foreign suitors’ included Russia, China and France, three UN Security Council members who openly opposed granting the US UN approval for invading Iraq.

The first act of post-war occupation by Washington was to declare null and void any contracts between the Iraqi government and Russia, China and France. Iraqi oil was to be an American affair, handled by American companies or their close cronies in Britain, the first victory in the high-stakes quest, ‘where the prize ultimately lies.’

This was precisely what Cheney had alluded to in his 1999 London speech. Get the Middle East oil resources out of independent national hands and into US-controlled hands. The military occupation of Iraq was the first major step in this US strategy. Control of Russian energy reserves, however, was Washington`s ultimate ‘prize.’


De-construction of Russia: The ‘ultimate prize’

For obvious military and political reasons, Washington could not admit openly that its strategic focus, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, had been the dismemberment or de-construction of Russia, and gaining effective control of its huge oil and gas resources, the ‘ultimate prize.’ The Russian Bear still had formidable military means, however dilapidated, and he still had nuclear teeth.

In the mid-1990s Washington began a deliberate process of bringing one after the other former satellite Soviet state into not just the European Union, but into the Washington-dominated NATO. By 2004 Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia all had been admitted into NATO, and the Republic of Georgia was being groomed to join.

This surprising spread of NATO, to the alarm of some in western Europe, as well as to Russia, had been part of the strategy advocated by Cheney`s friends at the Project for the New American Century, in their ‘Rebuilding America`s Defenses’ report and even before.

Already in 1996, PNAC member and Cheney crony, Bruce Jackson, then a top executive with US defense giant, Lockheed Martin, was head of the US Committee to Expand NATO, later renamed the US Committee on Nato, a very powerful Washington lobby group.

The US Committee to Expand NATO also included PNAC members Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Hadley and Robert Kagan. Kagan`s wife is Victoria Nuland, now the US Ambassador to NATO. From 2000 - 2003, she was a foreign policy advisor to Cheney. Hadley, a hardline hawk close to Vice President Cheney, was named by President Bush to replace Condoleezza Rice as his National Security Adviser.

The warhawk Cheney network moved from the PNAC into key posts within the Bush Administration to run NATO and Pentagon policy. Bruce Jackson and others, after successfully lobbying Congress to expand NATO to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in 1999, moved to organize the so-called Vilnius Group that lobbied to bring ten more former Warsaw Pact countries on Russia`s periphery into NATO. Jackson called this the ‘Big Bang.’

President Bush repeatedly used the term ‘New Europe’ in statements about NATO enlargement. In a July 5, 2002 speech hailing the leaders of the Vilnius group, Bush declared, ‘Our nations share a common vision of a new Europe, where free European states are united with each other, and with the United States through cooperation, partnership, and alliance.’

Lockheed Martin`s former executive, Bruce Jackson, took credit for bringing the Baltic and other members of the Vilnius Group into NATO. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 1, 2003, Jackson claimed he originated the ‘Big Bang’ concept of NATO enlargement, later adopted by the Vilnius Group of Baltic and Eastern European nations. As Jackson noted, his ‘Big Bang’ briefing ‘proposed the inclusion of these seven countries in NATO and claimed for this enlargement strategic advantages for NATO and moral (sic) benefits for the democratic community of nations.’ On May 19, 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania, these propositions were adopted by nine of Europe`s new democracies as their own. It became the objectives of the Vilnius Group. Jackson could also have noted the benefits to US military defense industry, including his old cronies at Lockheed Martin, with the creation of a vast new NATO arms market on the borders to Russia.

Once that NATO goal was reached, Bruce Jackson and other members of the NATO eastern expansion lobby, closed the US Committee on Nato in 2003, and, seamlessly, in the very same office, re-opened as a new lobby organization, the Project on Transitional Democracies, which according to their own statement was ‘organized to exploit the opportunities to accelerate democratic reform and integration which we believe will exist in the broader Euro-Atlantic region over the next decade.’ In other words, to foster the series of Color Revolutions and regime change across Russian Eurasia. All three principals of the Project on Transitional Democracies worked for the Republican Party, and Jackson and Scheunemann have close ties with major military contractors, notably Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Jackson and other PNAC and U.S. Committee on NATO members also created a powerful lobby organization, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI). CLI`s advisory panel included hardline Democrats such as Rep. Stephen Solarz and Sen. Robert Kerrey. It was dominated by neo-conservatives and Republican Party stalwarts like Jeane Kirkpatrick, Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, William Kristol, and former CIA Director, James Woolsey. Serving as honorary co-chairs were Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ). Jackson related that friends in the White House had asked him to create the CLI in 2002 to replicate the success he had had pushing for NATO expansion through his US Committee on NATO by establishing an outfit aimed at supporting the administration`s campaign to convince Congress and the public to support a war. “People in the White House said, ‘We need you to do for Iraq what you did for NATO’,” Jackson told American Prospect magazine in a January 1, 2003 interview.

In brief, NATO encirclement of Russia, Color Revolutions across Eurasia, and the war in Iraq, were all one and the same American geopolitical strategy, part of a grand strategy to ultimately de-construct Russia once and for all as a potential rival to a sole US Superpower hegemony. Russia - not Iraq and not Iran - was the primary target of that strategy.

During a White House welcoming ceremony to greet the ten new NATO members in 2004, President Bush noted that NATO`s mission now extended far beyond the perimeter of the alliance. ‘NATO members are reaching out to the nations of the Middle East, to strengthen our ability to fight terror, and to provide for our common security,’ he said. But NATO`s mission now would extend beyond even global security. Bush added, ‘We`re discussing how we can support and increase the momentum of freedom in the greater Middle East.’ Freedom, that is, to come into the orbit of a Washington-controlled NATO alliance.

The end of the Yeltsin era put a slight crimp in the US plans. Putin began slowly and cautiously to emerge as a dynamic national force, committed to rebuilding Russia, following the IMF-guided looting of the country by a combination of Western banks and corrupt Russian oligarchs.

Russian oil output had risen since the collapse of the Soviet Union to the point that, by the time of the 2003 US war on Iraq, Russia was the world`s second largest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia.


Bron: http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Russian%20Giant.html

quote:

The real significance of the Yukos Affair

The defining event in the new Russian energy geopolitics under Vladimir Putin took place in 2003. It was just as Washington was making it brutally clear it was going to militarize Iraq and the Middle East, regardless of world protest or UN niceties.

A brief review of the spectacular October 2003 arrest of Russia`s billionaire ‘oligarch’ Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and state seizure of his giant Yukos oil group, is essential to understand Russian energy geopolitics.

Khodorkovsky was arrested at Novosibirsk airport on October 25, 2003, by the Russian Prosecutor General`s office on charges of tax evasion. The Putin government froze shares of Yukos Oil because of tax charges. They then took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse in the share price.

What was little mentioned in Western media accounts, which typically portrayed the Putin government actions as a reversion to Soviet-era methods, was what had triggered Putin`s dramatic action in the first place.

Khodorkovsky had been arrested just four weeks before a decisive Russian Duma or lower house election, in which Khodorkovsky had managed to buy the votes of a majority in the Duma using his vast wealth. Control of the Duma was to be the first step by Khodorkovsky in a plan to run against Putin the next year as President. The Duma victory would have allowed him to change election laws in his favor, as well as to alter a controversial law being drafted in the Duma, ‘The Law on Underground Resources.’ That law would prevent Yukos and other private companies from gaining control of raw materials in the ground, or from developing private pipeline routes independent of the Russian state pipelines.

Khodorkovsky had violated the pledge of the Oligarchs made to Putin, that they be allowed to keep their assets - de facto stolen from the state in the rigged auctions under Yeltsin - if they stayed out of Russian politics and repatriated a share of their stolen money. Khodorkovsky, the most powerful oligarch at the time, was serving as the vehicle for what was becoming an obvious Washington-backed putsch against Putin.

The Khodorkovsky arrest followed an unpublicized meeting earlier that year on July 14, 2003 between Khodorkovsky and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Following the Cheney meeting, Khodorkovsky began talks with ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, Condi Rice`s old firm, about taking a major state in Yukos, said to have been between 25% and 40%. That was intended to give Khodorkovsky de facto immunity from possible Putin government interference by tying Yukos to the big US oil giants and, hence, to Washington. It would also have given Washington, via the US oil giants, a de facto veto power over future Russian oil and gas pipelines and oil deals. Days before his October 2003 arrest on tax fraud charges, Khodorkovsky had entertained George H.W. Bush, the representative of the powerful and secretive Washington Carlyle Group in Moscow. They were discussing the final details of the US oil company share buy-in of Yukos.

Yukos had also just made a bid to acquire rival Sibneft from Boris Berezovsky, another Yeltsin-era Oligarch. Yukos/Sibneft, with 19.5 billion barrels of oil and gas, would then own the second-largest oil and gas reserves in the world after ExxonMobil. Yukos/Sibneft would be the fourth largest in the world in terms of production, pumping 2.3 million barrels of crude oil a day. The Exxon or Chevron buy-up of Yukos/Sibneft would have been a literal energy coup d´etat. Cheney knew it; Bush knew it; Khodorkovsky knew it.

Above all, Vladimir Putin knew it and moved decisively to block it.

Khodorkovsky had cultivated very impressive ties to the Anglo-American power establishment. He created a philanthropic foundation, the Open Russia Foundation, modeled on the Open Society foundation of his close friend George Soros. On the select board of Open Russia Foundation sat Henry Kissinger and Kissinger`s friend, Jacob Lord Rothschild, London scion of the banking family. Arthur Hartman, a former US Ambassador to Moscow, also sat on the foundation`s board.

Following Khodorkovsky`s arrest, the Washington Post reported that the imprisoned Russian billionaire had retained the services of Stuart Eizenstat - former deputy Treasury Secretary, Undersecretary of State, Undersecretary of Commerce during the Clinton Administration - to lobby in Washington for his freedom. Khodorkovsky was in deep with the Anglo-American establishment.

Subsequent western media and official protest about Russia`s return to communist methods and raw power politics, conveniently ignored the fact that Khodorkovsky was hardly Snow White himself. Earlier, Khodorkovsky had unilaterally ripped up his contract with British Petroleum. BP had been a partner with Yukos, and had spent $300 million in drilling the highly promising Priobskoye oil field in Siberia.

Once the BP drilling had been done, Khodorkovsky forced BP out, using gangster methods that would be unlawful in most of the developed world. By 2003 Priobskoye oil production reached 129 million barrels, equivalent to a value on the market of some $8 billions. Earlier, in 1998, after the IMF had given billions to Russia to prevent a collapse of the Ruble, Khodokorvosky`s Bank Menatep diverted an eye-popping $4.8 billion in IMF funds to his hand-picked bank cronies, some US banks among them. The howls of protest from Washington at the October 2003 arrest of Khodorkovsky were disingenuous, if not outright hypocritical. As seen from the Kremlin, Washington had been caught with its fat hand in the Russian cookie jar.

The Putin-Khodorkovsky showdown signaled a decisive turn by the Putin government towards rebuilding Russia and erecting strategic defenses from the foreign onslaught led by Cheney and friend Tony Blair in Britain. It took place in the context of a brazen US grab for Iraq in 2003 and of a unilateral Bush Administration announcement that the USA was abrogating its solemn treaty obligations with Russia under their earlier Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, in order to go ahead with development of US missile defenses, an act which could only be viewed in Moscow as a hostile act aimed at her security.

By 2003, indeed, it took little strategic military acumen to realize that the Pentagon hawks and their allies in the military industry and Big Oil had a vision of a United States unfettered by international agreements and acting unilaterally in its own best interests, as defined, of course, by the hawks. Their recommendations were published by one of the many Washington hawk conservative Think-Tanks. In January 2001 The National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) issued Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, just as the Bush-Cheney Administration began. The report, demanding a unilateral US end to nuclear force reduction, was signed by 27 senior officials from past and current administrations. The list included the man who today is Bush`s National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley; it included the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Stephen Cambone, and it included Admiral James Woolsey, the former head of CIA and chairman of the Washington NGO, Freedom House. Freedom House played a central role in Ukraine`s US-sponsored ‘Orange Revolution’ and all other ‘Color Revolutions’ across the former Soviet Union.

These events were soon followed by the Washington-financed series of covert destabilizations of a number of governments in Russia`s periphery which had been close to Moscow. It included the November 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia which ousted Edouard Shevardnadze in favour of a young, US-educated and pro-NATO President, Mikheil Saakashvili. The 37-year-old Saakashvili had conveniently agreed to back the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that would avoid Moscow pipeline control of Azerbaijan`s Caspian oil. The United States has maintained close ties with Georgia since President Mikheil Saakashvili has come to power. American military trainers instruct Georgian troops and Washington has poured millions of dollars into preparing Georgia to become part of NATO.

Following its Rose Revolution in Georgia, Woolsey`s Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Soros Foundation and other Washington-backed NGOs organized the brazenly provocative November 2004 Ukraine ‘Orange Revolution.’ The aim of the Orange Revolution was to install a pro-NATO regime there under the contested Presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, in a land strategically able to cut the major pipeline flows from Russian oil and gas to Western Europe. Washington-backed ‘democratic opposition’ movements in neighboring Belarus also began receiving millions of dollars of Bush Administration largesse, along with Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan and more remote former Soviet states which also happen to form a barrier between potential energy pipelines linking China with Russia and the former Soviet states like Kazkhstan.

Again, energy and oil and gas pipeline control lay at the heart of the US moves. Little wonder, perhaps, that some people inside the Kremlin, notably Vladimir Putin, began to wonder if Putin`s new born-again Texan partner-in-prayer, George W. Bush, was in fact speaking to Putin with forked tongue, as the Indians would say.

By the end of 2004 it was clear in Moscow that a new Cold War, this one over strategic energy control and unilateral nuclear primacy, was fully underway. It was also clear from the unmistakable pattern of Washington actions since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, that End Game for US policy vis-à-vis Eurasia was not China, not Iraq, and not Iran.

The geopolitical ‘End Game’ for Washington was the complete de-construction of Russia, the one state in Eurasia capable of organizing an effective combination of alliances using its vast oil and gas resources. That, of course, could never be openly declared.

After 2003 Putin and Russian foreign policy, especially energy policy, reverted to their basic response to the ‘Heartland’ geopolitics of Sir Halford Mackinder, politics which had been the basis of Soviet Cold War strategy since 1946.

Putin began to make a series of defensive moves to restore some tenable form of equilibrium in face of the increasingly obvious Washington policy of encircling and weakening Russia. Subsequent US strategic blunders have made the job a bit easier for Russia. Now, with the stakes rising on both sides - NATO and Russia – Putin`s Russia has moved beyond simple defense to a new dynamic offensive, to secure a more viable geopolitical position, using its energy as the lever.


Mackinder`s Heartland and Brzezinski`s Chess Game

It`s essential to understand the historic background to the term geopolitics. In 1904, an academic British geographer named Halford Mackinder made an address before the Royal Geographic Society in London which was to give the British Empire and later the United States a roadmap to change history. In his speech, titled, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History,’ Mackinder sought to define the relation between a nation`s or region`s geography - its topography, relation to the sea or land, its climate - with its politics and position in the world. He posited two classes of powers: sea powers including Britain and the United States as well as Japan; and he posited the large land powers of Eurasia, which, with development of the railroad, were able to unite large land masses free from dependency on the seas.

For Mackinder, an ardent Empire advocate, the implicit lesson for continued hegemony of the British Empire following the 1914-1917 World War, was to prevent at all costs a convergence of interests between the nations of East Europe - Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria-Hungary - and the Russia-centered Eurasia ‘Heartland’ or ‘pivot’ land,as he termed it. After the Versailles peace talks, Mackinder summed up his ideas in the following famous dictum:

Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
Who rules the World-Island commands the world.

Mackinder`s Heartland was the core area of Eurasia, and the World-Island was all of Eurasia, including Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Great Britain, never a part of Continental Europe, he saw as a separate naval or sea-power. The Mackinder geopolitical perspective shaped Britain`s entry into the 1914 Great War, it shaped her entry into World War Two. It shaped Churchill`s calculated provocations of an increasingly paranoid Stalin, beginning 1943, to entice Russia into what became the Cold War.

From a US perspective, the 1946-1991 Cold War era was all about who shall control Mackinder`s World-Island, and, concretely, how to prevent the Eurasian Heartland, centered on Russia, from doing just that. A look at a polar projection map of US military alliances during the Cold War makes the point: The Soviet Union had been geopolitically contained and prevented from any significant linkup with Western Europe or the Middle East or Asia. The Cold War was about Russian efforts to circumvent that NATO-centered Iron Curtain.

Former US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, writing in the post-Soviet era in 1997, drew on Mackinder`s geopolitics by name, in describing the principal strategic aim of the United States to keep Eurasia from unifying as a coherent economic and military bloc or counterweight to the sole superpower status of the United States.

To understand US foreign policy since the onset of the Bush-Cheney Presidency in 2001, therefore, it`s useful to cite a revealing New York Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs article by Brzezinski from September/October 1997:

‘Eurasia is home to most of the world`s politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world`s most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world`s overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world`s population, 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia`s potential power overshadows even America`s.

‘Eurasia is the world`s axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world`s three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America`s global primacy….’ (emphasis added-w.e.)

If we take the words of Washington strategist Brzezinski and understand the axioms of Halford Mackinder as the driving motive for Anglo, and later, American foreign policy for more than an entire century, it begins to become clear why a reorganized Russian state under the Presidency of Vladimir Putin has gone into motion to resist the overtures and overt attempts at deconstruction being promoted by Washington in the name of democracy. How has Putin acted to shore up Russian defenses? In a word: energy.


Russian energy geopolitics

In terms of the overall standard of living, mortality and economic prosperity, Russia today is not a world class power. In terms of energy, it is a colossus. In terms of landmass it is still the single largest nation in land area in the world, spanning from the Pacific to the door of Europe. It has vast territory, vast natural resources, and it has the world`s largest reserves of natural gas, the energy source currently the focus of major global power plays. In addition, it is the only power on the face of the earth with the military capabilities able to match that of the United States despite the collapse of the USSR and deterioration in the military since.

Russia has more than 130,000 oil wells and some 2000 oil and gas deposits explored of which at least 900 are not in use. Oil reserves have been estimated at 150 billion barrels, similar perhaps to Iraq. They could be far larger but have not yet been exploited owing to difficulty of drilling in some remote arctic regions. Oil prices above $60 a barrel begin to make it economical to explore in those remote regions.

Currently Russian oil products can be exported to foreign markets in three routes: Western Europe via the Baltic Sea and Black Sea; Northern route; Far East to China or Japan and East Asian markets. Russia has oil terminals on the Baltic at St. Petersburg for oil and a newly expanded oil terminal at Primorsk. There are added oil terminals under construction at Vysotsk, Batareynaya Bay and Ust-Luga.

Russia`s state-owned natural gas pipeline network, its so-called ‘unified gas transportation system’ includes a vast network of pipelines and compressor stations extending more than 150,000 kilometers across Russia. By law only the state-owned Gazprom is allowed to use the pipeline. The network is perhaps the most valued Russian state asset outside the oil and gas itself. Here is the heart of Putin`s new natural gas geopolitics and the focus of conflict with western oil and gas companies as well as the European Union, whose Energy Commissioner, Andras Piebalgs, is from new NATO member Latvia, formerly part of the USSR.


Bron: http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/print/Russian%20Giant.html

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Op woensdag 20 december 2006 20:29 schreef Hallulama het volgende:
OpenYourMind, uiteindelijk behouden we dus op die wijze onze levensstijl, die ons op dit moment zo dierbaar is, of niet?

M.a.w., dankzij al dat gelazer kunnen we over 10 tot 20 jaar nog steeds van onze breedbeeld televisie genieten.

Jammer alleen, dat de politiek dit niet gewoon eerlijk toegeeft.

Oh, en: Het Grote Verborgen Schaakspel

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'Iran wil kernenergie wegens problemen met olie'

Uitgegeven: 25 december 2006 23:56

WASHINGTON - Iran wil niet alleen kernenergie omdat het zich als regionale macht wil profileren, maar het land staat voor een ernstige crisis met zijn oliewinning en -industrie. Dit stelt een Amerikaanse onderzoeker in een maandag verschenen publicatie.

Iran heeft de naam een grote olieproducent te zijn met enorme voorraden om nog lang olie op te pompen, maar in werkelijkheid verkeert de Iraanse oliesector in een crisis. De infrastructuur die noodzakelijk is voor deze sector, faalt en er zijn geen nieuwe investeringen voor de sector, zo betoogt professor Roger Stern van de Johns Hopkins Universiteit in de publicatie Proceedings van de gezaghebbende Nationale Academie in de VS.

Kernwapens

Stern is van mening dat beschuldigingen van Washington dat Teheran op kernwapens uit is, steek houden, maar de Iraanse argumentatie voor kernenergie hoeft niet allemaal onzin te zijn. Hij stelt dat Iran waarschijnlijk kernenergie echt zo hard nodig heeft als het land beweert.

Iran is erg afhankelijk van de opbrengsten van de olie-export. De nationale oliemaatschappij moet zo veel mogelijk uitvoeren, want in Iran zelf is geen winst te halen. Dat is een gevolg van de opgelegde prijzen, waardoor de brandstof voor de Iraniërs is gesubsidieerd.

Bevolking

Maar de bevolking stijgt snel in omvang, waardoor er toch veel olie in het land zelf wordt verstookt. Iran importeert zelf producten zoals benzine om aan de stijgende binnenlandse vraag te voldoen, aldus Stern. Die vraag stijgt waarschijnlijk te snel sinds 1980 ten opzichte van de groei van de geproduceerde hoeveelheid olie. Na een hoogtepunt tien jaar geleden is de uitvoer van Iraanse olie gestagneerd volgens Stern. En in de afgelopen anderhalf jaar heeft Iran niet meer voldaan aan de door de OPEC (Organisatie van Petroleum Exporterende Landen) opgegeven exportquota. De productie van olie in Iran moet volgens Stern dalende zijn.

Nationalistische politieke leiders maken de zaak er niet beter op met een slecht investeringsklimaat. In de jaren 1998-2004 werd onvoldoende in de sector geïnvesteerd om de daling in de productie te voorkomen. Kernenergie kan daarom hard nodig zijn wanneer die daling doorzet, denkt Stern.

Bron: http://www.nu.nl/news/926(...)men_met_olie%27.html

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Wit-Rusland tilt onderhandelingen op hoger plan

Uitgegeven: 31 december 2006 10:34
Laatst gewijzigd: 31 december 2006 10:53

MOSKOU - Wit-Rusland heeft zondag in een laatste poging om een crisis te voorkomen over gasleveranties zijn hoogste onderhandelaar naar Moskou gestuurd. Vicepremier Vladimir Semasjko moet voorkomen dat het Russische staatsgasbedrijf Gazprom maandag om 08.00 uur (Nederlandse tijd) de gastoevoer naar Wit-Rusland afsluit.

Tot nog toe beklaagde Gazprom zich er over dat onderhandelingen over een nieuw gascontract vooral verliepen via telefoon en fax en met Wit-Russiche ambtenaren die naar Moskou waren gereisd. Zij zouden te laag in rang zijn om een contract te kunnen sluiten.


De Russische monopolist dreigde afgelopen week de gaskraan naar het buurland dicht te draaien als het niet in zou stemmen met de ruimschoots verdubbelde prijs die het had vastgesteld voor 2007.

Daarop dreigde Minsk de doorvoer van Russisch gas naar Europa te stoppen.

Wit-Rusland verklaarde zich zaterdagavond bereid volgend jaar fors meer te gaan betalen voor Russisch gas. Semasjko zei toen dat zijn land na koortsachtig overleg in Moskou akkoord is gegaan met een prijsverhoging van 46 naar 100 dollar per 1000 kubieke meter.

Een woordvoerder van Gazprom liet evenwel in een reactie weten dat er nog lang geen sprake is van een overeenkomst.

Ongeveer 20 procent van de Russische gasexport naar Europa stroomt door Wit-Rusland. Een vergelijkbare ruzie tussen Gazprom en Oekraïne een jaar geleden zorgde ervoor dat gasleveranties naar West-Europa werden verstoord. Het leidde ook tot vragen over Moskous betrouwbaarheid als energieleverancier.

http://www.nu.nl/news/930(...)n_op_hoger_plan.html

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Wit-Rusland heft belasting op Russische olie

Uitgegeven: 4 januari 2007 12:57
Laatst gewijzigd: 4 januari 2007 13:02

MINSK - Wit-Rusland heeft hoge heffingen ingevoerd op Russische olie die door pijpleidingen op zijn grondgebied naar Europa vloeit.

Rusland moet voortaan 45 dollar per doorgevoerde ton olie betalen. Het Kremlin bevestigde dit donderdag maar liet weten dat de maatregel geen gevolgen zal hebben voor olieleveranties aan Europese landen.

http://www.nu.nl/news/934(...)_Russische_olie.html

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Pentagon gebruikte 'dubieuze' inlichtingen

De voormalige Amerikaanse minister van Defensie Donald Rumsfeld liet zijn medewerkers 'alternatieve' rapporten van de inlichtingendiensten maken om de argumenten voor een oorlog tegen Irak te versterken. Dat bleek vrijdag uit een onderzoek van het Pentagon.

quote:

De onderminister voor Defensiebeleid Douglas Feith publiceerde rapporten waarin stond dat de Iraakse president Saddam Hussein had samengewerkt met het terreurnetwerk al-Qaeda. De Democratische senator Carl Levin, die het Pentagon-onderzoek naar buiten bracht, noemde de conclusies een ''vernietigende veroordeling'' van Feith en diens medewerkers.

Medewerkers van de onderminister ''bedachten, maakten en verspreidden vervolgens alternatieve informatie van de inlichtingendiensten over de relatie tussen Irak en al-Qaeda, waarin conclusies stonden die niet spoorden met de algemeen geldende opvattingen van inlichtingendiensten'', blijkt uit het rapport.

quote:

Bovendien baseerden zij zich op ''ruw materiaal van inlichtingendiensten, waaronder rapporten van dubieuze kwaliteit en betrouwbaarheid''. De rapporten werden echter gebruikt door de meest invloedrijke politici, onder wie vicepresident Dick Cheney. ''Vicepresident Cheney noemde de rapporten van Feiths dienst zelfs 'de beste bron van informatie' over de vermeende banden tussen Irak en al-Qaeda.''

Het Amerikaanse Congres gaf in 2005 opdracht voor het onderzoek naar Feiths dienst voor Bijzondere Operaties.

Bron: ANP Pentagon gebruikte 'dubieuze' inlichtingen

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Prepare for Peak Oil, GAO Warns

The Energy Department and other federal agencies need to develop a strategy to mitigate the effects of a peak in oil production, which most studies show will occur between now and 2040, the Government Accountability Office said today, in a study requested by members of the House Committee on Science and Technology.

...

Efforts to minimize the impact on the U.S., such as increasing alternative fuels like ethanol require costly investments in infrastructure and new technologies. Even optimistic scenarios project that alternative technologies will displace just 4% of projected U.S. consumption by 2015, the GAO said.

Bron: http://blogs.wsj.com/ener(...)-peak-oil-gao-warns/

quote:

"The timing of the peak depends on multiple, uncertain factors that will influence how quickly the remaining oil is used, including the amount of oil still in the ground, how much of the remaining oil can be ultimately produced, and future oil demand," the GAO report said.

It said the amount of oil remaining in the ground is highly uncertain, in part because OPEC controls most of the world's estimated oil reserves. But those reserves largely haven't been verified by independent auditors.

"Other important sources of uncertainty about future oil production are potentially unfavorable political and investment conditions in countries where oil is located," particularly as more than 60% of global reserves "are in countries where relatively unstable political conditions could constrain oil exploration and production."

quote:

RTLZ: Olietekort steeds structureler

Zie ook filmpje van RTLZ Olietekort steeds structureler

Het wordt steeds duidelijker dat het tekort aan olie van de laatste jaren steeds structureler wordt. De productie van oude velden in onder meer de Golf van Mexico en op de Noordzee neemt af. Nieuwe velden kunnen dat maar net opvangen.



Bron: http://www.rtl.nl/(/finan(...)kort_structureel.xml

quote:

Shell: olievraag overtreft aanbod afgelopen 2 jaar

In Nederland betalen we gewoon lekker door voor onze dagelijke autorit naar het werk, maar in o.a. Maleisië (foto’s), Australië en Yemen waren consumenten niet zo blij met de hoge olieprijs van de afgelopen jaren. Vrijwel geen enkele journalist echter gewag maakte van de olievraag die het aanbod overstijgt de laatste tijd, behalve journalist en grondstof-expert Willem Middelkoop. (zie RTL-Z, linkjes 1, 2, 3). Dat er een tekort is bleek namelijk uit de cijfers van de Energy Information Administation, de statistische tak van het Amerikaanse departement van Energie. Nu is deze visie op de oliemarkt ook bevestigt door de CEO van Shell Amerika, John Hofmeister: “We have now faced two years of, frankly, unacceptable high price and unnecessary high price because energy demand continues to exceed energy supply … We can get angry, or we can change public policy.”



Bron: http://www.peakoil.nl/?p=1306

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Olievoorraden dalen onverwacht

Woensdag 18 April 2007 17:07

AMSTERDAM (Dow Jones) -- De voorraden ruwe olie in de VS zijn afgelopen week onverwacht gedaald, terwijl de voorraden benzine en destillaten sterker afnamen dan verwacht. Dit meldt de Amerikaanse overheid woensdag in zijn wekelijkse update over de energievoorraden.

De voorraad ruwe olie nam af met 1 miljoen vaten tot 332,4 miljoen vaten, waar de markt rekende op een toename van 500.000 vaten.

De benzinevoorraad daalde met 2,7 miljoen vaten tot 197 miljoen vaten, terwijl analisten waren uitgegaan van 1,45 miljoen vaten minder.

De voorraad destillaten - waaronder stookolie en diesel - kwam 800.000 vaten lager uit dan een week eerder, waar de markt uitging van een afname van 400.000 miljoen vaten.

De raffinagecapaciteit steeg met 0,2 procentpunt tot 90,4%. Analisten rekenden op een stijging van 0,4 procentpunt.

Bron: http://www.beurs.nl/nieuws/artikel.php?id=219791&taal=NL

quote:

Op donderdag 19 april 2007 05:30 schreef concac het volgende:
tuurlijk

dus de conclusie is Bush wil alleen olie?
of was de oorlog tegen het terrorisme al begonnen toen Clinton aan de macht was, toen Al-Qaeda de ambasades in Tanzania en Kenia opblies, en de aanslag op de USS Cole?

als ze voor de olie gingen.
waarom zoveel moeite op Irak aan te vallen als Canada en Venezuela om de hoek ligt?

Canada heeft een grotere olie reserve dan Iran en Irak.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/p(...)korder/2178rank.html

quote:

Op donderdag 19 april 2007 17:34 schreef gorgg het volgende:

[..]

Ik vind het nog steeds onzin wat Willem Middelkoop zegt over een structureel tekort. Hij vergeet simpelweg dat het aanbod ook bepaald wordt door voorraadwijzigingen. Eind 2006 waren de voorraden op recordhoogte (nieuwsberichten hierover zorgen voor een sterke daling in de olieprijs toen). De speculatie op olie is volgens mij ook wat vermindert. Dus niet erg onlogisch imo dat de voorraden volgend jaar lager zullen zijn. Die daling (die de EIA verwacht) erbij tellen leidt ertoe dat de vraag perfect overeenkomt met het aanbod. Ik heb hem een mail gestuurd hierover, benieuwd of ik antwoord krijg.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/3tab.html

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'Mogelijk dubbel zoveel olie in Irak als vermoed'

Irak beschikt mogelijk over bijna dubbel zoveel aardoliereserves als tot dusver werd vermoed. Experts van het Amerikaanse consultancybedrijf inzake energie IHS gaan er, na intensief bodemonderzoek, van uit dat in het woestijngebied in het westen van het land nog zo'n 100 miljard vaten (van 159 liter) kunnen opgehaald worden.

Dat schrijft donderdag de Britse zakenkrant Financial Times.

Als die analyse -die niet echt als een verrassing komt- klopt, betekent dit dat Irak na Saoedi-Arabië over de grootste oliereserves ter wereld beschikt. Momenteel staat Irak nog op de derde plaats, na de Saoedi's en Iran. In oliemiddens gold Irak al enkele jaren als het mogelijke nieuwe El Dorado.

Een en ander maakt het belang van Irak duidelijk voor de internationale oliegiganten die megawinsten kunnen opstrijken van zodra of in het geval het 'conflict' in het land wordt overwonnen, schrijft de krant. Die winsten worden des te groter mocht het Iraakse parlement de door de Amerikanen opgestelde oliewet goedkeuren, volgens dewelke de olie-industrie enkel nominaal in overheidshanden blijft, maar die de multinationals via variaties op de PSA's (Production Sharing Agreements) toestaat het leeuwendeel van de oliewinsten op te strijken. Daarbij komt dat de olie zich relatief goedkoop laat oppompen en dat het zwarte goud onder de Iraakse bodem van uitstekende kwaliteit is (en amper nog raffinage behoeft).

De IHS-studie baseert zich op gegevens, waaronder geologische analyses, die zowel voor als na de Anglo-Amerikaanse invasie van maart 2003 werden gewonnen. IHS-deskundige Robert Mobed had het in de krant over 'unieke mogelijkheden' en een 'gouden kans' voor het westerse bedrijfsleven.

Bron: http://www.tijd.be/nieuws/buitenland/artikel.asp?Id=2862338
Oorspronkelijke bron: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2(...)9f-00000e2511c8.html

quote:

Quotes van de belangrijkste stukken uit dit boek:

"Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power." (p. xiii.)

"The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power." (p. xiii)

"But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book." (p. xiv)

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America’s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” (p. 24-5)

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia) Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia -- and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30)

"America’s withdrawal from the world or because of the sudden emergence of a successful rival -- would produce massive international instability. It would prompt global anarchy." (p. 30)

"In that context, how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world’s GNP and about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources." (p.31)

"Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic
Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them; second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above." (p. 40)

"To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)

Bron: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RUP111B.pdf

quote:

"Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America’s status as a global power." (p.55)

"Uzbekistan -- with its much more ethnically homogeneous population of approximately 25 million and its leaders emphasizing the country’s historic glories -- has become increasingly assertive in affirming the region’s new postcolonial status." (p.95)

"Thus, even the ethnically vulnerable Kazakhstan joined the other Central Asian states in abandoning the Cyrillic alphabet and replacing it with Latin script as adapted earlier by Turkey. In effect, by the mid-1990s a bloc, quietly led by Ukraine and comprising Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and sometimes also Kazakhstan, Georgia and Moldova, had informally emerged to obstruct Russian efforts to use the CIS as the tool for political integration." (p.114)

"Hence, support for the new post-Soviet states -- for geopolitical pluralism in the space of the former Soviet empire -- has to be an integral part of a policy designed to induce Russia to exercise unambiguously its European option. Among these states. Three are geopolitically especially important: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine." (p. 121)

"Uzbekistan, nationally the most vital and the most populous of the central Asian states, represents the major obstacle to any renewed Russian control over the region. Its independence is critical to the survival of the other Central Asian states, and it is the least vulnerable to Russian pressures." (p. 121)

quote:

Referring to an area he calls the "Eurasian Balkans" and a 1997 map in which he has circled the exact location of the current conflict ( describing it as the central region of pending conflict for world dominance - Brzezinski writes:

"Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold." (p.124)

The world’s energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125)

"Kazakhstan is the shield and Uzbekistan is the soul for the region’s diverse national awakenings." (p.130)

"Uzbekistan is, in fact, the prime candidate for regional leadership in Central Asia." (p.130)

"Once pipelines to the area have been developed, Turkmenistan’s truly vast natural gas reserves augur a prosperous future for the country’s people. (p.132)

"In fact, an Islamic revival -- already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia -- is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian -- and hence infidel -- control." (p. 133).

"For Pakistan, the primary interest is to gain Geostrategic depth through political influence in Afghanistan -- and to deny to Iran the exercise of such influence in Afghanistan and Tajikistan -- and to benefit eventually from any pipeline construction linking Central Asia with the Arabian Sea." (p.139)

"Moreover, sensible Russian leaders realize that the demographic explosion underway in the new states means that their failure to sustain economic growth will eventually create an explosive situation along Russia’s entire southern frontier." (p.141) [This would explain why Putin would welcome U.S. military presence to stabilize the region.]

"Turkmenistan has been actively exploring the construction of a new pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea" (p.145)

quote:

"It follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it." (p148)

"China’s growing economic presence in the region and its political stake in the area’s independence are also congruent with America’s interests." (p.149)

"America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe’s central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America’s global primacy and to America’s historical legacy." (p.194)

"the Eurasian Balkans -- threatens to become a cauldron of ethnic conflict and great-power rivalry." (p.195)

"Without sustained and directed American involvement, before long the forces of global disorder could come to dominate the world scene. And the possibility of such a fragmentation is inherent in the geopolitical tensions not only of today’s Eurasia but of the world more generally." (p.194)

"With warning signs on the horizon across Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a Geostrategic design." (p.197)

"That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America’s primacy" (p. 198)

"The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." (p. 198)

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211) [Emphasis added]

Bron: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RUP111B.pdf
Boek: The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Georstrategic Imperative

quote:

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

Bron: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

quote:

World events since the attacks of September 11, 2001 have not only been predicted, but also
planned, orchestrated and -- as their architects would like to believe -- controlled. The
current Central Asian war is not a response to terrorism, nor is it a reaction to Islamic
fundamentalism. It is in fact, in the words of one of the most powerful men on the planet, the
beginning of a final conflict before total world domination by the United States leads to the
dissolution of all national governments. This, says Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
member and former Carter National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, will lead to
nation states being incorporated into a new world order, controlled solely by economic
interests as dictated by banks, corporations and ruling elites concerned with the maintenance
(by manipulation and war) of their power.

quote:

Op vrijdag 20 april 2007 17:51 schreef Autoreply het volgende:

[..]

Ach, tis zonder meer een interessante analyse. Inhoudelijk heb je echter wel gelijk, de nieuwe economie draait vooral op kennis (energie is via kernenergie, van welke vorm dan ook redelijk globaal verdeeld, net als de productie van waterstof) en daardoor zal een supermacht niet meer in z'n huidge vorm kunnen bestaan

quote:

A Cold War Legacy of Persian Gulf Conflict
Central Command assures 'unimpeded flow of oil'


Modern struggles in the Persian Gulf are inseparable from the region’s oil, so crucial to the economic interests of the world's great powers.

The Central Command itself was formed 20 years ago as both a consequence of and a solution to those struggles.

In the latest Persian Gulf conflict, weapons of mass destruction and the crimes of Saddam Hussein are cited in newspapers, U.N. resolutions and the Oval Office as the prime motives of war.

But it is the Cold War legacy of the Central Command that makes war possible at all.


One Sentence

By January 1980, Hendrik Hertzberg had been writing speeches for President Jimmy Carter for three years. He’d grown familiar with the routine of drafts and revisions, recommendations and more rewrites; now he and his colleagues were sharpening their pencils for the State of the Union Address.

But this time, Hertzberg received an unprecedented order. One key sentence was to be inserted into the speech, and it could not be altered.

Write what you will to introduce this sentence, he was told, but this language could not be touched.

"That was the only part that came delivered in a sealed envelope, almost," Hertzberg recalled.

The orders came directly from National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of the pivotal clause that would later be known as "the Carter Doctrine":

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

"I did write that phrase and insisted that it be incorporated in the speech," Brzezinski wrote in an email to Newsdesk.org. "It was designed to make it very clear that the Soviets should stay away from the Persian Gulf."

The Soviet Union had sent troops into Afghanistan a month earlier, and the country was reeling from an oil shortage brought on by the hostage crisis in Iran.

Carter’s speech, presented to Congress on January 21, 1980, detailed the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf region and its petroleum resources to the U.S. economy.

”The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow.”

Carter was drawing a line in the sand, but lacked the military force to back it up.

"We knew that we didn’t really have the teeth to back up the Carter Doctrine," said Hertzberg. "We had nuclear weapons, but not the conventional forces to make it stick if the Soviets chose to challenge it."

At the time, Persian Gulf countries were reluctant to accept U.S. military bases, so the U.S. needed a plan to get stateside troops deployed to the region quickly. Brzezinski decided to develop a rapid deployment force.

According to Brzezinski, "the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force was the product of a series of NSC (National Security Council) meetings initiated by me and organized by then Col. (now Gen.) William Odom to give some muscle to the Carter Doctrine."

The idea of a military unit that could be sent anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice was not new, but with the Carter Doctrine, the project took on a new urgency.

Originally conceived of as a global force, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force evolved into a unified command for the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and North Africa.

Petroleum continued to play a large role in the strategic milieu.

In 1982, the Washington Quarterly quoted the commanding officer, General Robert Kingston, saying that the task force's basic mission was to "to assure the unimpeded flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf."

Bron: http://www.artsandmedia.n(...)2003/03/18_centcom_1

quote:

In 2003, the Central Command has been called on again, and Iraq is once more in the crosshairs.

And the Central Command's mission remains unchanged. Its website states plainly the significance of the energy resources in the territory under its jurisdiction, in words that echo the Carter Doctrine:

"The region contains more than 65 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Its security is vital to the global economy ... Ships navigating these waters … carry the petroleum products that fuel the economies of our European and Asian allies."

General Tommy Franks, in an April 2001 interview with the American Forces Press Service, concurs:

"One of our responsibilities -- in fact, one of our objectives -- is to maintain access to these energy resources at the same time that we maintain access to markets in the region."


Supply and Demand

The Bush administration sees dependence on the region’s resources growing in the United States as well, stating in its National Energy Policy in May 2001 that "by 2020, Gulf oil producers are projected to supply between 54 and 67 percent of the world’s oil ... This region will remain vital to U.S. interests."

The policy report, based on the findings of Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group, predicts that U.S. oil consumption will increase 33 percent in the next 20 years and that natural gas demand will rise more than 50 percent.

Domestic petroleum production, it says, will decline.

The document reads: "On our present course, America 20 years from now will import nearly two out of every three barrels of oil -- a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have America’s best interests at heart."

Of those foreign powers, Iraq stands out as one of the most problematic.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy website, "Iraq contains 112 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the second largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia) along with roughly 220 billion barrels of probable and possible resources. Iraq’s true resource potential may be far greater than this, however, as the country is relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions ... Iraq’s oil production costs are amongst the lowest in the world, making it a highly attractive oil prospect."

Despite the sanctions in place in the wake of the first Gulf War, in 2002 the U.S. imported an average of 449,000 barrels of oil per day from Iraq, although the amount dropped precipitously toward the latter half of the year.

That’s about twice as much as the U.S. imports from Kuwait, and a third of the 1.5 million barrels per day from Saudi Arabia.

Total oil imported from the Persian Gulf is 2.24 million barrels of oil per day, almost 24 percent of total US imports.

Bron: http://www.artsandmedia.n(...)2003/03/18_centcom_2

quote:

Critics cite a January 16 article in the Wall Street Journal, describing a meeting between State Department officials and oil company executives.

"The Bush administration is eager to secure Iraq's oil fields and rehabilitate them, industry officials say," the article reads. "They say Mr. Cheney's staff hosted an informational meeting with industry executives in October, with Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp., ConocoPhillips and Halliburton among the companies represented. Both the Bush administration and the companies say such a meeting never took place."

Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader believes the meetings happened, and said that "41 members of the administration have ties to the industry."

The meetings took place during the formation of Bush's National Energy Policy, and included executives from companies like Halliburton (where Cheney was an executive officer) and ExxonMobil.

On January 22, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters that oil profits from post-war Iraq "will be held for and used for the people of Iraq. It will not be exploited for the United States’ own purpose."

Bron: http://www.artsandmedia.n(...)2003/03/18_centcom_3

quote:

Op donderdag 26 april 2007 22:16 schreef francorex het volgende:
John Kerry luisterd en reageert op vragen van het publiek. Vragen over 9/11.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXOtTfeEAYU

quote:

Op vrijdag 27 april 2007 17:04 schreef Viajero het volgende:

[..]

Heb je daar een bron voor? Ik was juist verbaasd dat het de VS meer dan een maand kostte om aan te vallen, dus echt helemaal klaar stonden ze echt niet.
[..]

quote:

Dat meen je niet. Geloof je dat echt? Dat een stelletje religieuze fanaten in een van de armste landen ter wereld ook maar enige invloed hebben op de economie van de VS?
[..]

quote:

Decennialang beleid? Voordat de Soviets binnenvielen had niemand in de States ooit van Afghanistan gehoord. Nadat de Soviets vertrokken ging de CIA ook weer weg. Het was een slagveld in de koude oorlog, niet meer en niet minder.
[..]

quote:

En wat is dan het grote nut van Afghanistan voor de VS? Echt, je moet je in heel veel bochten wringen wil je met iets plausibels komen.

quote:

En terrorismebestrijding gebeurt daar echt wel hoor. Inderdaad met speciale teams. Ook Nederlandse commandos doen daaraan mee.

quote:

1998: US and Uzbekistan Begin Conducting Joint Operations against Taliban and Al-Qaeda

Beginning in 1998, if not before, Uzbekistan and the CIA secretly create a joint counterterrorist strike force, funded and trained by the CIA. This force conducts joint covert operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. [Times of India, 10/14/2001; Washington Post, 10/14/2001; Vanity Fair, 11/2004] In February 1999, radical Muslims fail in an attempt to assassinate the leader of Uzbekistan. Following this, the CIA is allowed to step up their secret operations in Uzbekistan. The CIA and NSA are allowed to install monitoring equipment to intercept Taliban and al-Qaeda communications. Intelligence is shared, and Uzbek military bases are made available for small-scale CIA operations. Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan to the north. By contrast, the other nations surrounding Afghanistan—Iran, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, do not cooperate with the US on these matters very much or at all.


December 19, 2000: US Seeks Taliban Overthrow; Considers Russia-US Invasion of Afghanistan

The Washington Post reports, “The United States has quietly begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out Osama bin Laden. Until it backed off under local pressure, it went so far as to explore whether a Central Asian country would permit the use of its territory for such a purpose.” Russia and the US are discussing “what kind of government should replace the Taliban. Thus, while claiming to oppose a military solution to the Afghan problem, the United States is now talking about the overthrow of a regime that controls nearly the entire country, in the hope it can be replaced with a hypothetical government that does not exist even on paper.” [Washington Post, 12/19/2000] It appears that all pre-9/11 plans to invade Afghanistan involve attacking from the north with Russia.


March 15, 2001: India, Iran, Russia, and US Work in Concert to Remove Taliban

Jane’s Intelligence Review reports that the US is working with India, Iran, and Russia “in a concerted front against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime.” India is supplying the Northern Alliance with military equipment, advisers, and helicopter technicians and both India and Russia are using bases in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for their operation. [Jane's Intelligence Review, 3/15/2001]


May 2001: US Military Drafts Scenario for Afghan Operation

General William Kernan, commander in chief of the Joint Forces Command, later mentions: “The details of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan which fought the Taliban and al-Qaeda after the September 11 attacks, were largely taken from a scenario examined by Central Command in May 2001.” [Agence France-Presse, 7/23/2002] This seems to contradict other accounts suggesting the military made no Afghanistan invasion plans or preparations after Bush took office (see December 2000).

June 26, 2001: US, Russia, and Regional Powers Cooperate to Oust Taliban

An Indian magazine reports more details of the cooperative efforts of the US, India, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Iran against the Taliban regime: “India and Iran will ‘facilitate’ US and Russian plans for ‘limited military action’ against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don’t bend Afghanistan’s fundamentalist regime.” Earlier in the month, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of the Confederation of Independent States that military action against the Taliban may happen, possibly with Russian involvement using bases and forces from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as well. [IndiaReacts, 6/26/2001]

Late Summer 2001: US Contingency Plans to Attack Afghanistan

According to a later Guardian report, “reliable western military sources say a US contingency plan exist[s] on paper by the end of the summer to attack Afghanistan from the north.” [Guardian, 9/26/2001]


Bron: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=huntForBinLaden

quote:

Op zaterdag 28 april 2007 14:50 schreef gronk het volgende:

[..]

Sowieso past dit topic beter in TRU dan in NWS.

quote:

Introduction

Energy and resource issues will continue to be a factor in U.S. security policy and defense
planning. Most likely, the United States will not be required to employ military forces in order to secure access to resources. However, U.S. forces may be required for broader purposes, as was the case in the Persian Gulf War, 1990–91. Some specific energy and resource problems could exacerbate regional political tensions, potentially causing military conflicts in key areas, such as the Persian Gulf. In the coming years, 40 to 65 percent of the world’s oil will come from the Persian Gulf, a region infected by political instability and anti-Western attitudes.

U.S. forces might be used to ensure adequate supplies for Western democracies. This would include securing lines of communication to key oil and gas fields or protecting vulnerable countries with large resource reserves from attack. U.S. forces might also be used to counter rogue governments with sufficient oil revenues to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Help from allies and partners will be important in guaranteeing energy security and deterring regional conflicts.


Special Concerns

- Key energy and resource producers lacking powerful military forces or entrenched governments may be vulnerable to aggression. Rogue regimes may be tempted to steal from resource-rich neighbors through blackmail, raids, or territorial conquest. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are obvious candidates.

- If anti-Western regimes can disrupt supplies and threaten economic pain, they might try to coerce the West into supporting their agendas.

- Major powers dependent on imports, especially from unstable regions, might independently attempt to ensure access to resources rather than participate in a cooperative security effort. Such independence could take the form of policies that work against cooperative security efforts. A potential example would be Chinese military cooperation with Gulf rogues.

quote:

Energy Security

The Persian Gulf will remain vital to world energy supplies. This is a concern, because the Gulf has many security problems. The GCC monarchies face serious domestic problems, including anti-Western radical Islamists. Historically, rogue regimes in the region have been inclined to act aggressively toward their neighbors. Growing oil revenues may enable rogue regimes to build weapons of mass destruction and conventional capabilities.

Where Gulf oil is sold is irrelevant. Disruption of Gulf oil would require speedy reallocations and raise oil prices for all consumers around the world. Additionally, the United States is committed to pooling its oil with other industrial democracies. Thus, such a disruption would hit the America hard, even if all U.S. oil comes from the Western Hemisphere.

quote:

U.S. Interests

Energy and resource issues will not cause global war in the foreseeable future. However,
they may create local crises and require military deployments. U.S. forces may intervene in future crises and wars in the Persian Gulf. Energy dynamics will dictate that U.S. forces play a major role in Persian Gulf security. They will also continue to help secure sea lines of communication from the Persian Gulf, especially to East Asia.

quote:

Assuring Energy Security

The industrial democracies have a vital interest in maintaining ready access to stable and reasonably priced energy supplies. The United States seeks the following conditions regarding
energy security:
- A variety of energy alternatives available from a number of sources
- Market forces, rather than political factors, determining energy availability.

Western countries cannot rely entirely on energy from within, because low-cost Middle
Eastern oil is vital to holding down transportation costs. To assure energy security, the U.S. Government has to do more than promote the role of market forces regarding energy. It must also provide a security guarantee for the Persian Gulf, the world’s key energy region.

quote:

Hedging Against an Oil Supply Shock

Military planning is based on two implicit assumptions regarding any oil supply shock:
first, any shortfall will be alleviated through increased output elsewhere, substitution of other fuels, or conservation. The second assumption is that military forces will respond fast enough to enable production to be restored before the Strategic Petroleum Reserves runs out.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the United States developed a variety of policies to hedge against an oil supply shock. The challenge is to adapt these policies to the very different conditions of the 21st century. Supply shocks can impose real economic pain. The oil price shocks of 1973–74 and 1979–80 sent the world economy into recessions, causing reductions in the U.S. GDP on the order of 2 percent for a couple years. If a similar shock occurred today, it would mean a loss of $300 billion in potential output. Preventing such a shock depends on a combination of policies that would foster quick expansion of output, energy conservation, and the substitution of other fuels.

quote:

Conclusion

In the coming decade, worldwide supplies of energy and resources are likely to be ample, with prices little higher than today. Even so, energy, resource, and environmental problems
could contribute to security tensions. A variety of pessimistic scenarios can be imagined that are plausible, even if improbable. The most likely scenario is a continuation of present trends with no major change. If so, Gulf security responsibilities will fall primarily on the United States, which will maintain a sufficiently robust commitment to deter regional aggression.
The other major powers, including China, are likely to do little to advance or complicate global energy security.

Energy and resource issues will continue to be key concerns of U.S. national security policy in the coming years.

quote:

Op vrijdag 27 april 2007 17:04 schreef Viajero het volgende:

Dat meen je niet. Geloof je dat echt? Dat een stelletje religieuze fanaten in een van de armste landen ter wereld ook maar enige invloed hebben op de economie van de VS?
[..]

quote:

Oliemarkt stevent af op nieuwe crisis
Relatie Opec en Westen onder druk

KAREL BECKMAN

AMSTERDAM - In de tweede helft van het jaar dreigt een olietekort met nieuwe prijspieken. Dit komt met name doordat oliekartel Opec stelselmatig weigert zijn productie te verhogen.

Die waarschuwing liet het Internationale Energie-Agentschap (IEA) dinsdag in Parijs horen. 'De wereld heeft absoluut meer olie nodig', zei een woordvoerder.

Het IEA, onderdeel van de Oeso, de organisatie van westerse industrielanden, riep de organisatie van olie-exporterende landen op om de productie te verhogen, maar kreeg gisteren nul op het rekest. 'Wij zien daar geen enkele reden toe', reageert een woordvoerder van Opec in Wenen. 'Wij zien geen tekort.'

De olieprijs is sinds januari met $ 20 per vat gestegen naar bijna $ 70. Het IEA is bang dat de markt nog krapper zal worden. Het verhoogde dinsdag zijn verwachtingen voor de vraag in 2007 met 2%.

'Als Opec niet meer gaat pompen, zullen de voorraden scherp teruglopen. Dat betekent kans op prijspieken en grote schommelingen in de prijs', aldus het IEA.

Analisten constateren dat de relatie tussen Opec en het Westen verslechtert. Het kartel dreigde onlangs zelfs met een productieverlaging omdat westerse landen massaal biobrandstoffen ontwikkelen.

'De uitspraken van Opec worden steeds harder van toon', zegt Cyril Widdershoven, 'principal consultant' van Capgemini . 'De toenaderingspogingen die er waren, zijn voorbij.' Volgens Widdershoven komt dat doordat Opec het Westen niet meer nodig heeft. 'Haar markt ligt steeds meer in het oosten.'

Volgens Widdershoven is het echter ook niet ondenkbaar dat Saudi-Arabië, de grootste producent binnen Opec, met capaciteitsproblemen kampt. De Saudische olieproductie is in twee jaar tijd met 2 miljoen vaten gedaald naar 8,5 miljoen vaten per dag. 'Er zijn steeds meer analyses die erop wijzen dat de olieproductie van een aantal grote Saudische velden terugloopt. Gezien de stijgende vraag, zou dat betekenen dat er een structureel tekort ontstaat op de oliemarkt.'

Noé van Hulst, strategiedirecteur van de IEA, gelooft niet dat Saudi-Arabië problemen heeft. 'Wij maken ons meer zorgen om het gebrek aan investeringen in Rusland.'

Andris Piebalgs, eurocommissaris van energie, pleitte dinsdag in Riga voor 'energiesolidariteit' tussen de EU-lidstaten. Hij zei dat de EU een onderhandelaar moet aanstellen om samen contracten te sluiten met energieleveranciers.

Copyright (c) 2007 Het Financieele Dagblad

Bron: http://www.fd.nl/ShowKrantArtikel.asp?KrantArtikelId=576795

quote:

CFR: Strategic Energy Policy: Challenges for the 21st Century (2001)

Early in the Bush presidency the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) had joined with the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy to draft an energy proposal for the new administration.

'Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century' was the result. It forecast critical energy shortages unless oil and gas production was substantively boosted or conservation measures pursued, calling upon the administration to admit ''these agonising truths to the American people''.

The report also saw both Caspian and Iraqi oil as answers to the projected crisis, additionally citing the possible need for ''military intervention'' to secure energy supplies.

Bronnen:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/3943/strategic_energy_policy.html
http://www.cfr.org/public(...)he_21st_century.html

Update:
http://www.cfr.org/public(...)y_policy_update.html

Rapport:
CFR - Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century.pdf
CFR - Strategic Energy Policy Update.pdf

quote:

The west's battle for oil; Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq to secure control of its oil.

Sunday Herald, Oct 6, 2002 by Neil Mackay


IT is a document that fundamentally questions the motives behind the Bush administration's desire to take out Saddam Hussein and go to war with Iraq.

Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century describes how America is facing the biggest energy crisis in its history. It targets Saddam as a threat to American interests because of his control of Iraqi oilfields and recommends the use of "military intervention" as a means to fix the US energy crisis.

The report is linked to a veritable who's who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs. It was commissioned by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, and submitted to Vice- President Dick Cheney in April 2001 - a full five months before September 11. Yet it advocates a policy of using military force against an enemy such as Iraq to secure US access to, and control of, Middle Eastern oil fields.

One of the most telling passages in the document reads: "Iraq remains a destabilising influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets.

"This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan- Arab leader and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments.

[...]

The document also points out that "the United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma", and that one of the "consequences" of this is a "need for military intervention".

Meer...

http://findarticles.com/p(...)0021006/ai_n12580278

quote:

The Cheney Energy Task Force (2001)

A review and analysis of the proceedings leading to the Bush administration's formulation of its May 2001 energy policy.

In the spring of 2002, under order from a federal judge, the U.S. Department of Energy released to NRDC roughly 13,500 pages relating to previously secret proceedings of the Bush administration's energy task force. (President Bush formed the task force in early 2001 to develop a national energy policy, with Vice President Cheney at the helm.) Even though the government heavily censored the documents before supplying them to NRDC, they reveal that Bush administration officials sought extensive advice from utility companies and the oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy industries, and incorporated their recommendations, often word for word, into the energy plan.

Bron: http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/taskforce/tfinx.asp

Uiteindelijk vrijgegeven rapport: National Energy Policy.pdf

quote:

CFR: Independent Task Force on Energy and U.S. Foreign Policy (2006)

The Council on Foreign Relations established an Independent Task Force to examine the consequences of dependence on imported energy for U.S. foreign policy. Since the United States both consumes and imports more oil than any other country, the Task Force has concentrated its deliberations on matters of petroleum. In so doing, it reaches a sobering but inescapable judgment: The lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and national security.

The Task Force goes on to argue that U.S. energy policy has been plagued by myths, such as the feasibility of achieving “energy independence” through increased drilling or anything else. For the next few decades, the challenge facing the United States is to become better equipped to manage its dependencies rather than pursue the chimera of independence.

The issues at stake intimately affect U.S. foreign policy, as well as the strength of the American economy and the state of the global environment. But most of the leverage potentially available to the United States is through domestic policy. Thus the Independent Task Force devotes considerable attention to how oil consumption (or at least the growth in consumption) can be reduced, and why and how energy issues must become better integrated with other aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

Bron: http://www.cfr.org/publication/11683/

Rapport:
National Security Consequences of U.S. Oil Dependency.pdf

Video:
National Security Consequences of U.S. Oil Dependency (Video)

quote:

'Australië blijft mede om olie in Irak'
Uitgegeven: 5 juli 2007 13:45

AMSTERDAM - De Australische minister van defensie, Brendan Nelson, heeft donderdag gezegd dat bescherming van de Iraakse olievoorraden een van de overwegingen van de regering is om troepen in Irak te houden. Hij werd onmiddellijk terechtgewezen door premier John Howard.

"We blijven niet in Irak voor de olie en we zijn er niet naartoe gegaan voor de olie", zei Howard in een radiointerview. "De reden dat wij daar blijven is dat we de bevolking van Irak de mogelijkheid willen bieden democratie te aanvaarden."

Nelsons noemde eerder donderdag allerlei redenen voor het Australische besluit om in Irak te blijven, met als voornaamste het voorkomen van een door Al-Qaeda geholpen burgeroorlog tussen sjiieten en soennieten.

Energie

Hij wees er tenslotte op dat niet alleen Irak, maar het hele Midden-Oosten, een belangrijke energieleverancier is voor de rest van de wereld. "Australiërs moeten eens bedenken wat er zou gebeuren bij een premature terugtrekking uit Irak", zei hij.

De opmerking is koren op de molen van de tegenstanders van de oorlog in Irak, die altijd al hebben gezegd dat de Amerikaanse invasie van 2003 eerder om de Iraakse olie begonnen was dan om de - niet bestaande - massavernietigingswapens van Saddam Hussein te vinden.

Bron: http://www.nu.nl/news/114(...)olie_in_Irak%27.html