Tag: Oil

Ukraine War: Europe declares Independence of Russian Petroleum, Looks to Mass Transit, EVs to Achieve “Freedom” Goal

Reliance on Russian Oil will steeply decrease and be over by the next decade.

In the first quarter of this year, Volkswagen and Mercedes — German carmakers said that sales of their EVs spiked, and increased by 65% and 37% respectively. Tesla sales were up 80%. In fact, the rush to EVs now is no longer hampered by consumer hesitancy, but by supply chain problems caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The German government now backs the goal that all new car sales should be EVs by 2035.

Source: Ukraine War: Europe declares Independence of Russian Petroleum, Looks to Mass Transit, EVs to Achieve “Freedom” Goal

‘Ukrainian Blood on Their Hands’: Analysis Details How Big Oil Funded Putin’s War Chest

Greenpeace protest

“Fossil fuels are the currency of despots, dictators, and warmongers. Our global reliance on oil and gas is not only killing our planet but also making the world a less safe and equal place.”

Source: ‘Ukrainian Blood on Their Hands’: Analysis Details How Big Oil Funded Putin’s War Chest

Another Sign Big Three Automakers are dumping Big Oil: GM to invest $7 Billion in Michigan Electric Vehicle, Battery Plants

Well Scott Morrison why are you trying to prevent this technology getting here? We have all the resources to be the world’s premium battery producer and accelerating the transition to global planet cleaner energy.

Stanford Professor Tony Seba foresees a double whammy for the petroleum industry, which he thinks will be dead by 2030, as Rick Kowalchuk at Energi Media reports. One is the rise of electric vehicles, which can use free sunlight and wind as their energy source, not dirty oil. The other is the likelihood that self-driving vehicles will replace ownership of passenger cars, offering “transportation as a service.” If tens of millions of drivers forego car ownership, and when they do order a car to get somewhere use an electric autonomous vehicle, petroleum is doomed. It can’t happen too soon to save the earth.

Source: Another Sign Big Three Automakers are dumping Big Oil: GM to invest $7 Billion in Michigan Electric Vehicle, Battery Plants

Australian subsidies give oil refineries the whole carrot farm while electric vehicles get the stick | Richie Merzian | The Guardian

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (centre) visits. an oil refinery in Gladstone, Queensland, in January.

The federal government has announced a fuel security package to shore up Australia’s two remaining oil refineries, in Geelong and in Brisbane, with a hefty price tag of up to $2bn. Australia’s response to fuel security has been a hodgepodge of ineffective policies and taxpayer-funded subsidies, and this week’s announcement is another Band-Aid solution. It sits neatly in the budget alongside the $8bn in fuel tax credits (which is set to rise to just under $10bn in five years).

Source: Australian subsidies give oil refineries the whole carrot farm while electric vehicles get the stick | Richie Merzian | The Guardian

Importance of Middle East Plummets as Britain, Ireland, Denmark announce 2030 Funeral for New Gasoline Cars

The Middle East is likely to plummet in significance for the United States over the next two decades. Let’s face it, the main reason we hear so much about Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (as opposed to Senegal and Uruguay) is that they produce petroleum, and the world transportation system depends on that commodity. The US, despite what Trump keeps saying, isn’t energy independent, and still imports on the order of six or seven million barrels of petroleum a day.

Importance of Middle East Plummets as Britain, Ireland, Denmark announce 2030 Funeral for New Gasoline Cars

Trump admits War Crime in Syria as Damascus Slams US ‘Oil Theft’

https://www.juancole.com/images/2020/08/trump-admits-war-crime-in-syria-750x422.jpg

The US Left has shouted itself blue in the face chanting, “no war for oil!” Usually it is hard, though, to know why exactly Washington launches its wars. In this case, nothing is hidden.

Trump admits War Crime in Syria as Damascus Slams US ‘Oil Theft’

Oil companies drilling on federal land get lower royalties. Solar, wind get past-due rent bills. – The Washington Post

An oil field on federally managed land in California in 2015.

The World’s dirtiest President Making America Dirtier Again  MADA (ODT)

via Oil companies drilling on federal land get lower royalties. Solar, wind get past-due rent bills. – The Washington Post

Phony Trump Regime Narco Terrorism Charges Against Venezuelan Officials – Stephen Lendman

US 'Narco-Terrorism' Charges Against Maduro May Be Pretext for ...The Ukraine scandal exposes the Trump crony Mike Pompeo really is ...

The US is the world’s leading narco-terrorist state — an indisputable fact!

Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro is the hemisphere’s main enemy of illicit drugs trafficking.

The CIA and DEA are actively involved in facilitating the proliferation of heroin, cocaine, and perhaps other illicit drugs.

Major Wall Street banks profit hugely by laundering billions of dollars of dirty money from the trade — supported by Washington’s bipartisan criminal class by failing to stop it.

Close US ally Colombia is a narco-terrorist state. Other Latin American countries allied with the US are involved in drugs trafficking.

In 2018, the Trump regime falsely accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of “profiting from illegal narcotics shipments” — a bald-faced Big Lie.

The Big Lie that won’t die reared its ugly head again on Thursday. The Trump regime falsely accused Maduro and other Venezuelan officials of narco-terrorism — a longstanding US specialty, notably by the CIA since the 1950s, not how the Bolivarian Republic operates.

When repeated ad nauseam, Big Lies take on a life of their own, especially when establishment media suppress truth-telling by supporting the official narrative no matter how distorted, untrue and harmful to ordinary people.

As Trump regime’s CIA director from January 2017 to April 2018, Pompeo notoriously said: “We lied. We cheated. We stole.”

At State he operates much the same way, the latest example on March 26.

He falsely called democratically elected and reelected Venezuelan President Maduro “the previous president of Venezuela” —a bald-faced Big Lie.

via Phony Trump Regime Narco Terrorism Charges Against Venezuelan Officials – Stephen Lendman

The U.S. Is Recycling Its Big Lie About Iraq To Target Iran | The Smirking Chimp

Sixteen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most Americans understand that it was an illegal war based on lies about non-existent “weapons of mass destruction.” But our government is now threatening to drag us into a war on Iran with a nearly identical “big lie” about a non-existent nuclear weapons program, based on politicized intelligence from the same CIA teams that wove a web of lies to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The U.S. Is Recycling Its Big Lie About Iraq To Target Iran | The Smirking Chimp

The west is still buying into nonsense about Iran’s regional influence, by Patrick Cockburn – The Unz Review

Sunnis and Shiites praying together on Sunday in Beirut, Lebanon, in protest of the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Trump turns Saudi religious hatred of Shiia into political propaganda against Iran and in doing so is creating the unity that never really existed (ODT)

Coalition forces stood aside as Saddam’s tanks, with helicopters overhead, smashed their way into Shia cities like Karbala, Najaf and Basra, and then began their mass executions.

Three decades later, the US and its allies are still making the same mistake, treating the millions of Shia in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen and Afghanistan as if they were Iranian agents.

Down the centuries, the Shia have been one of the most savagely persecuted religious minorities; they fear today that in the wake of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, they are once again being demonised, as Donald Trump denounces all who oppose the US in the Middle East as Iranian proxies.

via The west is still buying into nonsense about Iran’s regional influence, by Patrick Cockburn – The Unz Review

Golan Heights – Questions on Australia’s role still unanswered – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Australia’s disguised deployment in the assistance of theft by Israel of the Syrian Golan Heights oil fields and media silence. Murdoch’s interest in Genie Oil a pay off for silence. (ODT)

What is the Israeli/US interest in the Golans that has prompted Israeli occupation and such strong support from the US (and Australia) in violation of UN resolutions? The answer is partly settlement opportunities for Israel, but the other is oil. According to the Israeli operated Afek Oil and Gas there is ‘billions of barrels of Israeli oil’ under the ground. Except it is Syrian ground.

via Golan Heights – Questions on Australia’s role still unanswered – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Old Dogs Thoughts- White women are liars according to Pauline; The Amazon is burning and it’s not normal; Oiling the gears of the market and politics;

Fighting Fake News with REAL,19/9/19; Amazon is still burnining and it’s never been normal; Oiling and the Gears of Politics and the Market Place; Women ar liars and men are their Victims;

US military encircling Venezuela: Regime change preparations? — RT Op-ed

Screenshot_2019-09-15 US military encircling Venezuela Regime change preparations .png

This the role model nation that all nations are expected to follow(ODT)

US military has just recently returned to Guyana for the first time in a decade. The purpose of this detachment, according to Military.com, is to “shore up relationships amid growing tensions in neighboring Venezuela.”

“the United States has a clear objective in Venezuela: regime change and the restoration of democracy and the rule of law.” A basic understanding of the English language would require that this sentence poses an oxymoron, as US-enforced regime change could never ever amount to the implementation of democracy and the rule of law.

there are at least five US military bases and a number of US military advisers in Colombia, which a simple glance at a globe will tell you is on the other side of Venezuela. By “shoring up relationships” to the east of Venezuela in Guyana, the US military will almost have the Latin American rival completely surrounded. The south is covered by Brazil, which is another stalwart Washington ally.

It bears to remind oneself that as part of this foreign policy playbook, right-wing, nationalist and/or populist ideologies are almost never opposed or rejected by the US, but welcomed warmly with open arms.

According to the Nation, the US has over 800 formal military bases in 80 countries, “a number that could exceed 1,000 if you count troops stationed at embassies and missions and so-called ‘lily-pond’ bases, with some 138,000 soldiers stationed around the globe.”

Collectively, some other 11 countries including Russia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, China, France and India, have barely some 70 bases between them.

 

US military encircling Venezuela: Regime change preparations? — RT Op-ed

Australia urged to move away from oil dependency or risk fuel supply crisis | Australia news | The Guardian

electric car charging point

James Molan and Andrew Bolt spent an interview suggesting attacking Iran wasn’t a bad plan (ODT)

via Australia urged to move away from oil dependency or risk fuel supply crisis | Australia news | The Guardian

Clashes in Caracas after Guaido stages coup against Maduro

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Violent clashes erupted in the Venezuelan capital on Tuesday after opposition leader Juan Guaidó launched what appeared to be a military-backed challenge to President Nicolás Maduro, summoning thousands of people to the streets to demonstrate against the socialist leader.

US Senator Marco Rubio, who has strongly backed Guaido, issued a call for the military to rise up: “This is the moment for those military officers in #Venezuela to fulfil their constitutional oath & defend the legitimate interim President @jguaido, in this effort to restore democracy,” he tweeted. “You can write history in the hours & days ahead.”

via Clashes in Caracas after Guaido stages coup against Maduro

Juan Guaido will open up Venezuelan oil to foreign companies, his US envoy says — RT World News

Juan Guaido will open up Venezuelan oil to foreign companies, his US envoy says

An envoy to the US for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó has said the country’s oil reserves would be opened to foreign investors, bolstering suspicions that Washington’s support of Guaidó is oil-dependent.

via Juan Guaido will open up Venezuelan oil to foreign companies, his US envoy says — RT World News

No More Wars for Oil? Wind & Solar will reduce Energy-Related Conflicts

The global energy transition and the shift to renewables from fossil fuels is likely to reduce energy-related conflicts, says a report published by the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation. The transition will “help redraw the geopolitical map of the 21st century,” as the supply of energy will no longer be the domain of a small number of states, says the report.

via No More Wars for Oil? Wind & Solar will reduce Energy-Related Conflicts

Iraqi Oil for Israel? 15 Years later, new Light on the Iraq War

 

 

Iraqi Oil for Israel? 15 Years later, new Light on the Iraq War

What the world new but governments denied it was about oil (ODT)

April 24 marks the 15th anniversary of my initial entry into Baghdad as the senior oil advisor to retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner, our US government civilian leader in Iraq. It was the beginning of my six plus years in Iraq working on the oil sector and denying the allegation that the Iraq war had an oil agenda. I can no longer refute such an allegation.

Was there an oil agenda for the Iraq war? If you had asked me that question four years ago, I would have said no, absolutely not. And, I said no on national television in 2014.

via Iraqi Oil for Israel? 15 Years later, new Light on the Iraq War

It is all about the Oil: US Diplomats on Mideast Obsession | Informed Comment

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“Ten thousand more dead civilians in the Middle East, in a region that’s seen 1 million in the last 30 years, by my count… are not going to deter the Saudis and the Israelis from acting against this threat,” he said.

The Threat loss of OIL

“The geostrategic and economic factors that made the Middle East so important to our national security in the past are just as potent today,” Edelman said. Even with recent increases in U.S. energy production as a result of the fracking revolution, “real or even potential disruptions to the flow of oil anywhere would have serious negative effects on our economy.”

With his remarks, Edelman made it clear that U.S. officials continue to value the Middle East for its oil. The region “contains half of global proven oil reserves, accounts for one-third of oil production and exports, and is home to three of the world’s four biggest oil transit chokepoints,” he explained.

via It is all about the Oil: US Diplomats on Mideast Obsession | Informed Comment

Giuliani defends Trump idea to take Middle East oil: ‘Anything is legal’ in war | US news | The Guardian

Former New York mayor and close Trump ally discusses Republican nominee’s call to take Iraq’s oil, a move which appears to break international law

Source: Giuliani defends Trump idea to take Middle East oil: ‘Anything is legal’ in war | US news | The Guardian

Saudi Arabia’s retreat from oil places it on the right side of history | Voices | The Independent

mohammed_salman.jpg

 

For Saudi Arabia to break its “addiction” to oil sounds a bit like the Catholic Church trying to end its addiction to Christianity. It is not only the world’s largest oil exporter; it also sits on the world’s largest oil reserves. But this was indeed what the man overseeing the Saudi economy, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, proposed in the Vision 2030 plan, launched last week.

Source: Saudi Arabia’s retreat from oil places it on the right side of history | Voices | The Independent

Filed under:

US Marines Enter Ground Combat in Iraq to Defend Oil Fields AnonHQ

Jason Ditz at ANTIWAR   Even as Pentagon officials have sought to emphasize their claims of ISIS being “on the run,” ever more US ground troops are being deployed into Iraq to try to cope with ISIS offensives, with the battle of Makhmur leading to the introduction …

Source: US Marines Enter Ground Combat in Iraq to Defend Oil Fields AnonHQ

Filed under:

Murdoch and Rothschild violate International Law for Oil in Syria AnonHQ

Just when we think that the Syrian crisis can’t get any bigger… An American-based oil and gas company will soon be drilling in Syrian territory that has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 – the Golan Heights. The company, Genie Energy, has major investors …

Source: Murdoch and Rothschild violate International Law for Oil in Syria AnonHQ

Putin claims Turkey downed Russian fighter jet to defend IS oil supplies, Turkey offers no apology – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Turkey’s decision to down a Russian fighter jet was dictated by a desire to defend IS oil supplies to Turkey, Vladimir Putin says.

Source: Putin claims Turkey downed Russian fighter jet to defend IS oil supplies, Turkey offers no apology – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

‘Execution of Saddam Hussein wasn’t about justice, but about US profits

Executioners putting a noose around former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's neck moments before his hanging in Baghdad December 30, 2006. (Reuters / Al Iraqiya)

Executioners putting a noose around former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s neck moments before his hanging in Baghdad December 30, 2006. (Reuters / Al Iraqiya)

The former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein was not executed as justice for crimes he committed, but for his opposition to Wall Street, political analyst Caleb Maupin told RT. The auction to sell the piece of rope he was executed with proves that, Maupin says.

READ MORE: Rope used to hang Saddam Hussein on sale for $7mn

RT: The rope is currently in the possession of the ex-national security advisor, could you please tell us how it got into his hands?

Caleb Maupin: The way the execution of Saddam Hussein was carried out, in a way that was meant to foment sectarian violence. It was an execution; it was staged in a formal way. It almost resembled the lynching with people from hostile ethnic groups shouting at him. And the fact that the rope is now on sale is just a further confirmation of the fact that the execution of Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with justice rather it was about profits.

Iraq was invaded because it had a state-owned oil company that was in competition with Wall Street banks and oil companies. And Saddam Hussein was executed not because of atrocities that he committed during the Iraq- Iran war, or any other atrocities he committed. He was executed for standing up to Wall Street and standing up to the forces that are really ruling the world, the forces of money and power.

RT: According to reports, several bidders from Iran, Israel and Kuwait have offered large sums of money to get hold of the rope, what motivations do they have?

CM: When Saddam Hussein was allying with the US during the Iraq- Iran war there were at least a million Iranians who perished as a result of his actions. But at that time he was in an alliance with the US. That is something that is not brought up in US media very often, it is the fact that at one point the US was very close to Saddam Hussein and had an alliance with him.

Reuters / Al Iraqiya

Reuters / Al Iraqiya

However, it is important to point out that this just shows how cheap justice has become, when they are selling the implements of execution, put up for bidding. Profits dominate everything- nothing is really sacred. Look at all the countries the US has invaded whether it’s Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia, which suffered from US bombing. Never do they bring stability, never do they bring peace, they bring further chaos and destruction. War is really motivated by profits and this is just a further illustration of that.

The people of Iraq right now live in misery – there is a refugee crisis. At least a million people have become refugees. Hundreds of thousands are dead. This is the result of the US invasion. And now the government that has been put in place by the US invasion is so corrupted that the very implements used to execute Saddam Hussein are up for sale on the internet.

RT: Some activists say that this auction is inhumane and that the money collected should go to charities in Iraq. What’s your take on this?

CM: The whole notion of auctioning off the implements for execution is really perverse and it illustrates what neo-liberalism and capitalism really is. The US said they were invading Iraq to bring democracy. They weren’t really invading Iraq to bring democracy; they were invading Iraq to impose Western capitalism on Iraq and to impose the rule of Western banks over the Iraqi people. And that is what we are seeing here in the Western world, the neo-liberal world, – everything is up for sale, everything is made for profits. You have prisons for profits, you have private police forces, you have mass homelessness and poverty. This is the reality, this is the system that the US was exporting to Iraq, and this is just a great illustration of that system.

Economic warfare the main Western weapon: The real reason for the drop in the price of oil is not competition between the US and Saudi Arabia or Shale vs Traditionall drilled oil.

Economic warfare the main Western weapon. 54093.jpeg

By Takis Fotopoulos….. paraphrased.

In the last few days it became clear that economic warfare is the main weapon used by the Transnational Elite,  to subordinate Russia and integrate every other country still resisting the process, e.g. Iran and Venezuela. This includes also,  the dramatic decline in the price of oil.  The induced fall in its price.

As it is well known, Saudi Arabia is the biggest producer and exporter of oil and its actions in the last OPEC meeting were decisive in bringing about the present dramatic decline in its price. As the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times put it, celebrating the fact that Russia, Iran and Venezuela might be particularly affected (“Two cheers for the sharp falls in oil prices” was the eloquent title of his article), it was Saudi Arabia that “triggered” this dramatic event:

To sustain oil prices, Opec needed to cut output by about 1mbd. But it – or, more precisely, Saudi Arabia – has refused to do so. This has triggered the recent fall in prices”.[1]However, Saudi Arabia is not just a very important player in the oil market. It is also one of the most absolutist, politically and ideologically, regimes on Earth.

Politically, the regime is controlled, as an absolute monarchy. This fact does not prevent of course the Transnational Elite (well known for its fight for “democracy” all over the world!) to fully support this regime and to accuse, instead, Russia for absolutism!

Ideologically, almost a quarter of its population is Salafis and most of the rest are Wahhabis. The essence is that they both represent the most puritanical, (i.e. conservative) approaches to Islam.

It is therefore hardly surprising that Saudi Arabia and its ideology was enthusiastically embraced by the West, in the pre-globalization era, as a useful tool to fight Soviet influence as well as pan-Arabic socialism. This was clearly shown for instance when Saudi Arabia supported in every possible way the Salafi jihadi, who butchered the peoples of Libya and Syria and only recently stopped supporting their offspring, ISIS, when they become targeted by the Transnational Elite for attempting to follow their own line in building an Islamic State.[3]  Unsurprisingly, the methods used by ISIS, like beheading which were repeated ad nauseam by the TE media in order to terrorize Western middle classes and justify its ‘war on terrorism’, have in fact been practiced for years by its client Saudi regime, with nobody in the ‘civilized’ West bothering much about it, as long as they were able to keep expanding their highly profitable business of arms selling to the regime.

To this day, Saudi Arabia carries out barbaric executions against both criminals and political enemies, including victims accused of ‘sorcery and witchcraft’ in the aptly named, ‘Chop-Chop Square’ located in the capital of Riyadh where heads are literally chopped off by hooded swordsmen…. Saudi Arabia’s brutally repressive internal security apparatus is a creation of US advisors and operators. Its military, both covert and conventional, is also armed through astronomically large weapons sales (including a recent sale considered the largest in US history) by its Wall Street and London allies. The atrocities committed by the despotic Saud regime are directly facilitated by US advisers, operators, and arms. Saudi Arabia also hosts the US military, a sizable force until it was spread out amongst the orbiting despotic regimes of Qatar (note: see Aljazeera), Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.[4]

Of course, it was not just systemic economists who celebrated the dramatic fall in the price of oil, as even the upper echelons of the transnational economic elite, like the head of the IMF, found also difficult to disguise their joy in describing the impact of this event. Thus, as Christine Lagarde explained, a 30 percept drop in oil prices translates into a 0.8 percent boost in growth for “most advanced economies,” and “probably 0.6 percent for the US,” and then she went on to elaborate as follows the implications for US and Russia:

For the United States, low energy prices could help to stimulate growth to 3.5 percent next year from the October forecast of 3.1 per cent… For Russia, exports of oil and gas equate to 68 per cent of Russia’s total exports, and 50 per cent of its federal revenues. Russia has already spent almost $90 billion from its currency reserves in 2014, or 4.5 per cent of its economy to support plunging rubble that has lost more than 40 per cent from the start of the year.[5]

The Financial Times are (as usually) more frank than Western liberal “Left” papers in expressing their deeper wishes for a ‘velvet revolution’ in Russia as a result of the intensifying crisis and openly raises the question whether “Putin’s popularity can weather a perfect economic storm and “a fall in real incomes which will hit hard working class families in regions supportive of the president”.[7]

It is therefore clear that Saudi Arabia’s action in precipitating the dramatic fall in the price of oil was far from accidental. Furthermore, It was hardly motivated by a Saudi attempt to keep its dominant share in the oil market, supposedly threatened by the US shale oil production. This explanation, given by the ‘globalist’ faction within the Russian elite and the liberal “Left” in the West, was in fact an alibi used by the TE itself and the Saudis in order to disguise the real aim of this action. That is, the use of the price of oil as a highly effective weapon of economic warfare in order to force Russia and associate resisting regimes (like Iran and Venezuela) either to submit to the TE rule, or face a possibly severe economic recession (depending on how long the price of oil will be kept at very low levels) which could well lead to ‘velvet revolutions’ in all these countries and, possibly, to regime changes. The alternative “explanation” in terms of a supposed ‘war’ between S.A. and US not only “forgets” the client nature of the former to the latter.
Therefore, only the building of an economic and political union of sovereign nations like the original conception of the Eurasian Union was, which would embrace the nations all over the world still fighting the NWO. This is the only way to effectively disable West’s economic weapon, which successfully led to the collapse of USSR and threatens a similar fate today to the aspirations of the Russian people for a sovereign Russia.

Takis Fotopoulos

 

* The article will also be published in The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY.  It was edited by John Sargis.


From Pol Pot to ISIS: Saving Iraq by bombing everything that moves is Bolt’s advice. What only 2 bombs in a week he asks.

 

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This article by John Pilger is too long and doesn’t deserve paraphrasing. So I’m just putting foward the link

http://www.independentaustralia.net/article-display/from-pol-pot-to-isis-saving-iraq-by-bombing-everything-that-moves,6978

Study this and be a Foreign Policy expert

The irony is obvious to many of the commenters, understanding the threat starts with those three. It is the continuing follies of U.S. policy and our involvement in them, that make us a potential target for domestic terrorism — not some bogus perceived external threat.( pic above)

If you listen to what U.S. presidents say, they always invoke freedom, peace, democracy and human rights as they launch their brutal forays into other countries. However if you look at what the U.S. does in the world, then it is clear freedom, peace, democracy and human rights are irrelevant to U.S. policy.

The U.S. talks democracy, but doesn’t hesitate to cuddle up to brutal tyrants, nor to overthrow elected governments. Democracies were replaced by repressive and usually corrupt governments with power bases among the wealthy elites. The Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is among the most notorious for his reign of terror, involving torture, murder and “disappearances”, from 1973 until a popular uprising ousted him in 1990.

Iraq played no role in the 2001 attack on New York’s World Trade Centre, but President George W. Bush used the attack as an excuse to invade Iraq, which was allegedly harbouring Al Qaeda groups. Somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 civilians are reported to have died as a result of the invasion and subsequent fighting, effectively retribution for the 3,000 who died in the WTC attack.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, governed by a repressive family plutocracy, is maintained as a staunch ally of the U.S., even though it too is accused of supplying some groups in the Middle East accused of terrorism. The key, of course, is that Saudi Arabia hosts a large fraction of the world’s oil reserves.

Human-rights abuses are being cited as a prime reason for U.S. intervention, yet the U.S. saw no reason to intervene directly in other barbarities ‒ even including genocide ‒ in places like Cambodia from 1975-79, Rwanda in 1994, the civil wars in the Congo over a long period, in Liberia in the 1990s, and many other parts of Africa and the world.

The consistent factor in U.S. policy clearly is to defend or enhance U.S. “interests” — which means, in practice, the commercial interests of U.S. business. Oil underpins all the other interests. U.S. presidents have always allowed their foreign policy to be bounded by the interests of the country’s rich and powerful.

Why is this apparently so beyond the critical faculties of what passes for Australia’s political conversation? That the US is doing what’s always been normal and can’t afford it so coopts us. Iraq will pay for this excercise whatever the outcome.

The solution ‒ not easy, but clearly available ‒ is to desist from further military intervention. There will, unfortunately, continue to be violence within the Middle East, but the defensible course is to try, by nonviolent means, to reduce the violence as much as possible. Intelligence analyst Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning argues for the viability of such an approach

There is already an overwhelming case, from global warming, for a rapid shift away from oil to renewable, non-polluting sources of energy, such as solar-generated hydrogen.  The further pursuit of control over oil is wrong-headed in every respect, not least because of its costs in blood and money.

As to the so-called leadership of Australia, it adds the spectacle of being a pathetic lap dog to all the US follies it chooses to be complicit in.