Archive for the ‘Venezuela’ Category
Oil Price Rises Sharply After OPEC’s Meeting Collapses In Disarray
June 9, 2011: Terry Macalister and Heather Stewart / guardian.co.uk - June 8, 2011
Hopes that Opec would bring relief to motorists and wider western economies from soaring energy prices were today dashed when a crunch meeting of the oil cartel broke up in disarray without the expected agreement to increase crude output.
Political turbulence in North Africa and the Middle East undermined the usual consensus at the meeting in Vienna and led to speculation that new internal rivalries could split the group, leading to even more market chaos.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer and influential Opec dove, was outmanoeuvred by Iran, Venezuela, Libya and others, later describing the summit as “one of the worst meetings we have ever had”.
The price of Brent crude soared a further $1.65 to $118.43 a barrel as an expected Opec agreement to raise its production quotas by about 1.5 million barrels a day failed to materialise.
Petrol in Britain averages 136p a litre – 18p more than a year ago – and Edmund King, president of the AA, said the prospect of a new rise on the back of the failed Opec meeting was a “slap in the face” for the consumer.
“With so many indicators pointing to the pain of high oil prices and the detrimental effect they are having on family budgets and economic recovery, Opec’s decision simply deepens the gloom,” he added.
The four west-leaning Gulf Arab states had proposed increasing daily output to more than 30m barrels but they were out-voted by seven countries including Venezuela and Algeria who wanted them left unchanged.
Saudi Arabia made clear it was not happy. Ali al-Naimi, oil minister for a country which has close ties with America and Britain, said: “We were unable to reach an agreement – this is one of the worst meetings we have ever had.”
Market analysts said there were genuine differences inside Opec about whether the bout of very high oil prices could last and undermine the global economy or naturally fall back.
“One factor is a diverging market view. Another is politics,” said analyst Samuel Ciszuk at IHS global Insight. “At times of heated politics and ideological debate, Saudi struggled to dominate as much as it could have given its size vis-a-vis others in Opec.”
The atmosphere had been poisoned by Qatar backing Libyan rebels fighting the government of Muammar Gaddafi, while Saudi Arabia has angered Shi’ite Iran by using force to help the Sunni-led Bahrain suppress a Shi’ite rebellion.
But, this time, those in Opec politically opposed to the United States – led by Iran and Venezuela – found enough support to block Saudi Arabia whose views normally hold sway.
Katherine Spector at CIBC World Markets said: “Saudi is the cartel member most interested in earning political ‘points’ with consuming countries, and maintaining its image as a reliable supplier of last resort.”
But several Opec members also argued they needed to keep tax revenues high to protect their citizens against the rocketing cost of other commodities such as food, and could not let the oil price decline. Opec is not due to meet again for another three months and some analysts said the angry divergence of views could mark the beginning of the end for the cartel.
“A new world order beckons, doubtless preceded by disorder,” said Marc Ostwald, strategist at Monument Securities. He predicted that non-Opec members such as Russia and Kazakhstan could be the main beneficiaries if the cartel’s power waned.
Production quotas have now remained unchanged since 2009. The International Energy Agency, the global watchdog, expressed its “disappointment” at Opec’s decision and urged producers to increase output anyway.
“A further tightening in the market and potential increases in prices risk undermining economic recovery, which is in the interests neither of producers nor consumers.”
However, Julian Jessop, chief international economist at Capital Economics, said the weakening outlook for the global economy should bring oil prices down later this year . “We continue to expect the price of Brent crude to drop back below $90 per barrel by the end of the year, as global demand continues to disappoint, the Middle East risk premium fades, and the dollar rebounds.”
OPEC Fails To Reach Agreement On Oil Supply
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Do you think Bilderberger’s had anything to do with this disarray? - SJH
Link to original article below…
Libya: Another “Humanitarian” War Based On Another Pack Of Lies
March 20, 2011: Tony Cartalucci / Prisonplanet.com - March 20, 2011
America once again initiates a war unconstitionally as puppet Obama vacations in Rio on the taxpayer’s dime. It is past due to impeach the imposter right now! - SJH
The corporate-financiers are dangerously flirting with their entire official narrative collapsing, as their progressive, Peace-Prize wearing puppet President Obama and the “radical reformer” David Cameron lead yet another war based on an Iraq-style pack of lies.
After weeks of peddling a litany of verifiable lies, the West has forgone any attempt to justify or veil their actions in legitimacy and has decided to go ahead with a UN rubber-stamped “no-fly zone.” Far from having anything to do with preventing Qaddafi’s planes from flying, the no-fly zone has translated into full-scale missile and aerial bombardments across Libya aimed at turning the tide for freshly rearmed Western-backed rebels.
The Pack Of Lies
Indeed, the same London Telegraph now dashing across their headlines “Britain and America have rained missiles on Libya as Col Muammar Gaddafi defied the world and continued to attack civilians,” told us in the early stages of the US-backed Libyan unrest that Qaddafi had fled to Venezuela, citing “credible Western intelligence sources.”
Of course, evidence that Qaddafi has been “attacking civilians” has not yet been produced in any way, shape form with US Department of Defense’s Robert Gates and Admiral Mullen in fact, both confirming “We’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever.” Additionally, BBC made an apparently little read footnote that their reports were impossible to verify.
BBC states in their article “The difficulty of reporting from inside Libya:” “The BBC and other news organisations are relying on those on the ground to tell us what’s happening. Their phone accounts – often accompanied by the sound of gunfire and mortars – are vivid. However, inevitably, it means we cannot independently verify the accounts coming out of Libya. That’s why we don’t present such accounts as “fact” – they are “claims” or “allegations”.”
Apparently “claims” and “allegations” are all the UN needed to rubber stamp yet another globalist war of conquest as they continue to sew together their one world government.
The Russian government went as far as bringing forth evidence that suggests such air strikes never even took place. As for the globalist-run media’s claims that Qaddafi fled to Venezuela, of course, Colonel Qaddafi is still obviously in Libya.
Even the globalist International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) made note in their 1 hour and 20 minute military briefing, that Libya’s Qaddafi was most likely going through extraordinary measures to avoid excessive civilian loses, so as to not play into the West’s desire for military intervention…
The Conflict In Libya And Military Options For The International Community
When the globalist policy wonks speak frankly, outside the short-attention span of the general public, they talk of Qaddafi’s professional forces taking special care to avoid civilian casualties knowing full well it will fuel calls for Western intervention. (@16:26)
Now, the typical ploy of accusing besieged nations of using “human shields” is already being oafishly employed by the likes of the Independent in their article “Libya: The UN strikes back.” The very title itself is misleading, as the UN was merely a tool used to justify and authorize an otherwise unacceptable war the US and UK populations would have categorically refused to enter. The ability for the US to circumvent its constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11) along with the will of the American people points the finger of “illegitimacy” toward the West at least as much as it is being pointed at Libya’s Qaddafi.
What Can Be Confirmed?
What we can confirm, is that the entire Libyan rebel movement has been backed by the US and UK for nearly 3o years. We can confirm that the initial calls for a Libyan “Day of Rage” came not from the streets of Benghazi, but from the London based National Conference for Libyan Opposition (NCLO). We can confirm that NCLO leader Ibrahim Sahad was literally sitting in front of the White House giving an interview to the Western media in the opening stages of the Libyan unrest, parroting verbatim the West’s desire to militarily intervene with a no-fly zone…
Sahad: Gaddafi Will Not Survive Protests
Libyan opposition NFSL/NCLO leader Ibrahim Sahad, parroting the globalist calls for intervention in Libya, sits in front of the White House in Washington D.C.
We can also confirm that confessed terrorists like Noman Benotman, who had previously consorted with both the MI6 and Osama Bin Laden, are now offering their full support for the armed rebels in Libya. Ironically, Benotman’s support for armed militant rebels, including released Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) members, manifests itself through the “Quilliam Foundation,” which was founded in part to disband and disavow armed militancy.
It is quite clear that the globalists had decided part of their US State Department sponsored “Arab Spring” would include removing Libya’s Qaddafi from power. No reality on the ground will prevent the globalists from achieving this goal, including the necessity to send troops on the ground if the current bombing and missile campaign fails to tip the balance in the Libyan rebels’ favor. The corporate owned media has descended to a new level of unprecedented, shameless propaganda to hammer their misshapen agenda into an ill-fitting reality.
Remember Fukushima
The globalist “international community” and mandate has never been more clearly illegitimate, squandered, and abused than it is now. While Japan suffers the worst catastrophe in its history, a catastrophe that includes the largest recorded earthquake in human history, a devastating tsunami and multiple nuclear meltdowns, the West pursues with the entirety of its resources, energy, and influence a war of profit and expansion in Libya – under the poorly dressed guise of “humanitarian concerns.” As it has been pointed out, such concerns are unverified and entirely based on what the BBC itself calls “allegations” and “claims.” Meanwhile, an irrefutable, unprecedented humanitarian disaster unfolds in northeastern Japan.
As if meddling in a foreign nation’s affairs based on a pack of lies isn’t bad enough, doing so when resources are desperately needed amidst a real disaster amounts to the zenith of criminal negligence. The West once again proves they are the greatest purveyors of crimes against humanity, through simultaneous action in Libya, and inaction in Japan.
Such irresponsible leadership, with such self-serving priorities that clearly leave the vast majority of humanity out in the cold does not deserve our respect, our obedience, or our support. Identify the corporate-financier oligarchs that make up this malicious self-appointed “global consensus” and put them out of business via a full-spectrum boycott and by replacing them permanently on a local level. While millions suffer in Japan and millions are in danger in Libya today, failing to strip these tyrants of their unwarranted influence will inevitably ensure the suffering and danger comes to you.
Naming Names - Corporate-Financier Oligarchs to Boycott & Replace: CFR Corporate Membership, Chatham House Major Corporate Membership, Chatham House Standard Corporate Membership, International Crisis Group Supporters, Movements.org Supporters
For more information on alternative economics, getting self-sufficient and moving on without the parasitic, incompetent, globalist oligarchs: The Lost Key to Real Revolution, Boycott the Globalists, Alternative Economics, Self-Sufficiency
BBC News: Coalition Launches Libya Attacks – March 19, 2011
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: And here’s yet another lie exposed: There are already US Special Forces on the ground in Libya and have been for weeks… How fucking stupid do they think we are?! - SJH
Report: US Special Forces Arrive In Libya (March 1, 2011)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/report-us-special-forces-arrive-in-libya.html
Link to original article below…
http://www.prisonplanet.com/libya-another-war-another-pack-of-lies.html
First The Middle East And Then The World: Constructing The NWO
February 19, 2011: Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer / Activist Post - February 19, 2011
Excellent article! Watch the outstanding documentary I added at the bottom… - SJH
Globalist blitzkrieg signals largest geopolitical reordering since WW2…
Beginning in North Africa, now unfolding in the Middle East and Iran, and soon to spread to Eastern Europe and Asia, the globalist fueled color revolutions are attempting to profoundly transform entire regions of the planet in one sweeping move.
It is an ambitious gambit, perhaps even one born of desperation, with the globalists’ depravity and betrayal on full display to the world with no opportunity to turn back now.
To understand the globalists’ reasoning behind such a bold move, it helps to understand their ultimate end game and the obstacles standing between them and their achieving it.
The End Game
The end game of course is a world spanning system of global governance. This is a system controlled by Anglo-American financiers and their network of global institutions ensuring the world’s consolidated nations conform to a singular system they can then perpetually fleece. As megalomaniacal oligarchs, their singular obsession is the consolidation and preservation of their power. This will be achieved through a system of population control, industrial control, and monetary control, which together form the foundation of their Malthusian policies.
These policies are on full display in the UN’s “Agenda 21,” and by policy wonks like the current White House Science Adviser John Holdren in his book titled “Ecoscience.”
Malthusian as their policies may be, they surely do not believe the world is in danger due to over-population or the environmental hazards posed by industrial progress. Instead, like all tyrants in history, they are establishing a convincing narrative to defend the immense concentration of undue power within their elitist hands and the implementation of measures to ensure such power stays in their hands indefinitely.
The immediate dangers posed to their plans are numerous, including an alternative media increasingly exposing the true nature of their agenda, and thus awakening a vast number of people who simply refuse to go along with it. There is also national sovereignty, where nations are openly challenging this Anglo-American centric world order and refusing to implement the conditions of their own enslavement.
These sweeping color revolutions, and coordinated military operations, both overt and covert, are dealing with the latter of these two challenges, while censorship, cognitive infiltration, and a tightening police state spanning the Western world under the very false premise of a “War on Terror” confronts the former.
The Middle East
With the globalist fueled destabilization in progress, concessions and regime changes are being made from Jordan to Egypt, all in the name of “democratization.” The protesters’ calls are verbatim repeats of their local US funded NGOs’ mission statements. Skeptical as many may be that all of this is being orchestrated by the West, one needs only read the RAND Corporation’s 2007 report titled “Building Moderate Muslim Networks” where breathtaking confessions are made to not only reorder the Muslim world according to the West’s interests, but how they would follow the same model of “civil society networks” they have already used for decades during the Cold War.
Egypt’s recent “transition” played out as a direct translation of RAND’s blueprint for meddling in the Muslim world. From the protest organizers and NGOs to the protest leaders, to the behind-the-scenes meddling by America’s military leadership, the Egyptian uprising was entirely a US production. Even the drafting of the new Egyptian Constitution is being carried out by organizations funded by George Soros and the US National Endowment for Democracy.
The regional destabilization is resetting the geopolitical board in favor for a renewed effort to affect regime change in Iran. It has been extensively covered that the globalists have intricate and extensive plans, in the form of Brookings Institute’s “Which Path to Persia?” report, to fund color revolutions, support terrorism inside of the Islamic Republic and even provoke war with a nation they concede would rather avoid conflict. No sooner did North African and Arab regimes begin to crumble did the “Green Revolution” in Iran start up again. As if reiterating the summation of Brookings’ report, the globalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has recently and overtly called on the US to back the “Green Revolution.”
Iran’s fall to the globalists, the extraction of its wealth, and the end of its support for Chinese and Russian economic and military ambitions would isolate the so-called Shanghai Cooperative Organization further.
Russia’s Encirclement
Russia, along with China appear to be the two biggest blocs of opposition to the Anglo-American establishment. Indeed there are plenty of people and organizations within each nation gladly working hand-in-hand with the globalists, who in turn, are overtly trying to tempt and coerce the two nations to integrate themselves into their global world order.
Men like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who rose to power in Russia amongst an era of immense corruption, began building networks of NGOs modeled directly after those of the Anglo-Americans in the West, even naming this network the “Open Russian Foundation” after George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. According to geopolitical researcher William Engdahl, this Open Russian Foundation included Henry Kissinger and Lord Jacob Rothschild on its board of directors and its goal was to transform Russia from a sovereign state and into something more palatable for globalist consumption.
Whatever Khdorkovsky’s early successes may have been, they were cut short by Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin, who has safely confined Khodorkovsky behind the bars of a Siberian prison. Today, Khdorkovsky receives lobbying and legal services from notorious globalist lawyer Robert Amsterdam who leads international efforts to vilify Russia and justify the nation’s encirclement by NATO.
After Tunisia fell and protests began brewing in Egypt, Foreign Policy magazine published the Freedom House’s list of “Who’s Next?” On the list was Belarus’ Aleksandr Lukashenko, leader of a European nation directly bordering Russia’s western border, staring Moscow in the face. NATO itself admits the reluctance of Belarus to join its now unjustified organization, while the mainstream media berates the Belarusian government for putting down protests launched after the results of recent elections that saw the Western-backed opposition defeated.
Looking at a map of Russia, not a nation touching its borders has been spared the globalist treatment, from the Ukraine and their US-backed Orange Revolution, to Georgia and its US-backed invasion of South Ossetia. For Russia, they seem more than prepared to fight back, humiliating the US-trained and equipped Georgian military on the battlefield and overseeing the results of the US-funded Orange Revolution overturned, with Ukrainian talks to join NATO halted.
By targeting the Middle East, and in particular Iran, which both China and Russia have been using to check the West’s world domineering ambitions, the globalists’ hope is to renew political unrest in Russia’s satellite regions and complete its campaign of encircling Russia, thus forcing it to concede to its place amongst the new global order.
China’s String of Pearls
It is no secret China depends on oil imports to not only keep its economy growing, but to keep its vast population busy and prosperous, thus keeping the ruling government in power. This has been a long known realism by both China and the West. For China’s part, they have begun building a presence on continental Africa, especially in Sudan where they have established a 1,000 mile oil pipeline from the vast nation’s heartland to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. They have also provided relief to the country from UN sanctions and buys the majority of Sudan’s oil exports.
China also imports an immense amount of oil from Iran. In fact, the Islamic Republic represents the world’s second largest exporter of oil to China, behind Saudi Arabia.
From Sudan and Iran, across the Indian Ocean, and back to China’s shores in the South China Sea, represents a “String of Pearls,” or a series of geopolitical assets China is developing to protect this vital logistical route. This “String” includes a Chinese port in Pakistan’s Baluchistan region, another facility in Myanmar (Burma), and expanded facilities in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam. China is also building up the size and capabilities of its fleet, including submarines which now shadow America’s carrier groups, and the outfitting of their first aircraft carrier which is nearing completion.
The term “String of Pearls” was used as the title of the US Strategic Studies Institute’s (SSI) 2006 report “String of Pearls: Meeting the challenge of China’s rising power across the Asian littoral.” In this report, China’s ambitions to project its power along this route is viewed as a direct challenge to American supremacy as well as a threat to the West’s unipolar vision of a “new world order.”
While China may not be a champion of human freedom, they do appear to favor a multipolar world where sovereign nations coexist instead of the Anglo-American unipolar world where, unsurprisingly, the British and American oligarchs dominate the planet.
To prevent such a multipolar world from coming into existence, the SSI report suggests several strategies regarding China, from engaging and enticing it to become what globalist pusher Robert Zoellick calls a “responsible stakeholder” in the “international system,” to outright military confrontation and containment.
Of course this report was written in July 2006, and the ink hadn’t even dried before Israel suffered a humiliating defeat in its war with Lebanon, the war with Iran stalled, and globalist minion Thaksin Shinawtra was ousted from power in Thailand in a display of jealously defended sovereignty in Southeast Asia.
It appears that the globalists, over the following years, would present China with a flattering role to play in their global order while simultaneously destabilizing nearly every nation along the “String of Pearls.” The US has expanded its war in Afghanistan and is attempting to balkanize Pakistan in the process, specifically the Baluchistan region where China is establishing a naval presence. Pakistan’s Baluchistan region is also the seaside starting point of an energy and logistical conduit running northward through the Himalayas and into Chinese territory. The US is also heavily involved in destabilizing Myanmar (Burma) to affect regime change and subsequently establishing a Washington dependent government.
Thailand neighbors Myanmar to the east and possesses the narrow Kra Isthmus China would like to develop into a Suez/Panama Canal-like project to shorten trips for its oil laden, China-bound tankers. Thailand also serves as an overland conduit, running north and south as in Pakistan, with a developed rail system connecting Singapore’s shipping yards to Laos’ capital of Vientiane. China has begun the development of a rail system through Laos and the upgrading of Thailand’s rail system. Thailand also is one of the world’s largest rice exporters, which makes the nation vital to China’s future growth.
It is no surprise then, that Thailand, like Myanmar, has suffered multiple attempts by the US to affect regime change. Their man, Thaksin Shinawatra is an overt globalist, having formally served as an adviser to the Carlyle Group, and since his ousting from power in 2006, has been lobbied for by everyone from James Baker’s Baker Botts, to ICG’s Kenneth Adelman and the Edelman PR firm, to his current lobbyist and lawyer, Robert Amsterdam.
It is quite clear that Washington is using its control of the Middle East and its control of the seas, albeit challenged control, to check China’s vastly superior financial and economic position. It is also clear that Washington is investing a great amount of military resources and intelligence assets to destabilize the entire “String of Pearls” to confound, contain, and leverage concessions from China, with the ultimate goal of folding the emerging Asian giant into the unipolar Anglo-American global order.
How well this strategy is working is debatable, however, the US military is politically hobbled, strategically stretched, and led by vastly incompetent leaders in Washington who have lost the faith and trust of their own population, not to mention the world. The bold and perhaps desperate gambit the US is playing out in the Middle East could be a bid to rectify years of failure against China and the Shanghai Cooperative since the SSI wrote their report in 2006. Regime change in Iran is still the linchpin in making this latest bid a success.
South America
Even South America is not spared. There has been a lull in overt American meddling, allowing South America to become a bastion of sorts against the agents of globalization, however, covert operations and staging has been ongoing.
Troubling reports coming from South America’s Argentina, no stranger to the ire of Anglo-American ambitions, indicate that tension is building up between Buenos Aires and Washington. It has culminated in a diplomatic row over a recently seized US C-17 transport chalk full of suspicious equipment and an even more suspicious explanation. This is leading many, including the government of Argentina, to believe the US is staging another round of destabilization efforts in South America.
Venezuela and Bolivia have been overtly targeted by the West in recent years by efforts to undermine and even overthrow their respective governments. The muted-confused response over the coup in Honduras also raises suspicions that America has begun striking back against the wave of regional nationalism sweeping South America. A visit over to Movements.org reveals that the US State Department/corporate funded organization is backing dissidents in Venezuela and encouraging the spread of “civil society,” gleefully noting the insidious effects it is having on bolstering the anti-Chavez opposition.
Conclusion
The recent US-backed wave of revolution sweeping the Middle East is just the beginning of a greater move to dislodge Iran and begin regaining ground against Russia and China after several years of disappointing results geopolitically. The ultimate goal in mind is to force Russia and China to accept their role as “responsible stakeholders” in the unipolar Anglo-American “new world order.” The unipolar world of Anglo-American financier domination requires that all competition be eliminated, all nations become interdependent, and most importantly, all governments conform to the globalists’ model of “civil society” which in turn answers to centralized global institutions.
Understanding the overarching plan reveals the danger of being apathetic or complacent about the current unrest in the Middle East. It will surely spread, and depending on the Shanghai Cooperative’s response and their determination to remain the masters of their own destiny, greater confrontation may ensue. For the United States and its dwindling power, its meaningless offers to the world’s nations to join their bankrupt, one-sided model of world governance, and their growing economic mire, there is no telling what their desperation may transform into. This unpredictability and desperation may be perhaps the only card they have left in their hand worth playing, and one that should trouble us all.
The New American Century (2009) FULL LENGTH
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: For more information, watch this incredible documentary above… - SJH
Link to original article below…
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/02/middle-east-then-world.html
The Logic Of Imperial U.S. Insanity And The Road To World War III
January 15, 2011: Andrew Gavin Marshall / Global Research - January 14, 2011
Defining The Imperial Stratagem
In the late 1990s Brzezinski wrote up the design for America’s imperial project in the 21st century in his book, “The Grand Chessboard.” He stated bluntly that, “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America,” and then made clear the imperial nature of his strategy: “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.”[1]
He further explained that the Central Asian nations (or “Eurasian Balkans” as he refers to them): “…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.”[2]
Brzezinski emphasizes “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.”[3]
Obama As A Rabid Imperialist
Obama wasted no time in rapidly accelerating America’s imperial adventures. While dropping the term “War on Terror” from usage, the Pentagon adopted the term, “overseas contingency operations.”[4] This was to be the typical strategy of the Obama administration: change the appearance, not the substance. The name was changed, but the “War on Terror” remained, and not only that, it was rapidly accelerated to a level that would not have been possible if undertaken by the previous administration.
The current expansion of American imperialism globally has been rapidly accelerated since Obama became President, and seems intent on starting and expanding wars all over the world. When Obama became President, America and its Western allies were engaged in a number of wars, occupations and covert destabilizations, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, to the Congo, and Obama took office in the midst of Israel’s brutal assault against Gaza. From the beginning of his presidency, Obama immediately justified Israel’s vicious attack against innocent Palestinians, rapidly accelerated the war and occupation of Afghanistan, expanded the war into Pakistan, started a new war in Yemen, and supported a military coup in Honduras, which removed a popular democratic government in favour of a brutal dictatorship. Obama’s administration has expanded covert special operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa, and is paving the way for a war against Iran.[5] In fact, the Obama administration has expanded Special Operations forces into 75 countries around the world (compared with a height of 60 during the Bush regime). Among the many countries with expanded operations are Yemen, Colombia, the Philippines, Somalia, Pakistan, among many others.[6] Further, in recent months, the Obama administration has been saber rattling with North Korea, potentially starting a war on the Korean Peninsula. With the creation of the Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), American foreign policy on the continent has become increasingly militarized.
No continent is safe, it seems. America and its NATO cohorts are undertaking a seemingly insane foreign policy of dramatically accelerating overt and covert military imperialism. This policy seems to be headed for an eventual confrontation with the rising eastern powers, in particular China, but potentially India and Russia as well. China and America, specifically, are headed on an imperial collision course: in East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The competition for access to resources is reminiscent of the ‘Great Game’ of the 19th century, of which Afghanistan was a central battlefield.
One would think that in the midst of a massive global economic crisis, the worst the world has ever seen, the major nations would scale back their imperial over-reach and militarism in order to reduce their debts and preserve their economies. However, there is an ‘imperial logic’ behind this situation, and one that must be placed within a wider geopolitical context.
Conceptualizing The Rise Of China
First, we must properly address the nature of China’s rise in the world order. What we are witnessing is an historically unique situation. For the first time, the rise of a ‘new’ power is taking place not in the context of rising against the hegemonic powers of the time, but within the hegemonic order. In short, China’s rise has not been a rise against America, but rather a rise within the American world order. Thus, China has risen as much as the West has allowed it to rise, but that does not mean that China will not seek to serve its own interests now that it has accumulated significant global status and power. China has risen by integrating with the Western-dominated economic system, and in particular the Western banking and central banking systems. China and America are economically dependent upon one another, as America purchases China’s cheap products, and China funds America’s debt. In effect, China is also funding America’s imperial adventurism.
Thus, we are presented with a unique situation: one of mutual dependence and competition. While China and America are dependent upon one another, they are also each other’s greatest competitors, specifically in terms of access to and control over resources. For example, China supports both Iran and Sudan. These two nations are major targets of American imperial ambitions, not because of any humanitarian or anti-terrorism concerns (although that is the propaganda espoused most often), but because of the significant resources and strategic relevance of these nations. As they are not subservient to the West and specifically America, they are considered ‘enemy nations’, and thus the media focus on demonizing these nations so that the public is supportive of military or other means of implementing “regime change.” China supports these nations because of its access to their resources, and as a counter to American influence.
Global Governance
To add another complex feature to this story, we must place this conflicting relationship in the context of the global economic crisis and the world response to it. The G20 is the principle forum for ‘global governance,’ in which the nations of the world are working together to increasingly integrate their governance approaches on a global scale. The economic crisis has provided the impetus to spur on calls for and the implementation of plans to construct a system of global economic governance: a global central bank and global currency. So, as China and America are seeking to further integrate economically and globally, they are also competing for access to and control over resources.
The logic behind this is that both powers want to be able to negotiate the process of constructing a system of global governance from a more secure standpoint. While it is generally acknowledged that the world is witnessing “the rise of the East,” in particular with China and India, we see the center of global power moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Several commentators for years have been analyzing and discussing this issue; however, the fact that power has been centered in the Atlantic for the past 500 years means that it will not be so easily moved to the Pacific. In fact, the Western powers not only acknowledge the rise of the East, but that the East has risen because they have allowed it to and aided it in this process. The Western powers have done this not out of some benevolent design, but because the organized intellectual powers of the West (namely, the principle think tanks and banking interests) have sought to create a perfect global system of governance, one in which power does not sway from nation to nation, or West to East, but rather that power is centralized globally. This is obviously a long-term project, and will not (if ever) be realized for several more decades. Yet, it is through crises – economic, political, and social – that this process of global governance can be rapidly accelerated. See: “Crisis is an Opportunity”: Engineering a Global Depression to Create a Global Government
Understanding Imperial Dynamics
There is another dynamic to this complicated relationship that must be addressed, that of the internal dynamics between the political, economic and military elite of the dominant nations. For the sake of time, I will focus on the two principle nations: America and China. America’s national security apparatus, namely the Pentagon and intelligence services, have long worked in the service of the economic elite and in close cooperation with the political elite. There is a network that exists, which President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” where the interests of these three sectors overlap and thus America is given its imperial impetus.
It is within the major think tanks of the nation, specifically the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where cohesion between these sectors is encouraged and managed. The think tanks, and the CFR most especially, are the policy-makers of the American Empire. Think tanks bring together elites from most power sectors of society – the military, political, corporate, banking, intelligence, academia, media, etc. – and they discuss, debate and ultimately produce strategy blueprints and recommendations for American foreign policy. Individuals from these think tanks move in and out of the policy-making circles, creating a revolving door between the policy-planners and those that implement them. The think tanks, in this context, are essentially the intellectual engines of the American Empire.
Still, we must not assume that because they are grouped together, work together, and strategize together, that they are identical in views or methods; there is significant debate, disagreement and conflict within and between the think tanks and policy-making circles. However, dissent within these institutions is of a particular nature: it focuses on disagreement over methods rather than aims and objectives. To elaborate, the members (at least the powerful members) of think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations do not disagree on the cause of empire and supporting American hegemony, that is a given, and is not often even discussed. That is the environment in which the elite operate.
What is up for debate and discussion is the methods used to achieve this, and it is here where significant conflicts arise between elites. Bankers and corporations seek to protect their financial and economic interests around the world. Military officials are concerned with preserving and expanding American hegemony, and are largely focused on potential rivals to American military power, and tend to favour military options of foreign policy over diplomatic ones. Political representatives must be concerned with the total influence and projection of American power – economically, militarily, politically, etc. – and so they must weigh and balance these multiple interests and translate it into a cohesive policy. Often, they lean towards the use of military might, however, there have been many incidents and issues for which political leaders have had to reign in the military and pursue diplomatic objectives. There have also been instances where the military has attempted to reign in rabidly militaristic political leaders, such as during the Bush administration with the neo-conservatives pushing for direct confrontation with Iran, prompting direct and often public protests and rebuttals from the military establishment, as well as several resignations of top-ranking generals.
These differences are often represented directly within administrations. The Kennedy years, for example, saw a continual conflict between the military and intelligence circles and the civilian leadership of John Kennedy. His brief term as President was marked by a constant struggle to prevent the military and intelligence services of America – particularly the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA – from starting wars with Cuba, Vietnam and the Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved only after Robert Kennedy, JFK’s brother and the Attorney General, convinced the Russians that Kennedy was at risk of being overthrown in a military coup, which would result in a direct nuclear war against the USSR. See: The National Security State and the Assassination of JFK
Thus, within the key policy circles – namely the think tanks and presidential cabinets – there is always a delicate balancing act of these various interests. Fundamentally, with American power, they all rest and support American corporate and banking interests. Diplomacy, especially, is concerned with supporting American corporate and financial interests abroad. As the Wikileaks diplomatic cables have revealed in a number of cases, diplomats directly intervene on behalf of and work with various corporate interests. US diplomats acted as sales agents to foreign governments promoting Boeing planes over European competitors, they pressured the government of Bangladesh to reopen a widely-opposed mine in the country operated by a British company, they lobbied the Russian government directly on behalf of the interests of Visa and Mastercard, engaged in intelligence sharing with Shell in Nigeria, and in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, US diplomats worked with major British business interests and British Prince Andrew, who stated that, “the United Kingdom, Western Europe (and by extension you Americans too,” were “back in the thick of playing the Great Game,” and that, “this time we aim to win!”[7]
The military, in turn, acts in the interests of the corporate and financial elite, as those countries that do not submit to American economic hegemony are deemed enemies, and the military is ultimately sent in to implement “regime change.” Strategic concerns are de facto economic concerns. The military is concerned with preserving and expanding American hegemony, and to do so they must be focused on threats to American dominance, as well as securing strategic locations in the world. For example, the war in Yemen, a country with very little to offer economically, has a lot to do with strategic-economic interests. The ‘threat’ in Yemen is not in the form of al-Qaeda, though that is what is most propagandized, but rather it is the fact that the long-supported dictatorship of President Saleh, who has been in power since 1978, is threatened by a rebel movement in the North and a massive secessionist movement in the South, as the central government controls barely one-third of the country. In short, Yemen is on the verge of revolution, and thus, America’s trusted ally and local despot, President Saleh, is at risk of being usurped. Thus, America has heavily subsidized Yemen’s military, and has even directly launched cruise missiles, sent in Special Forces and other forms of assistance to help Yemen’s dictator suppress, repress and ultimately crush these popular people’s movements for independence and liberty.
Now why is this a strategic-economic concern to America, for a country that has little dwindling resources to offer? The answer is in Yemen’s geographic location. Directly below Saudi Arabia, a revolutionary government that would be highly antagonistic towards America’s trusted Saudi proxy state would be a threat to America’s interests throughout the entire Middle East. It would be likely that Iran would seek to ally itself and aid such a government, allowing Iran to expand its own political influence in the region. This is why Saudi Arabia is itself taking direct military action in Yemen against the rebels in the North, along its border. The Saudi elite are fearful of the rebellious sentiments spreading into Saudi Arabia itself. No wonder then, that America recently signed off on the largest arms deal in U.S. history with Saudi Arabia, totaling $60 billion, in an effort to support operations in Yemen but principally to act as a counter to Iranian influence in the region. Further, Yemen sits atop the Gulf of Aden, directly across from the Horn of Africa (namely Somalia), connecting the Black Sea to the Arabian Sea, which is itself one of the major oil transport routes in the world. Strategic control over the nations lining the Gulf of Aden is of primary interest to American imperial strategists, whether they are military, political or economic in nature.
Yemen is also directly across the water from Somalia, another country ravaged by the American war machine. As the diplomatic cables confirmed, in 2006, “the Bush Administration pushed Ethiopia to invade Somalia with an eye on crushing the Union of Islamic Courts,” which is exactly what happened, and Somalia has been a ‘failed state’ mired in civil war ever since.[8] The piracy that has exploded in the waters off of Somalia are a result of the massive toxic waste dumping and over-fishing done by European and American and other major shipping lines, and have served as an excuse for the militarization of the waters. In this context, it would be unacceptable from a strategic standpoint to allow Yemen to fall from American influence. Thus, America is at war in Yemen. See: Yemen: The Covert Apparatus of the American Empire
China, alternatively, does not have such direct cohesion between its political, economic and military sectors. China’s military is intensely nationalistic, and while the political elite are more cooperative with U.S. interests and often work to achieve mutual interests, the military sees America as a direct challenge and antagonistic (which of course, it is). China’s economic elite, specifically its banking elite, are heavily integrated with the West, so much so that it is very difficult to separate the two. There is not such an integration between the Chinese and American military establishments, nor is there an internal dynamic within China that reflects the American system of empire. The divisions between military, political and economic circles are more pronounced within China than in America. The Chinese political leadership is put into a very challenging situation. Determined to see China advance economically, they must work with America and the West. However, on key political issues (such as with Taiwan), the political leadership must adhere to an intensely nationalistic approach, which is counter to U.S. interests, and supportive of Chinese military interests. Increasing military superiority is seen as a key aspect and objective of China’s increasing political dominance in the world scene. As one top Chinese General stated in 2005, “China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan.” The General cited “war logic” which “dictates that a weaker power needs to use maximum efforts to defeat a stronger rival.” His view suggested that elements within the Chinese military are ‘determined’ to respond with extreme force if America intervenes in any potential conflict over Taiwan, saying that, “We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”[9]
The Logic Of Competitive Co-Operation
The Chinese military must be ready to protect its economic interests abroad if it is to have control over its own economic growth and thus maintain international power. Thus, China’s political impetus to support and increase its international influence is very conflicting. On the one hand, this means actively cooperating with America and the West (primarily in economic matters, as we see with the G20, where China is engaging in the dialogue and the implementation of global governance arrangements); and on the other hand, China must also challenge America and the West in order to secure its own access to and control over vital resources necessary for its own economic and political growth. China is placed in a paradoxical situation. While working with the West to construct the apparatus of global governance, China does not want to be dictated to, and instead wants a strong negotiating position in these arrangements. So while engaging in discussions and negotiations for the construction of a system of global governance, China must also actively seek to increase its control over key strategic resources in the world in order to strengthen its own negotiating position. It is often the case that when warring parties come to the table for negotiations, the on-the-ground operations are rapidly accelerated in order to strengthen the negotiating position of the respective party.
This was the case during the Rwandan Civil War, where throughout the Arusha Peace Process, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), heavily supported by America against the Rwandan government (which was supported by France and Belgium), rapidly accelerated its military campaign, thus gaining the upper hand during negotiations, which worked in its favour, ultimately resulting in the Rwandan genocide (which was sparked by the RPF’s assassination of the Rwandan president), and the RPF usurped power in Rwanda. This is also the case in Israel-Palestine “peace” negotiations, such as during the Oslo process, where Israel rapidly accelerated its expansion of settlements into the occupied territories, essentially ethnically cleansing much of the Palestinian populations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This expanded process of ethnic cleansing is what the Western political leaders and media call a “peace process.” Thus, when Palestinians react to this ethnic cleansing and expansion of the settlements (which is an inherently violent process), or a suicide bombing or mortar attack takes place in reaction to this expansion of settlements, Western political leaders and media blame the Palestinians for breaking a period of “relative peace” or “relative calm.” Apparently, it is considered to be “relative peace” if only Palestinians are being killed. Thus, Israel always ensures that through any negotiation process, its interests are met above all others.
So we see this logic with China and America today. While not directly at war with one another, they are each other’s greatest competition. This competition is prevalent in Central Asia, where America is seeking dominance over the region’s enormous natural gas reserves, thus depriving China of access to and control over these vital strategic resources. It is also heavily present in Africa, where China has presented an alternative to going to the World Bank and IMF for African governments to get loans and support in exchange for resource access. In this context, America established its newest Pentagon command, Africa Command (AFRICOM) to merge American diplomatic, civil society and military policy in Africa under command of the Pentagon. In the Middle East, America is primarily dominant, thus leaving China pushed to ally itself with Iran. In South America, China is allying itself with the somewhat progressive governments which rose in opposition to American military and economic hegemony over the region.
This logic holds for both America and China. Both seek to secure a dominant position while engaging in discussions and the implementation of a global governance apparatus. This leads both powers to seek cooperation and mutual benefit, yet, simultaneously, compete globally for control of resources. This is magnified by the global economic crisis, which has revealed the weaknesses of the global economy, and indeed the global monetary and banking systems. The world economy is on the verge of total collapse. The next decade will be scarred by a new Great Depression. This provides a further impetus for both of these powers to rapidly accelerate their control over resources and expand their military adventurism.
The American Empire is in decline, and is utterly bankrupt; however, its elites, which are in fact more global than national in their ideology and orientation, are seeking to not simply have American power disappear, or be replaced with Chinese power, but rather to use American power to construct the apparatus of a new global structure of authority, and that the American Empire will simply fade into a global structure. This is a delicate balancing act for the global elite, and requires integrating China and the other dominant powers within this system. It also inherently implies the ultimate domination of the ‘global south’ (Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia). This is an entirely new process being undertaken. Empires have risen and fallen throughout all of human history. This time, the fall of the American Empire is taking place within the context of the rise of a totally new kind of power: global in scope, structure and authority. This will no doubt be one of the defining geopolitical events of the next several decades.
Historically, periods of imperial decline are marked by a rapid acceleration of international conflict and war, as the declining power seeks to control as much as it can as fast as it can (thus we see America’s seemingly insane expansion of war, conflict and militarization everywhere in the world), while rising powers seek to take advantage of this decline in order to accelerate the collapse of the declining power, and secure their position as the next dominant power. Yet, in this geopolitical landscape of the 21st century, we are faced with this entirely new context, where the decline of one empire and the rise of a new power are taking place while both seek to integrate and construct an entirely new system and structure of power, yet both seek to secure for themselves a dominant position within this new structure. The potential for conflict is enormous, possibly resulting in a direct war between America and China, or in a mass of global proxy wars between them.
This new century will indeed be an interesting one. The prospects of a new global war are increasing with every accelerated military adventure. The primary antagonist in this theatre of the absurd is without a doubt, the United States. If the world is headed for World War III, it is because America has made such a situation inevitable. One cannot preclude that for many global elites, such a result may be desirable in and of itself. After all, World War I provided the impetus for the formation of the League of Nations, and World War II provided the push for the United Nations to “secure peace between nations.” In a world largely run by global strategists, it would be naïve to assume that it has not occurred to some that a new world war could be precisely the event they need to convince the people of the world to accept their desired system of global governance; no doubt to secure ‘world peace.’ At least, I am sure it will be sold under that pretense.
The New American Century (Part 1/10)
Watch full documentary here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3776750618788792499#
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Great article and an outstanding documentary. Watch in full… - SJH
Link to original article with notes below…
WikiLeaks ‘Struck A Deal With Israel’ Over Diplomatic Cable Leaks
December 8, 2010: LikiWeaks Editors / SF Bay Area IMC (Indybay.org) – December 7, 2010
I disagree here with the opening sentence about supporting Julian Assange. This is a psy-op to take control of the Internet! - SJH
We should obviously all support WikiLeaks and its founder and spokesperson, Julian Assange, who has just been arrested in Britain, in this dirty war by states around the globe against transparency and openness.
But in the world of politics, sadly, things are never as innocent as they appear.
According to new revelations, Assange had allegedly struck a deal with Israel before the recent ‘Cable-gate,’ which may explain why the leaks “were good for Israel,” as the Israeli prime minister put it.
A number of commentators, particularly in Turkey and Russia, have been wondering why the hundreds of thousands of American classified documents leaked by the website last month did not contain anything that may embarrass the Israeli government, like just about every other state referred to in the documents.
The answer appears to be a secret deal struck between the WikiLeaks “heart and soul,” as Assange humbly described himself once [1], with Israeli officials, which ensured that all such documents were ‘removed’ before the rest were made public.
According to an Arabic investigative journalism website [2], Assange had received money from semi-official Israeli sources and promised them, in a “secret, video-recorded agreement,” not to publish any document that may harm Israeli security or diplomatic interests.
The sources of the Al-Haqiqa report are said to be former WikiLeaks volunteers who have left the organisation in the last few months over Assange’s “autocratic leadership” and “lack of transparency.”
In a recent interview with the German daily Die Tageszeitung, former WikiLeaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg said he and other WikiLeaks dissidents are planning to launch their own whistleblowers’ platform to fulfill WikiLeaks’s original aim of “limitless file sharing.” [3]
Mr. Domscheit-Berg, who is about to publish a book about his days ‘Inside WikiLeaks,’ accuses Assange of acting as a “king” against the will of others in the organisation by “making deals” with media organisations that are meant to create an explosive effect, which others in WikiLeaks either know little or nothing about. [4]
Furthermore, Assange’s eagerness for headline-grabbing scoops meant that WikiLeaks had not been able to ‘restructure’ itself to cope with this surge of interest, insiders add. This has meant that smaller leaks, which might be of interest to people at a local level, are now being overlooked for the sake of big stories. [5]
According to the Al-Haqiqa sources, Assange met with Israeli officials in Geneva earlier this year and struck the secret deal. The Israel government, it seems, had somehow found out or expected that the documents to be leaked contained a large number of documents about the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 and 2008-2009 respectively.
These documents, which are said to have originated mainly from the Israeli embassies in Tel Aviv and Beirut, where removed and possibly destroyed by Assange, who is the only person who knows the password that can open these documents, the sources added.
Indeed, the published documents seem to have a ‘gap’ stretching over the period of July-September 2006, during which the 33-day Lebanon war took place. Is it possible that US diplomats and officials did not have any comments or information to exchange about this crucial event, but spent their time ‘gossiping’ about every other ‘trivial’ Middle Eastern matter?
Following the leak (and even before), Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a press conference that Israel had “worked in advance” to limit any damage from leaks, adding that “no classified Israeli material was exposed by WikiLeaks.” [6] In an interview with Time magazine around the same time, Assange praised Netanyahu as a hero of transparency and openness! [7]
According to another report [8], a left-leaning Lebanese newspaper had met with Assange twice and tried to negotiate a deal with him, offering “a big amount of money,” in order to get hold of documents concerning the 2006 war, particularly the minutes of a meeting held at the American embassy in Beirut on July 24, 2006, which is widely considered as a ‘war council’ meeting between American, Israeli and Lebanese parties that played a role in the war against Hizbullah and its allies.
The documents the Al-Akhbar editors received, however, all date to 2008 onwards and do not contain “anything of value,” the sources confirm. This only goes to support the Israeli deal allegations.
Finally, it might be worth pointing out that Assange might have done what he is alleged to have done in order to protect himself and ensure that the leaked documents are published so as to expose the American hypocrisy, which he is said to be obsessed with “at the expense of more fundamental aims.”
Notes:
[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/wikileaks-revolt/
[2] http://www.syriatruth.info/content/view/977/36/
[3] http://www.taz.de/1/netz/netzpolitik/artikel/1/vom-hacker-zum-popstar/
[4] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,732212,00.html
[5] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,719619,00.html
[7] http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040-2,00.html
[8] http://www.syriatruth.info/content/view/986/36/
The Wiki (Israel) Leaks
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: As I’ve stated for some time now, WikiLeaks is an Israeli psy-op! - SJH
Link to original article below…
Weather Wars And The Devil’s HAARP: Atmosphere Weaponization
August 18, 2010: Nicholas West / Activist Post - August 17, 2010
The weather forces of Earth are volatile indeed. Even in the human era we have passed through cataclysmic times of both fire and ice, destruction and rebirth; recorded throughout the world in legends and religious texts. Are the current weather events part of that natural wave pattern of upheaval and stability, man-made global warming, a cyclical eruption of the sun, or are there clear manufactured patterns emerging?
The HAARP project has been shrouded in secrecy and speculation since its inception…
Despite recent high-profile attempts to access its inner workings, only more questions continue to emerge. Conclusions about its operational capacity are those that have caused a drift toward “conspiracy theory.” Defense operations have quite a history of harebrained boondoggle schemes that never become operational. However, weather modification (and weaponization) has been consistently discussed and researched by the military and the Elite to a level that indicates there is something worth pursuing. Let us look at a few things we know for certain:
HAARP Is A Military Installation
Officials downplay the facility as pure “basic or exploratory research” — working with Alaska University, Fairbanks — possessing no military applications. Yet, the United States Air Force, Navy and DARPA scientists populate the remote site in Gakona, Alaska. It is also part of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which answers to the Department of Defense, and makes it a component of “Star Wars” inviting NASA into the mix. At the very least, the communications and surveillance applications fit in perfectly with national security via sea and sky.
It Is A Weather Modification Apparatus
The scientists at HAARP do not deny the capacity for structural modification of the atmosphere, but they continue to insist that their academic studies are limited to a small swath around the facility. However, there is an indication of wider use: the premier defense contractor, Raytheon, is now the owner of most of many relevant patents surrounding the research being conducted there. Of twelve patents that form the backbone, #4,686,605 says it all: “Method and Apparatus for Altering a Region in the Earth’s Atmosphere, Ionosphere, and/or Magnetosphere.”
Weather Weapons Have Been Considered By The Elite As A Potential Tool For Control
Zbigniew Brzezenski is the world’s foremost geopolitical director. His seminal books, The Grand Chessboard
With this in mind, let’s consider some recent events that might suggest HAARP has achieved its full operational potential as a weapon that can be accurately directed to a given target if geopolitical masterminds give the order.
Venezuela Drought — The worst drought in 50 years came in late 2009 after Elites labeled Hugo Chavez an authoritarian (despite repeated popular elections). They indicated a desire to, “divert the country toward a democracy.” That type of rhetoric often indicates a mission to destabilize a regime, and impose a true dictator subservient only to the whims of the Globalists. Big Oil hates iconoclastic leaders who are not members of The Club. The benefit of political instability can set the stage for a future coup, so we have to wonder if a weather weapon was tested to produce anger among the populace. Chavez invoked El Niño at the time, but did indicate his awareness of U.S. weather weapons after the Haiti Earthquake.
Pakistan Floods — The suddenness of the weather could be a tipoff. This is a disaster that experts are saying dwarfs the impact of the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia, and is the worst in Pakistan history. And it came by surprise. Unlike a Tsunami which can have a random earthquake as its source, weather has been charted enough to put meteorologists on TV who presumably make a living off of their accurate analysis. Yet, millions have been affected, and hundreds of villages erased by this anomalous event that dropped from the skies. A recent article in the Daily Mail has scientists speculating that a blocked jet stream is causing a prolonged weather system over Pakistan . . . as well as Russia. A stated ability of HAARP is to “perturb the ionosphere,” which can lead to the stalling, or supercharging of weather systems, as the jet stream is affected. In fact, it appears that the jet stream has split in two, with one arm going north over Russia, and the other arm heading south into Pakistan; the region in the middle is feeling the effects.
Russia Heat Wave — The worst heatwave in the nation’s history is slowing its economic recovery and causing destabilizing anger in the populace. Major media coldly states that the Russians’ penchant for alcohol is to blame for the subsequent deaths. Meanwhile, talk of a climate weapon is increasing in volume. Then there is Global Warming and carbon taxes: Russia has been a holdout on the effects of man-made Global Warming and the attendant need to tax industry. Premier Medvedev stated in late 2009, “We will not cut our development potential.” He also made it clear that he believed that Global Warming was, “some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects.” Yet, who can doubt the effects of man-made warming now? Medvedev was quoted recently doing a complete about-face, “What’s happening with the planet’s climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate.”
Freak U.S. Storms — Washington D.C. has been getting pounded. A recent storm came out of nowhere. Could this be retaliation from Russia for a perceived (or real) attack on its main agricultural region? The storms produced the first hail in the state’s history and dumped 5 inches of rain per hour, amid 180,000 lightning strikes. Or, perhaps it was domestically inspired — the area’s freak storm claimed the life of community leader and activist, Carl Henn. Either way, experts are noting in Russia and D.C. that a change in the jet stream has led to the significant events. The D.C. events come on the heels of a strange storm in Montana, curiously not long after the governor turned down Federal stimulus money.
The recent death of Ted Stevens is a disturbing development. Some sources indicate that he was ready to reveal that Obama had given the green light to use weather weapons. And Stevens might have known; he was the Senator in 1988 that had to be “convinced” to allow his state to house the HAARP project. At the time, Stevens was insisting to detractors that the HAARP array could end fossil fuel dependence. Perhaps this is what he was led to believe, so he let the project sail through . . . until he later learned otherwise. Also on board the plane was former NASA administrator, Sean O’Keefe, who was enlisted by Stevens to help research the truth.
Government acronyms are very often revealing for their propagandizing; in reality being a 180-degree turn away from what is implied. HAARP invokes a sense of the peaceful strumming of angels in harmony with all creation. Yet, even if we conclude the most benign intentions, a familiar chestnut warns us that the road is paved straight to Hell. The title of the definitive book on the subject states it best: Angels Don’t Play This HAARP. That is because the strum of mechanistic manipulation is discordant with Nature; it plays a devil’s tune, rasping its way across the strings of existence.
On Earth, it is played out as Full Spectrum Dominance where it needs souls to succeed. This is the free will of humanity — you must choose your side. History is a catalogue of Man’s attempts to imitate the Divine. He has not yet succeeded, but he might just die while trying…
“The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exits.” — J. Edgar Hoover
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: On August 15, just two days before the publication of this article, I had posted the following comment below in regard to the Pakistan floods… - SJH
“The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Rather interesting timing for this type of catastrophe considering the US military’s escalation into the region. Are we witnessing the result of HAARP and weather modification at play here to further destabilize Pakistan? We have the technology. Just a thought… - SJH”
20 Million Homeless – Pakistan Floods Compared To ’47 Partition
Link to original article below…
http://www.activistpost.com/2010/08/weather-wars-and-devils-haarp.html
Money Laundering & Global Drug Trade Fueled By Capitalist Elites
July 22, 2010: Tom Burghardt / Antifascist Calling… via Global Research - July 21, 2010
When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the story four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) “registered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military … carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.,” it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.
And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked “private,” packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.
But now a Bloomberg Markets magazine report, “Wachovia’s Drug Habit,” reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps fifty others, “with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.,” Wachovia and Bank of America. The Justice Department charge sheet against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, “the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money laundering law, in U.S. history.”
“A sum” Bloomberg averred, “equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.” Since 2006, some 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence. Thousands more have been wounded, countless others “disappeared,” torture and illegal imprisonment is rampant.
In a frightening echo of the Reagan administration’s anti-communist jihad in Central America during the 1980s, the Bush and now, Obama administration has poured fuel on the fire with some $1.4 billion in “War on Drugs” funding under Plan Mérida. Much of that “aid” is destined to purchase military equipment for repressive police, specialized paramilitary units and the Mexican Army.
There is also evidence of direct U.S. military involvement. In June, The Narco News Bulletin reported that “a special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican Army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations.”
One former U.S. government official told investigative journalist Bill Conroy, “‘Black operations have been going on forever. The recent [mainstream] media reports about those operations under the Obama administration make it sound like it’s a big scoop, but it’s nothing new for those who understand how things really work’.”
But, as numerous investigations by American and Mexican journalists have revealed, there is strong evidence of collusion between the Mexican Army and the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. A former Juarez police commander told NPR in May that “the intention of the army is to try and get rid of the Juarez cartel, so that [Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman] Chapo’s [Sinaloa] cartel is the strongest.”
The cosy relations among the world’s biggest banks, drug trafficking organizations and the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus is not however, a new phenomenon. What is different today is the scale and sheer scope of the corruption involved. As Michel Chossudovsky points out:
“This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have “political friends in high places.” As legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between “businesspeople” and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions, including the military.” (The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century, Montreal: Global Research, 2010, pp. 195-196)
While the Bloomberg story should cast new light on highly-profitable links amongst major financial institutions and narcotrafficking organizations in what may be protected drug rackets green-lighted by corrupt officials, media silence, particularly by outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, threaten to propel what should be an international scandal into a one-off news item scheduled for a trip down the memory hole.
“Cocaine One”
If, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman claims “the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist,” then perhaps too, drug cartels work their “market magic” with their own “hidden fist” or, as the Russians like to say ‘akrysha’, a web of protectors–and facilitators–drawn from business, finance, organized crime and the secret world of intelligence.
Dubbed “Cocaine One” by Hopsicker, the DC-9 was curious for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that “one of the chief shareholders” of a dodgy outfit called SkyWay Aircraft “is a private investment bank in Dallas which also raised funds for a Mexican industrialist with reported ties to a Cali and Juarez Cartel narcotics trafficker.”
More curious still, the airline kitted-out its fleet with distinctive colors and a seal “designed to impersonate planes from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.” And when he learned that “SkyWay’s genesis can be traced to In-Q-Tel Inc., a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group owned, operated, and financed out of the black box budget of the Central Intelligence Agency,” well you can bet corporate media ran themselves ragged investigating that!
To top it off, when another drug plane crash landed in the Yucatan Peninsula eighteen months later and broke apart, a Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA) that spilled “4 tons of cocaine across a muddy field,” Hopsicker reported that it had originated from the same network and used the same source for its financing, the “Casa de Cambio Puebla SA, a country-wide network of currency exchanges.”
And to make matters even more intriguing from a parapolitical perspective, after searching through FAA records Hopsicker discovered that the Gulfstream II business jet “was owned by a secretive Midwestern media baron and Republican fund-raiser, who had a business partner who, incredibly, owned the other American drug plane, the DC-9, recently busted in Mexico.”
In fact, as Bloomberg investigative journalist Michael Smith learned years later, these were the same planes and same currency exchange which Hopsicker reported back in 2007 traffickers had used to purchase drug jets with funds laundered through Wachovia. “One customer that Wachovia took on in 2004 was Casa de Cambio Puebla SA,” Smith wrote. The Puebla, Mexico currency exchange was the brainchild of Pedro Alatorre, a “businessman” who “had created front companies for cartels.”
Alatorre, and 70 others connected to his network, were seized in 2007 by Mexican law enforcement officials. Authorities discovered that the accused drug money launderer and airline broker for the cartels controlled 23 accounts at the Wachovia Bank branch in Miami and that it held some $11 million, subsequently frozen by U.S. investigators.
In 2008, a Miami federal grand jury indicted Alatorre, now awaiting trial in Mexico along with three other executives, charging them with drug trafficking and money laundering, accusing the company of using “shell firms to launder $720 million through U.S. banks.” The Justice Department is currently seeking Alatorre’s extradition from Mexico.
According to Bloomberg, “Puebla executives used the stolen identities of 74 people to launder money through Wachovia accounts.” Jose Luis Marmolejo, the former head of the Mexican attorney general’s financial crimes unit told Smith, “Wachovia handled all the transfers, and they never reported any as suspicious.”
Some $300,000 was transferred by Wachovia to a Bank of America branch in Oklahoma City. With cash in hand Bloomberg reports, traffickers “used the funds to buy the DC-9 through Oklahoma City aircraft broker U.S. Aircraft Titles Inc.” When queried by Smith about the sale, “U.S. Aircraft Titles President Sue White declined to comment.” Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the Wachovia case said in a press release that “Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations.”
Yet, as Hopsicker wrote nearly three years ago, “the politically-explosive implications of the scandal may explain why American officials have been reluctant to move against, or even name, the true owners of the planes and basically ‘turned a blind eye’ to the American involvement exposed by the drug trafficking seizures.” As of this writing, no Americans have been criminally charged in the cash-for drug planes banking conspiracy… [read more below]
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: This is one of the reasons the borders are left open. Read the rest of this informative article at the Global Research link provided on the bottom. For related reading, refer to the article directly below… - SJH
Banks Finance Mexican Drug Gangs ‘Admitted’ In Wells Fargo Deal
Link to entire article below…
Chavez Warns Of US Military Escalations In Costa Rica & Elsewhere
July 20, 2010: Inside Costa Rica Editor’s / Inside Costa Rica.com – July 19, 2010
CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned Sunday of increased international tensions over the military escalation by the United States and its allies around the world.
“There are highly alarming elements: the military exercises that the South Koreans and gringos performed in the Yellow Sea; the pressure on Iran for daring to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes; the mobilization of U.S. and Israeli troops near Iran’s coasts, and the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan occupied by the empire,” Chavez said during his usual Sunday news commentary, “Las lineas de Chavez.”
The president also listed Israel’s blockade of Gaza with Washington’s blessing as another alarming factor. Chávez highlighted that the Barack Obama government “is proving to be, in words and actions, the second Bush administration (George W.), because it follows the same line as a warmonger and the same strategy of domination.”
Chavez denounced the continuing and false accusations by Obama government agencies regarding alleged links between Caracas and international drug trafficking, and the surprising presence on unconvincing explanations for thousands of U.S. marines in Costa Rica and the overflights of Dutch aircraft in Venezuelan territory.
He also mentioned as other reasons for concern the violent destabilization plans revealed in the wake of capture of Salvadoran terrorist Francisco Chavez Abarca on national soil; the Chilean Senate’s attempt to interfere in the September 26 elections and statements by the outgoing Colombian government linking Venezuela with Colombian guerrilla groups like the FARC and ELN.
“What a picture! We would be naive if we did not look at all of this aggression as a whole; everything is related,” he said. “I think we are looking at a reenactment of the U.S. imperial doctrine, which is facing the new projects for the sovereignty of our America” he stated.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: Regardless what you may think of him, Chavez is right on the money here. US military escalations are occurring at an alarming rate… - SJH
Link to original article below…
http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/july/19/latinamerica10071901.htm
US Is In Costa Rica: Militarization Of Central America & Caribbean
July 19, 2010: Mark Vorpahl / Global Research - July 19, 2010
Nestled between Panama to its south and Nicaragua to its north, Costa Rica is a Central American nation roughly the size of Rhode Island.
If another nation were to send Rhode Island a force of 7,000 troops, 200 helicopters, and 46 warships in an effort to eradicate drug trafficking, it is doubtful that the residents of Rhode Island would consider this offer “on-the-level.” Such a massive military force could hardly be efficiently used to combat drug cartels. The only logical conclusion is that the nation whose troops now are occupying this other country had another agenda in mind that it didn’t want to share.
In early July, by a vote of 31 to 8, the Costa Rican Congress approved the U.S. bringing into their nation the same military force described above, justified with the same dubious “war on drugs” rationale. According to the agreement, the military forces are supposed to leave Costa Rica by the end of 2010. This begs the question however, if such an over the top display of military muscle is needed now to combat the drug cartels, what will be done in the next few months to make their presence unnecessary? The history of such U.S. military deployments around the world suggests a more credible outcome than what the agreement states. Once the U.S. moves such massive forces into a country, they rarely move them out.
When push comes to shove, the political machinery in Costa Rica is subservient to U.S. government and corporate interests. Nevertheless, there are many in Costa Rica who are declaring that the agreement is a violation of their national sovereignty and is unconstitutional. (In 1948 Costa Rica abolished its army, which was sanctioned in its constitution.) Legislator Luis Fishman has vowed to challenge the decision of the Congress in the courts.
Shifting Strategy And Tactics
The buildup of U.S. armed forces in Costa Rica is part of an escalating pattern that indicates a shifting of strategy and tactics for the U.S. in controlling what the Monroe Doctrine infamously described as the U.S.’s “backyard” — that is, all of Latin America. Since the U.S. government inspired covert coup d’etats and political reversals of popular governments and/or movements in Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Nicaragua, and El Salvador in previous decades, U.S. rulers had figured they had things stitched up to their liking in Latin America. The political elites in Latin America were uniformly in the pockets of the U.S. corporate empire and appeared to be more or less in control of their people. They commonly outlawed strikes and at times even trade unions, eliminated minimum wage laws, and gave enormous tax breaks to U.S. corporations.
Therefore, the U.S. Empire builders could use their political and economic might alone to subjugate these neo-colonies to a very profitable neoliberal agenda. This agenda included allowing U.S. corporations easy access to pillage these nations’ public sectors through privatization, letting multi-national corporations overrun these nations’ local markets and farms through the elimination of trade barriers, and increasing the exploitation of their workers and the devastation of their natural resources by tossing out national labor and environmental standards. Because of the profits enjoyed by a few as a result of these measures, they carried the day, though they, in turn, created a simmering spirit of rebellion in the semi-colonies’ peasantry and workers that would inevitably find expression.
As the U.S. began to set its sights on, and send its resources to, other parts of the world, most notably the Middle East and Asia, the web they had wrapped around Latin America began to unravel. This was most apparent in Venezuela where a U.S.-backed coup attempt in April of 2002 failed because of the massive mobilizing of the Venezuelan people in defense of their democratic rights. All subsequent attempts of the Venezuelan oligarchy, in collusion with the U.S. State Department, to get rid of Chavez resulted in their humiliation because of the constant support and organizing of the country’s lower classes. It became apparent to the U.S. ruling class that they could no longer rely on the Venezuelan oligarchy which had lost direct control over the political situation. What is more, the popular upsurge witnessed in Venezuela in the past decade opened up floodgates for anti-imperialist organizing across the continent, resulting in the election of a number of left-wing presidents.
Not only was the neoliberal agenda of the U.S. being blocked, an alternative to the U.S. Free Trade policies was being set up. The Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), which was initiated by Venezuela and Cuba, began to build a trading block based on exchange according to different nations’ needs rather than U.S. corporate profits. While ALBA needs to be more substantially developed in order to fulfill its promise, especially in regards to organizing grassroots control to determine its priorities, it is a challenge to U.S. corporate and political dominance in the region.
U.S. Military Moves
As a result, the U.S. government began to shift its reliance from solely economic and political means to control Latin America towards taking military measures, even while engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What have been some of these measures?
In 2006 the U.S. conducted military exercises off the coast of Venezuela called “Operation Partnership of the Americas.” This exercise involved four ships, 60 fighter planes, and 6,500 U.S. troops.
In 2006 the U.S. State Department classified the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, with their military bases jointly contracted to Holland and the U.S., as “The Third Frontier of the United States.” U.S. aircraft carriers, war ships, combat planes, Black Hawk helicopters, nuclear submarines, and thousands of troops began to build up in Curacao in particular. In 2009 a U.S. military plane was intercepted in Venezuelan airspace that had flown from Curacao’s base.
In 2008 the U.S. reactivated the Fourth Fleet to patrol Caribbean waters. This fleet had been out of commission since 1950. Now it operates with the potential of acting as a floating base for the U.S. to conduct military strikes throughout Central and South America.
In 2009 the U.S. made a deal with Colombia to build up its military personal in seven bases, from 250 to 800 American troops with 600 civilian contractors, effectively taking control over these installations. This was widely denounced throughout Latin America as an action aimed at intimidating Venezuela. In December of that year a U.S. drone plane flying from one of these Colombian bases violated Venezuelan airspace.
From 2009 to 2010 the U.S. worked behind the scenes to legitimize a military coup in Honduras against lawfully elected President Zelaya, who had aligned the nation with ALBA. Part of the U.S.’s motivation behind its actions was to maintain control of Soto Cano’s Airbase, with its 550 U.S. troops and 650 U.S. and Honduran civilians. In the 1980′s the U.S. had used this base for a training ground and launching pad for the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua and El Salvadorian death squads opposed to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). There is good reason for concern that this Airbase will again be used for similar operations today.
In 2009 the U.S. and Panama agreed to open up two naval bases in Panama, which will be the first time U.S. military forces will be based in this nation since 1999.
War On Drugs?
Most of these measures have been justified on the grounds of combating drug trafficking, including the military buildup in Costa Rica. However, they have not curtailed this problem at all. Such U.S. military buildups have generally been accompanied by an increase in drug trafficking, as has happened in both Columbia and Afghanistan. Based on this record it can only be concluded that the “War on Drugs” rationale is a red herring for public relations consumption, not the actual motivation.
This military build up in Costa Rica is the latest in a series of moves the U.S. has made in Latin America that seeks to use threats and arms to reverse the strength of popular anti-imperialist forces across the region. The U.S. is playing with the possibility of erupting a continental conflagration for the sake of corporate profits.
While it is doubtful that the U.S. wants to directly engage in a military conflict with, most likely, Venezuela right now, preparations for this possibility are being made. What is more likely in the short term is that the U.S. military will use its forces to engage in sabotage and intimidation in hopes of reversing support for the nations aligned with ALBA. It is also very possible that the U.S. military will help to support proxy armies, such as Colombia’s, in military conflicts that align with U.S. interests. However, this is a dangerous game. Even in the short term, the U.S. ruling class may drag the nation into another direct conflict, in spite of their intentions, that could spread to involve numerous other nations.
Peace And International Solidarity
While U.S. workers are suffering from unemployment, insufficient health care, drastic cuts to education and social services, as well as environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico created by the Obama governmental collusion with BP, the priorities of the U.S. ruling class are elsewhere. They are more concerned with pouring money into military buildups that threaten war. The target of such a war, or wars, would be the popular working class movements in Latin America, whose only crime has been to struggle to liberate themselves from super exploitation and political repression. It is the same economic and political elite in the U.S. that are denying U.S. workers what is rightfully theirs that are opposing the efforts of workers and peasants throughout the continent to empower themselves.
It is the task of the anti-war movement not only to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to prevent future U.S. wars in Latin America. Wherever anti-war activists seek to mobilize people against war, they should also seek to educate about the U.S. empire’s military moves in Latin America.
Furthermore, it will require international solidarity to combat what the U.S. elite is doing in Central and South America. There was recently an event that could go some way towards preparing this solidarity. In Sanare, Venezuela, from June 21 – 25, a series of meetings were held entitled “Ecuentro of the Americas: Resisting Militarization and Promoting a Culture of Peace.” It consisted of delegates of organizations from 19 nations across the continent, including School of the Americas (SOA) ‘Watch of the U.S.’ – You can read more about this at http://www.soaw.org/.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: The rogue American government and US military are the ultimate drug dealers who work for the international bankers and trans-national corporations to fund their black-ops… - SJH
Link to original article below…
Haiti: A Fateful Geological Prize (Oil) Discovered To Their Demise!
January 31, 2010: F. William Engdahl / Global Research – January 30, 2010
A President becomes UN Special Envoy to earthquake-stricken Haiti. A born-again neo-conservative US business wheeler-dealer preacher claims Haitians are condemned for making a literal ‘pact with the Devil.’ Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless…
Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.
Haiti, and the larger island of Hispaniola of which it is a part, has the geological fate that it straddles one of the world’s most active geological zones, where the deepwater plates of three huge structures relentlessly rub against one another—the intersection of the North American, South American and Caribbean tectonic plates. Below the ocean and the waters of the Caribbean, these plates consist of an oceanic crust some 3 to 6 miles thick, floating atop an adjacent mantle. Haiti also lies at the edge of the region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a vast area in the Caribbean subject to bizarre and unexplained disturbances.
This vast mass of underwater plates are in constant motion, rubbing against each other along lines analogous to cracks in a broken porcelain vase that has been reglued. The earth’s tectonic plates typically move at a rate 50 to 100 mm annually in relation to one another, and are the origin of earthquakes and of volcanoes. The regions of convergence of such plates are also areas where vast volumes of oil and gas can be pushed upwards from the Earth’s mantle. The geophysics surrounding the convergence of the three plates that run more or less directly beneath Port-au-Prince make the region prone to earthquakes such as the one that struck Haiti with devastating ferocity on January 12 (2010).
A Relevant Texas Geological Project
Leaving aside the relevant question of how well in advance the Pentagon and US scientists knew the quake was about to occur, and what Pentagon plans were being laid before January 12 (2010), another issue emerges around the events in Haiti that might help explain the bizarre behavior to date of the major ‘rescue’ players—the United States, France and Canada. Aside from being prone to violent earthquakes, Haiti also happens to lie in a zone that, due to the unusual geographical intersection of its three tectonic plates, might well be straddling one of the world’s largest unexplored zones of oil and gas, as well as of valuable rare strategic minerals.
The vast oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and of the region from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden are at a similar convergence zone of large tectonic plates, as are such oil-rich zones as Indonesia and the waters off the coast of California. In short, in terms of the physics of the earth, precisely such intersections of tectonic masses as run directly beneath Haiti have a remarkable tendency to be the sites of vast treasures of minerals, as well as oil and gas, throughout the world.
Notably, in 2005, a year after the Bush-Cheney Administration de facto deposed the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Baptiste Aristide, a team of geologists from the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas began an ambitious and thorough two-phase mapping of all geological data of the Caribbean Basins. The project is due to be completed in 2011. Directed by Dr. Paul Mann, it is called “Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons.” It is all about determining as precisely as possible the relation between tectonic plates in the Caribbean and the potential for hydrocarbons—oil and gas.
Notably, the sponsors of the multi-million dollar research project under Mann are the world’s largest oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, the Anglo-Dutch Shell and BHP Billiton.[1] Curiously enough, the project is the first comprehensive geological mapping of a region that, one would have thought, would have been a priority decades ago for the US oil majors. Given the immense, existing oil production off Mexico, Louisiana, and the entire Caribbean, as well as its proximity to the United States – not to mention the US focus on its own energy security – it is surprising that the region had not been mapped earlier. Now it emerges that major oil companies were at least generally aware of the huge oil potential of the region long ago, but apparently decided to keep it quiet.
Cuba’s Super-Giant Find
Evidence that the US Administration may well have more in mind for Haiti than the improvement of the lot of the devastated Haitian people can be found in nearby waters off Cuba, directly across from Port-au-Prince. In October 2008 a consortium of oil companies led by Spain’s Repsol, together with Cuba’s state oil company, Cubapetroleo, announced discovery of one of the world’s largest oilfields in the deep water off Cuba. It is what oil geologists call a ‘Super-giant’ field. Estimates are that the Cuban field contains as much as 20 billion barrels of oil, making it the twelfth Super-giant oilfield discovered since 1996. The discovery also likely makes Cuba a new high-priority target for Pentagon destabilization and other nasty operations.
No doubt to the dismay of Washington, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew to Havana one month after the Cuban giant oil find to sign an agreement with acting-President Raul Castro for Russian oil companies to explore and develop Cuban oil.[2]
Medvedev’s Russia-Cuba oil agreements came only a week after the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to meet the recuperating Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. The Chinese President signed an agreement to modernize Cuban ports and discussed Chinese purchase of Cuban raw materials. No doubt the mammoth new Cuban oil discovery was high on the Chinese agenda with Cuba.[3] On November 5, 2008, just prior to the Chinese President’s trip to Cuba and other Latin American countries, the Chinese government issued their first ever policy paper on the future of China’s relations with Latin America and Caribbean nations, elevating these bilateral relations to a new level of strategic importance. [4]
The Cuba Super-giant oil find also leaves the advocates of ‘Peak Oil’ theory with more egg on the face. Shortly before the Bush-Blair decision to invade and occupy Iraq, a theory made the rounds of cyberspace, that sometime after 2010, the world would reach an absolute “peak” in world oil production, initiating a period of decline with drastic social and economic implications. Its prominent spokesmen, including retired oil geologist Colin Campbell and Texas oil banker Matt Simmons, claimed that there had not been a single new Super-giant oil discovery since 1976, or thereabouts, and that new fields found over the past two decades had been “tiny” compared with the earlier giant discoveries in Saudi Arabia, Prudhoe Bay, Daquing in China and elsewhere. [5]
It is critical to note that, more than half a century ago, a group of Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists, working in state secrecy, confirmed that hydrocarbons originated deep in the earth’s mantle under conditions similar to a giant burning cauldron at extreme temperature and pressure. They demonstrated that, contrary to US and accepted Western ‘mainstream’ geology, hydrocarbons were not the result of dead dinosaur detritus concentrated and compressed and somehow transformed into oil and gas millions of years ago, nor of algae or other biological material.[6]
The Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists then proved that the oil or gas produced in the earth’s mantle was pushed upwards along faults or cracks in the earth as close to the surface as pressures permitted. The process was analogous to the production of molten lava in volcanoes. It means that the ability to find oil is limited, relatively speaking, only by the ability to identify deep fissures and complex geological activity conducive to bringing the oil out from deep in the earth. It seems that the waters of the Caribbean, especially those off Cuba and its neighbor Haiti, are just such a region of concentrated hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that have found their way upwards close to the surface, perhaps in a magnitude comparable to a new Saudi Arabia.[7]
Haiti: A New Saudi Arabia?
The remarkable geography of Haiti and Cuba and the discovery of world-class oil reserves in the waters off Cuba lend credence to anecdotal accounts of major oil discoveries in several parts of Haitian territory. It also could explain why two Bush Presidents and now special UN Haiti Envoy Bill Clinton have made Haiti such a priority. As well, it could explain why Washington and its NGOs moved so quickly to remove– twice– the democratically elected President Aristide, whose economic program for Haiti included, among other items, proposals for developing Haitian natural resources for the benefit of the Haitian people.
In March 2004, some months before the University of Texas and American Big Oil launched their ambitious mapping of the hydrocarbon potentials of the Caribbean, a Haitian writer, Dr. Georges Michel, published online an article titled ‘Oil in Haiti.’ In it, Michel wrote,
… .[I]t has been no secret that deep in the earthy bowels of the two states that share the island of Haiti and the surrounding waters that there are significant, still untapped deposits of oil. One knows not why they are still untapped. Since the early twentieth century, the physical and political map of the island of Haiti, erected in 1908 by Messrs. Alexander Poujol and Henry Thomasset, reported a major oil reservoir in Haiti near the source of the Rio Todo El Mondo, Tributary Right Artibonite River, better known today as the River Thomonde. [8]
According to a June 2008 article by Roberson Alphonse in the Haitian paper, Le Nouvelliste en Haiti, “The signs, (indicators), justifying the explorations of oil (black gold) in Haiti are encouraging. In the middle of the oil shock, some 4 companies want official licenses from the Haitian State to drill for oil.”
At the time, oil prices were climbing above $140 a barrel — on manipulations by various Wall Street banks. Alphonse’s article quoted Dieusuel Anglade, the Haitian State Director of the Office of Mining and Energy, telling the Haitian press: “We’ve received four requests for oil exploration permits…We have had encouraging indicators to justify the pursuit of the exploration of black gold (oil), which had stopped in 1979.”[9]
Alphonse reported the findings from a 1979 geological study in Haiti of 11 exploratory oil wells drilled at the Plaine du Cul-de-sac on the Plateau Central and at L’ile de La Gonaive: “Surface (tentative) indicators for oil were found at the Southern peninsula and on the North coast, explained the engineer Anglade, who strongly believes in the immediate commercial viability of these explorations.”[10]
Journalist Alphonse cites an August 16, 1979 memo by Haitian attorney Francois Lamothe, in which he noted that “five big wells were drilled” down to depths of 9000 feet and that a sample that “underwent a physical-chemical analysis in Munich, Germany” had “revealed tracks of oil.” [11]
Despite the promising 1979 results in Haiti, Dr. Georges Michel reported that, “the big multinational oil companies operating in Haiti pushed for the discovered deposits not to be exploited.” [12] Oil exploration in and offshore Haiti ground to a sudden halt as a result.
Similar if less precise reports claiming that Haitian oil reserves could be vastly larger than those of Venezuela have appeared in Haitian websites. [13] Then in 2010 the financial news site Bloomberg News carried the following:
The Jan. 12 (2010) earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies that included the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said Monday in a telephone interview. ‘A geologist, callous as it may seem, tracing that fault zone from Port-au-Prince to the border looking for gas and oil seeps, may find a structure that hasn’t been drilled,’ said Pierce, exploration manager at Zion Oil & Gas Inc., a Dallas-based company that’s drilling in Israel. [14]
In an interview with a Santo Domingo online paper, Leopoldo Espaillat Nanita, former head of the Dominican Petroleum Refinery (REFIDOMSA) stated, “there is a multinational conspiracy to illegally take the mineral resources of the Haitian people.” [15] Haiti’s minerals include gold, the valuable strategic metal iridium and oil, apparently lots of it.
Aristide’s Development Plans
Marguerite Laurent (‘Ezili Dantò’), president of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network (HLLN) who served as attorney for the deposed Aristide, notes that when Aristide was President — up until his US-backed ouster during the Bush era in 2004 — he had developed and published in book form his national development plans. These plans included, for the first time, a detailed list of known sites where the resources of Haiti were located. The publication of the plan sparked a national debate over Haitian radio and in the media about the future of the country. Aristide’s plan was to implement a public-private partnership to ensure that the development of Haiti’s oil, gold and other valuable resources would benefit the national economy and the broader population, and not merely the five Haitian oligarchic families and their US backers, the so-called Chimeres or gangsters. [16]
Since the ouster of Aristide in 2004, Haiti has been an occupied country, with a dubiously-elected President, Rene Preval, a controversial follower of IMF privatization mandates and reportedly tied to the Chimeres or Haitian oligarchs who backed the removal of Aristide. Notably, the US State Department refuses to permit the return of Aristide from South African exile.
Now, in the wake of the devastating earthquake of January 12, the United States military has taken control of Haiti’s four airports and presently has some 20,000 troops in the country. Journalists and international aid organizations have accused the US military of being more concerned with imposing military control, which it prefers to call “security,” than with bringing urgently needed water, food and medicine from the airport sites to the population.
A US military occupation of Haiti under the guise of earthquake disaster ‘relief’ would give Washington and private business interests tied to it a geopolitical prize of the first order. Prior to the January 12 quake, the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince was the fifth largest US embassy in the world, comparable to its embassies in such geopolitically strategic places as Berlin and Beijing.[17] With huge new oil finds off Cuba being exploited by Russian companies, with clear indications that Haiti contains similar vast untapped oil as well as gold, copper, uranium and iridium, with Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela as a neighbor to the south of Haiti, a return of Aristide or any popular leader committed to developing the resources for the people of Haiti, — the poorest nation in the Americas — would constitute a devastating blow to the world’s sole Superpower. The fact that in the aftermath of the earthquake, UN Haiti Special Envoy Bill Clinton joined forces with Aristide foe George W. Bush to create something called the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund ought to give everyone pause.
According to Marguerite Laurent (‘Ezili Dantò’) of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network, under the guise of emergency relief work, the US, France and Canada are engaged in a balkanization of the island for future mineral control. She reports rumors that Canada wants the North of Haiti where Canadian mining interests are already present. The US wants Port-au-Prince and the island of La Gonaive just offshore – an area identified in Aristide’s development book as having vast oil resources, and which is bitterly contested by France. She further states that China, with UN veto power over the de facto UN-occupied country, may have something to say against such a US-France-Canada carve up of the vast wealth of the nation. [18]
Notes:
1 Paul Mann, Caribbean Basins, Tectonic Plates & Hydrocarbons, Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin, accessed in
www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/cbth/…/ProposalCaribbean.pdf .
2 Rory Carroll, Medvedev and Castro meet to rebuild Russia-Cuba relations, London Guardian, November 28, 2008 accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/28/cuba-russia.
3 Julian Gavaghan, Comrades in arms: When China’s President Hu met a frail Fidel Castro, London Daily Mail, November 19, 2008, accessed in http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1087485/Comrades-arms-When-Chinas-President-Hu-met-frail-Fidel-Castro.html.
4 Peoples’ Daily Online, China issues first policy paper on Latin America, Caribbean region, November 5, 2008, accessed in http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6527888.html .
5 Matthew R. Simmons, The World’s Giant Oilfields, Simmons & Co. International, Houston, accessed in http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/giantoilfields.pdf .
6 Anton Kolesnikov, et al, Methane-derived hydrocarbons produced under upper-mantle conditions, Nature Geoscience, July 26, 2009.
7 F. William Engdahl, War and Peak Oil—Confessions of an ‘ex’ Peak Oil believer, Global Research, September 26, 2007, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6880 .
8 Dr. Georges Michel, Oil in Haiti, English translation from French, Pétrole en Haiti, March 27, 2004, accessed in http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/oil_sites.html#oil_GeorgesMichelEnglish .
9 Roberson Alphonse, Drill, and then pump the oil of Haiti! 4 oil companies request oil drilling permits, translated from the original French, June 27, 2008, accessed in
http://www.bnvillage.co.uk/caribbean-news-village-beta/99691-drill-then-pump-oil-haiti-4-oil-companies-request-oil-drilling-permits.html
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid. The full text indicated that, “five big wells were drilled at Porto Suel (Maissade) of a depth of 9000 feet, at Bebernal, 9000 feet, at Bois-Carradeux (Ouest), at Dumornay, on the road Route Frare and close to the Chemin de Fer of Saint-Marc. A sample, a ‘carrot’ (oil reservoir) drilled up from the well of Saint-Marc in the Artibonite underwent a physical-chemical analysis in Munich, Germany, at the request of Mr. Broth. ‘The result of the analysis was returned on October 11, 1979 and revealed tracks of oil,’ confided the engineer, Willy Clemens, who had gone to Germany.”
12 Dr. Georges Michel, op. cit.
13 Marguerite Laurent, Haiti is full of oil, say Ginette and Daniel Mathurin, Radio Metropole, Jan 28, 2008, accessed in
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/oil_sites.html#full_of_oil.
14 Jim Polson, Haiti earthquake may have exposed gas, aiding economy, Bloomberg News, January 26, 2010.
15 Espaillat Nanita revela en Haiti existen grandes recursos de oro y otros minerals, Espacinsular.org, 17 November, 2009, accessed in
http://www.espacinsular.org/spip.php?article8942 .
16 The Aristide development plan was contained in the book published in Haiti in 2000, Investir dans l’Human. Livre Blanc de Fanmi Lavalas sous la Direction de Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Port-au-Prince, Imprimerie Henri Deschamps, 2000. It contained detailed maps, tables, graphics, and a national development plan for 2004 “covering agriculture, environment, commerce and industry, the financial sector, infrastructure, education, culture, health, women’s issues, and issues in the public sector.” In 2004, using NGOs and the UN and a vicious propaganda campaign to vilify Aristide, the Bush administration got rid of the elected President.
17 Cynthia McKinney, Haiti: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux, Global Research, January 19, 2010, accessed in
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17063.
18 Marguerite Laurent (Ezili Danto), Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake?, OpEd News.com, January 23, 2010, accessed in
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Did-mining-and-oil-drillin-by-Ezili-Danto-100123-329.html.
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