Specifically, Peak Oil.
(Recycled screed follows)
The purpose of the 'War On Terror' and all of its subsidiaries are related to Peak Oil as follows:
- By maintaining a constant state of tension, high petroleum prices can be explained away as a temporary spike due to politics. This way, the publics attention can kept from the accelerating supply problems worldwide, thus preventing them from starting to make other arrangements for a post-carbon world (they can't have the addicts kicking too soon).
- Whoever controls the remaining (cheap) petroleum reserves stands to make a fortune in the years immediately following the peak of production. Even the most optimistic scenarios indicate it would take twenty years to mitigate the loss of petroleum production following peak. During this period of transition, the 'addicts' will have no choice but to pay, and pay, and pay.
- Nearly 70% of the worlds remaining petroleum and 40% of natural gas reserves are located in the Middle East. If we throw in the Caspian Region, which is predominately Muslim, we probably approach 80%/60% of remaining reserves in predominately Muslim regions.
The demonization of Muslims to raise ‘fear of the other’ to a high state is needed to desensitize the public to the wars of aggression and carnage required to seize and/or maintain hegemony over these resources. Cheney as much acknowledged that peak will occur in the latter part of this decade at a speech in 1999 when he was still an 'official' oilman. Yet the Reich-wing media and echo chamber spouts the party line that additional supplies will come on line. All one has to do is read about the wildly exaggerated EIA estimates to know that the facts are being covered up.
The peaking of worldwide conventional (high EROEI) petroleum is real, and will probably occur within the next few years. During the initial 10 yrs.+ following peak oil, petroleum will still be readily available. But with demand/desire chronically outstripping supply, prices will go through the roof, and the profits for those selling the oil will be massive.
And if this bunch did not believe Peak Oil is looming, why are they throwing money at highly risky resources such as Russia (nationalization), Deep-Water and Artic (mother nature, limits of technology, limited net energy).
Consider the following statement:
From the standpoint of the oil industry obviously - and I'll talk a little later on about gas - for over a hundred years we as an industry have had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business. Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. 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 in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world often greet 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.- Cheney At London Institute of Petroleum, 1999
Puts a whole new spin on the Cheney 'Energy' task force, doesn't it.
Following is an article that sums up the peak oil/WOT link. I do not necessarily agree with all of the points, but I feel it provides a decent big picture view.
Energy Depletion And The US Descent Into Fascism
http://www.mountainsentinel.com/#energyfascismFollowing is an older article that sums up the motives of ‘Big Oil’ and their Quislings in politics regarding the NOC’s. Consider the parallels between the issues raised in the article and the pending Iraq oil law.
Today, state-owned companies (NOC’s) control the vast majority of the world's oil resources. The major international oil companies control a mere 4 per cent.
Crude Dudes
The Toronto Star
Sep. 20, 2004
http://www.energybulletin.net/2156.html. . .
Gheit just smiles at the notion that oil wasn't a factor in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He compares Iraq to Russia, which also has large undeveloped oil reserves. But Russia has nuclear weapons. "We can't just go over and ... occupy (Russian) oil fields," says Gheit. "It's a different ballgame." Iraq, however, was defenceless, utterly lacking, ironically, in weapons of mass destruction. And its location, nestled in between Saudi Arabia and Iran, made it an ideal place for an ongoing military presence, from which the U.S. would be able to control the entire Gulf region. Gheit smiles again: "Think of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath .... You can't ask for better than that."
. . .
One reason that regime change in Iraq was seen as offering significant benefits for Big Oil was that it promised to open up a treasure chest which had long been sealed — private ownership of Middle Eastern oil. A small group of major international oil companies once privately owned the oil industries of the Middle East. But that changed in the 1970s when most Middle Eastern countries (and some elsewhere) nationalized their oil industries. Today, state-owned companies control the vast majority of the world's oil resources. The major international oil companies control a mere 4 per cent.
The majors have clearly prospered in the new era, as developers rather than owners, but there's little doubt that they'd prefer to regain ownership of the oil world's Garden of Eden. "(O)ne of the goals of the oil companies and the Western powers is to weaken and/or privatize the world's state oil companies," observes New York-based economist Michael Tanzer, who advises Third World governments on energy issues.
. . .
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