For your wisdom, rage or fun.
A few tidbits:
IDF urges crackdown on settler violence
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January 4, 2005
Open Thread
Comments
Does Pedro or anyone else have
illumination to offer on the
clash between Antauro Humala
and A. Toledo in Peru? I had hopes for Toledo when he took over a few years ago, but it seems that he has been a disappointment to his electors.
Peru’ is still outside of the Mercosur, I believe. What are the circumstances on that question?
Could Peru enter Mercosur if it desired to do so? Does Peru so desire?
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 4 2005 11:39 utc | 1
Just want to take advantage of the space to say, Happy New Year and thanks for being here to sustain my shaky sanity.
Posted by: beq | Jan 4 2005 12:42 utc | 2
According to the WP Bushie is going to propose cutting future SS benefits by 1/3. Those f—s are trying any way they can to not pay back the money owed SS. Thats what this whole thing is about. Not paying what is owed.
Posted by: jdp | Jan 4 2005 12:52 utc | 3
From Empire Notes:
There are several attitudes toward the resistance that one finds among the antiwar left:
1. Reject them and express support for marginal secular “civil society” groups that oppose the occupation.
2. Express unconditional adulation for them as opponents of U.S. imperialism.
3. Ignore them as much as possible while expressing opposition to the occupation.
The third option seems most common. But hiding our heads in the sand hardly helps to create an informed left that understands the world in order to change it.
It’s long been my evaluation that most of the Iraqi armed resistance has virtually no political program. Parts of it are extremely Islamist and so have an agenda of beating wine-sellers and forcing women, whether Muslim or not, to wear the hijab; parts of it, seemingly foreign in inspiration but only partly foreign in composition, have the goal of killing Shi’a. Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army has the stated goal of introducing an Islamic theocracy. Most of the resistance has the goal of driving the foreign occupiers out; other parts have the goal of keeping them bogged down in Iraq. Clearly, those whose primary goal is sectarian war of Shi’a against Sunni are helping the occupation, since the growing gulf between the two communities is the primary political asset the occupiers have.
But beyond these basic elements, there is no larger program. Gerard Chaliand, chronicler of revolutionary guerrilla movements around the world, wrote of the Afghan mujaheddin in 1980 that they were the only guerrillas he had seen with no social programs – no village chicken cooperative, no literacy program, etc. The Iraqi resistance is the same, very much unlike Hamas or Hezbollah.
Ever since the events of April, it’s been my analysis that the best strategy for the U.S. military to defeat the resistance is not to fight them. When reacting to a U.S. assault, they occasionally gain a clear political purpose, but when the assault is over that purpose is quickly lost.
Such a way of thinking is so utterly foreign to the U.S. military that there was no way it would be adopted consciously. But it was adopted in Fallujah by accident. After the failure of the April assault, the Bush administration wanted to wait until after the elections– and so we saw six months of the Islamic Republic of Fallujah. During this time, many people grew heartily tired of the dictatorial ways of much of the resistance.
Most of all, the natives got to see that being ruled by the mujaheddin, even though the majority were also indigenous to the town, did nothing for them. They didn’t want the November assault, but they did desert the town in droves; very much unlike April, the majority of Fallujans did not identify with the resistance.
Another great failure of the Sunni-based resistance is that it has not unequivocally condemned the massive sectarian anti-Shi’a violence being done by groups like Zarqawi’s, the latest incident being bombings in the Shi’a holy cities of Najaf and Karbala killing over 60.
Any guerrilla war of a Third World people against a First World military force is primarily a political battle. Right now in Iraq, due in part to its massive political deficiencies, the resistance cannot win. Whether the United States can win is still an open question.
In order for resistance to the occupation to have any chance, it must first renounce sectarian violence and pointless terrorism like kidnapping and killing random foreigners, in order to build some basis for Iraqi unity. Second, it must recognize that the current struggle has no way to involve the ordinary Iraqi; indeed, most Shi’a are now being told by Sistani that the best way to oppose the occupation is to vote in the election. Mass action, like the gatherings that broke through the barricades around Fallujah in April or the protest last February that forced the United States to agree to elections, are an essential component of a serious strategy to end the occupation.
Posted at 9:42 am
Posted by: Pat | Jan 4 2005 14:24 utc | 6
From the Ha’aretz article:
Committee chairman MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud), who initiated the meeting, said “the phenomenon of organized refusal engenders mutiny and incitement to refusal.”
“Punitive measures should be used against the instigators of this ideological crime,” Steinitz said.
Are they talking only about soldiers refusing to serve in these operations, or does this term “refusal” also refer to the settlers who are resisting?
Posted by: kat | Jan 4 2005 15:25 utc | 7
@ kat
I assume that “refusenik”
is still a term of approval in
Israel, at least when referred to its original context. Steinitz’s comment seems almost
tautological, and the call for punitive measures for an ideological crime borders on
attempted “thought control”.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 4 2005 15:38 utc | 8
There’s been some mention of enlightenment in recent posts, notably in the Liberté thread. I can see why “girlie French thinking” would come into the line of neocon fire but throwing the “manly English” Magna Carta out the window defies explaining:
Reason Endless Detention From Guantanamo to Camp 6
Speaking of the English, here’s an update on the Queen’s thrilling views for the year:
God Save our Tolerant Queen
Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 4 2005 16:41 utc | 9
As for the whole settler issue in the “territories” as they so coyly call the occupied lands, it is a crock of sh*t. There is no dilemna, no problem whatsoever with the settlers refusing to leave. If Israel wanted those settlers to leave, they only have to stop protecting them with the IDF. If these brave settlers could no longer call for airstrikes they would soon lose their appetite for the wild frontier.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 4 2005 16:43 utc | 10
Interesting interview with Robert Fisk.
The Mire of Death, Lies and Atrocities: Robert Fisk Looks Back at 2004
Well, I think that the whole project in Iraq is finished. We are not being told by Mr. Blair in my case and Bush in yours that this is the case, and perhaps through their own misjudgment or their own fantasies, they don’t even accept this themselves. But the American project for democracy or whatever its real purposes were, for oil, economic expansion, Middle East fit for Israel, whatever it may have been, that project is finished. It is hopeless. It cannot succeed. The insurgency in Iraq is so great now that American troops, however enormous their technology, cannot control it. The Iraqi so-called ministers, and I include Iyad Allawi, the so-called interim prime minister, who was of course appointed by the Americans as a former C.I.A. asset, they behave like statesmen when they tour the world or turn up in Washington, but in Baghdad they’re not even safe inside their little Green Zone.
…
You know, I thought it was somehow perverse that the death of the one Palestinian leader, corrupt, venal, and ruthless though he was, I’m talking about why Arafat is immoral, the death of the one Palestinian leader, who could more or less unify the Palestinians, was seen as a hopeful sign, shows just how far from reality we are. Mahmoud Abbas, for the second time in three years is being held out as the angel who can save Palestine, who can bring about peace, who will be our new beloved savior of the Middle East peace, courtesy Tony Blair. And I’m sure he will be generous enough to include George Bush in the Middle East. Mahmoud Abbas is a colorless man who has been never associated with real democratic principles.
…
AMY GOODMAN: What do you see happening with this election? On U.S. television, we repeatedly hear the story that the suicide bombings will increase, U.S. officials saying this as well that the violence will increase, because militants want to stop democracy in the elections.
ROBERT FISK: Sure. I mean, you have got to realize that this is now a constant sort of logo of American and British news-speak in Iraq. They announce that something wonderful is going to happen, an interim governments a new constitution, elections. And then they say that violence is going to increase, that things are going to get worse the nearer we get to it. In other words the better things to come, the worse things are. The worse things are, the better things are going to become.
Posted by: Fran | Jan 4 2005 17:04 utc | 12
pat, most pro peace left,( middle whatever) have an attitude towards the resistance you fail to mention. respect, as opposed to your gushy “unconditional adulation”. we are not just expressing opposition while ignoring the resistance. none of your 3 examples speak for the majority in the peace movement , you are out of touch.
although i agree “Most of the resistance has the goal of driving the foreign occupiers out” your statement
” no social programs – no village chicken cooperative, no literacy program, etc. The Iraqi resistance is the same, very much unlike Hamas or Hezbollah.” does this include all of the ordinary iraqi citizens that are part of the resistance ? are you suggesting they should be faulted for not producing a proper literacy program while battling w/ the occupiers?
“They didn’t want the November assault, but they did desert the town in droves; very much unlike April, the majority of Fallujans did not identify with the resistance.” you mean because they left instead of being massacred?
“In order for resistance to the occupation to have any chance, it must first renounce sectarian violence and pointless terrorism like kidnapping and killing random foreigners, in order to build some basis for Iraqi unity.” well maybe if they had a weapons program, some proper equipment they could battle it out in a more ‘respectable’ fashion . and perhaps if the occupiers weren’t so bent on pre emption and torture (we are soo civilized) we might have some basis for unity here at home.
Posted by: annie | Jan 4 2005 17:34 utc | 13
Thanks for the link Fran
“This is part of the self-delusion, not only do our leaders suffer from this mania of deluding themselves, but the press by their silence or by their complicity, assist in this process of self-delusion. Indeed, they self-delude themselves. In Britain, we have, you know, some newspapers, my own, The Independent, The Guardian and increasingly, I suspect The Daily Telegraph, which is no longer prepared to do this. They say, hold on a second, we have got to live on Planet Earth. But when I read The New York Times and the Washington Post, I frankly wonder, who is on Planet Earth.”
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 4 2005 17:37 utc | 14
i have bought today a book by william t vollman – rising up & rising down -some thought on violence freedom and urgent means – a one volume abridgement of his 7 volumes – in france it cost me close to the gnp of togo
i’d be interested if others have read it & could share with me their thoughts
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2005 19:31 utc | 15
Pat cited (not endorsed) from Empire Notes where the author says the guerilla in Iraq do not have a political/social message. I think he is wrong on that. here is one reason:
When deadly force bumps into hearts and minds
With insurgents reported to be dispensing criminal justice and levying taxes, some American officers say they run a “parallel administration”. Last month in Mosul, insurgents are reported to have beheaded three professional kidnappers and to have manned road checkpoints dressed in stolen police uniforms. In Tal Afar, farther west, insurgents imposed a 25% cut in the price of meat.
Posted by: b | Jan 4 2005 20:48 utc | 16
I just saw that Michael Schumacher of Formula One fame has donated 10 million dollars to the “War on Waves”
That impresses an old cynic like me.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 4 2005 20:57 utc | 17
today, here in france – the syrian translator of the two journalist who were held hostage – has gone to a tribunal seeking damages against the u s government – for being tortured, simulacra executions, & fro finally being dropped off by the americans in a baghdad street in the middle of curfew – i am sure our tribunals do not have jurisdiction over what is happening in iraq – but he is using as his lawyer the very grand & very bad maître verges
interesting to see if – there will be a jurisdiction – but from the way i hear this story perhaps the french govt might have even counselled him against going to a tribunal because until today he spoke only of maltreatment – but his presentation today – is horrific in its implication
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 4 2005 21:02 utc | 18
Giap
Based upon reports I have read, I think the two French journo’s were bona fide spooks.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 4 2005 21:23 utc | 19
CP: French spies? Well, for a moment, I was wondering if they hadn’t been “convinced” by the resistance to help them shoot some propaganda movies, like the one released late last year, and were released once the guerrillas thought they had enough stuff. Well, many US journalists worked for the CIA, so they may have worked for the French intelligence to some extentbut I’d like to see some links.
Pat: The trick is that that’s an old post from Empire Notes, and interestingly it looked like if the guerrilla just happened to read it and decided to slightly change tactics the week after: attack on US barracks in Mosul, freeing the French journos, then killing electoral officials in Baghdad, with less random car-bombing.
Dan: Schumacher will probably get a tax break for that, you know.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jan 4 2005 22:32 utc | 20
fuckfrance.com
Is there really people like this?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 4 2005 22:39 utc | 21
Hannah: Does Pedro or anyone else have illumination to offer…
To my knowledge, any South American country can apply. Although the Mercosur at first only comprised the four countries from the so-called “South Cone” – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay & Uruguay – in 1996 Chile and Bolivia, upon request, were partially admitted. Full admission depends on their compliance with the zero-tax requirements of the free market zone, for which Bolivia demanded 15 years. Chile submitted a partial list of goods and pledged to reduce taxes progressively. I believe the main concern among both active and potential members is that Brazil could flood them with exports and crush their own industries. In fact, Argentina recently imposed taxes on some Brazilian goods precisely for this reason. Not to mention, of course, the opposition by the US, which sees Mercosur as a threat to its own proposal, the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas).
As to the rebellion in Peru, apparently it was staged by an ultranationalist group whose leader has just given himself up. The problem with the recent crop of left-leaning leaders in South America, as I see it, is that there is a huge gap between what was promised and what they can actually deliver. The sad fact is that they ascended to power at a time when apparently there is very little manoeuvering room left. We are going through this charade right now in Brazil, with members of Lula’s own party defecting because they feel betrayed by a government that economically plays by the IMF book and politically leans more and more to the right. The economy is doing pretty well, but very little has been done about the huge social debt and the outrageous unequality. The striking exception to orthodoxy is Argentina, which went against all rules of good behavior and seems to be succeeding, but this was done not out of wisdom or courage but simply because there was no other way out of the hole they had put themselves in.
Posted by: pedro | Jan 5 2005 0:20 utc | 22
From the Economist article linked by Bernhard:
“Thus harried, American commanders have abandoned the pretence of winning the love of Iraqis ahead of the scheduled vote. ‘Our broad intent is to keep pressure on the insurgents as we head into elections,’ says General Casey. ‘This is not about winning hearts and minds; we’re not going to do that here in Iraq. It’s about giving Iraqis the opportunity to govern themselves.’”
Took ’em long enough to get religion. If I don’t hear that goddamned phrase – “hearts and minds” – for the next six months, out of the mouth of anyone even nominally associated with OIF, then I’ll be satisfied. I honestly cannot think of another phrase that foretold disaster – neatly encapsulating the most reality-detatched mindset – better than that one.
Posted by: Pat | Jan 5 2005 2:16 utc | 23
.. winning the love of Iraqis
The iron hand crushed the Tyrant’s head
And became a tyrant in his stead.
– William Blake
Dawud Salman’s father posted a big white sign on the door of his house Sunday on which was written a verse of poetry that read:
“When one of our infants is weaned and becomes a youth,
Tyrants fall down on their knees before him.”
The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Qa’im reported that US troops showed up at the boy’s home at 9am on Sunday and found the sign. They asked their translator to interpret it and when they learned its meaning became enraged and tore it up. They then knocked on the door and threatened al-Hajj Salman that they would arrest him on charges of defamation of the US army.
@Pat – What is the legal position of this? Is this something from the Iraqi statutes, or US law, or the Laws of Occupation ?
8 Year Child Tortured By US Forces
Posted by: DM | Jan 5 2005 2:36 utc | 24
@ Pedro Thanks for the
information. In some ways South America seems to me to be a source of hope (but that, of course, may just mean I don’t really know the situation). Lula in Brazil, Chavez in Venezuela, the indictment of Pinochet in Chile, and, as you mention, Argentina’s ability to
“just say no” to the banks (sorry, Jérôme) seem to be
rays of hope. Even the difficulties about “privatization” of water resources in Bolivia seem to indicate movement and,
perhaps even progress. What do you read (online, of course) to stay informed about
South America, i.e. what sites do you recommend?
@ Cloned
As usual you manage to make me “see” something that, in retrospect, should have been obvious, at least to a suitably cynical observer. What exactly leads you to think the two French “journalists” were spooks? By now, of course, such assumptions ought to be everyone’s “default hypothesis”, but my inexhaustible naivté is always ready to spring into action.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 5 2005 5:46 utc | 25
HKOL
You can always say no to banks (or to financial markets), if you are willing to take the consequence, which is that it will be harder for you to borrow money. If you don’t get into debt, you can royally ignore what the markets say; if you take money from them, don’t expect them not to worry about getting it back…
You can run a good macroeconomic policy which does not involve more spending (the main cause of borrowing…) – and you can run policies that make it explicit that “prosperity” does not come only from “money” and thus that whatever political objectives you have trump pure financial rationality (if you accept that this is the best thing to do on a purely macro ground, which is a whole other debate). De Gaulle was famous for saying “la politique de la France ne se fait pas à la corbeille” (French policy shall not be decided by the stock exchange) and dismissing financiers.
Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 5 2005 7:03 utc | 26
@ Jérôme
Nice quote from the General.
Personally I am debt free and
worked to liquidate a mortgage
debt because I hated paying interest (even when its tax deductible). I don’t expect
others, much less governments, to adopt my eremitic ways, since my brief brush with Samuelson’s text taught me about the fallacy of composition.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 5 2005 7:36 utc | 27
The United States is a de facto Middle Eastern state.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 5 2005 8:32 utc | 29
One interesting fact of the Iraqi resistance is it’s un-definability, or the multiplicity of intent on part of it’s actions. While this may or not be intentional on part of any central command, clearly, it is to some extent a strategy of success with regards to making the occupation untenable. As long as the resistance remains the expression of many(and often opposed) culturally embedded desires, attempts to develop a consice, and effective suppression, will be frustrated by both internal individuated political division and their united desire to rid the country of the occupier. If the resistance were to have coalesced around any singular entity, it could and would have been penetrated, and deconstructed through the usual methods, but as it stands, the “hearts and minds” (sorry pat) are not so easily stereotyped.
Posted by: anna missed | Jan 5 2005 11:04 utc | 30
Mark Morford on how to improve 2005. Enjoy!
Resolutions For The Damned – A new year, a Bush-gutted, storm-ravaged world and you in need of some juicy, heartfelt pledges
Posted by: Fran | Jan 5 2005 16:12 utc | 31
Same topic – different perception?
The Guardian:
‘You’re George Bush’s brother? Good for you.’ – Tragedy turns to comedy as US envoys arrive
The NYT:
Powell, in Indonesia, Describes Scenes of Devastation
Posted by: Fran | Jan 5 2005 16:47 utc | 32
@Fran:
Thanks for linking to that Jared Diamond piece.
It was very interesting.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jan 5 2005 17:37 utc | 33
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 5 2005 18:16 utc | 35
From New Scientist magazine from a few years ago:
Get ready for widespread wipe-out when the La Palma tsunamis hit
WHEN half a Spanish island collapses, tsunamis will devastate the coastline of countries all around the Atlantic. And all because tsunamis can turn corners.
Last year, Simon Day of University College London and his colleagues reported that a flank of a volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands was unstable (New Scientist, 7th October 2000, p 26).
If the flank collapses, which Day expects to happen sometime in the next few thousand years, the resulting landslide will dump a trillion tonnes of rock into the Atlantic within minutes. Day predicted that this would probably send a huge tsunami raging towards America’s East Coast.
Now he has teamed up with Steven Ward, a wave expert at the University of California, Berkeley, to work out the tsunami’s size and spread. Ward has developed a model of waves triggered by underwater earthquakes, ranging from a mere 3 inches …
Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 5 2005 18:47 utc | 37
Jérôme had a thread about the Millau bridge, Here are satellite shots of the bridge.
Posted by: b | Jan 5 2005 18:47 utc | 38
cp
if i can be indisreet – what work do you do that allows you to introduce us to the himalayan times – the nepales post, the new zealand courier – & many many others
the only dud so far – & it’s more my fear of conspiracy theorist is that english site truthseeker that seems awfully wacky
& speaking of wacky – the large volume of vollmann on violence is like a mixtrue of clausewitz, james agee’s ‘let us now paraise famous men’ & a hell of a dose of mexican metaamphetemines
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 5 2005 18:55 utc | 39
Last one from me for today – one that is good for a laugh.
TOILET BRUSH THAT WARNS, “DO NOT USE FOR PERSONAL HYGIENE” WINS TOP PRIZE IN M-LAW’S EIGHTH ANNUAL WACKY WARNING LABEL CONTEST
Posted by: Fran | Jan 5 2005 18:58 utc | 40
RGiap
When I lived in Africa, I had a choice of two day old Express & Mail crap or the East African.
Sort of opened my mind to english speaking foreign journalists.
Me, I work in finance, and I hate it.
Wanted to be a marine engineer, but that’s another story.
East African
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 5 2005 19:18 utc | 41
cp
i think boats, water, ocean connect more than one of us here – i imagine deanander for example has been sailing for the last two weeks or has a very good job offer to break all the codes of echelon
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 5 2005 19:25 utc | 42
Well hopefully none of us here have been caught up in the tsunami.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 5 2005 19:35 utc | 43
“The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time.”
– Fred Hoyle, (1982)
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 1:54 utc | 45
DM:
Fred Hoyle, is he that guy with an alternative theory for where oil comes from?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 2:20 utc | 46
Oh darn it,
I was thinking of Thomas Gold. Hard to keep track of all these dead white male astronomers.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 2:24 utc | 47
@SKOD
Fred Hoyle was a ‘household’ name in English speaking countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle
Quoted in an article from this site below ..
Gold mentioned also at this link …
http://www.gasresources.net/
.. while checking out some tin-foil hat theories from Vialls link below(warning: ‘Z’ word used) on ‘peak oil’.
http://www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html
.. I am just reading. Interesting stuff at gasresources.net. If it’s fiction – it’s pretty good fiction.
Comments from resident scientists/geologists/energy specialists – or anyone – appreciated.
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 2:38 utc | 48
Like a perfect algorithm written in facile C, or the sleek spline curves of a beautiful hull, when something is right, it just feels right.
Who is going to shatter my delusions at just having discovered that oil is abiotic ?
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 3:58 utc | 49
DM:
read the site, hm, “ultra deep oil”
I think this is the same or similar to the theory Thomas Gold proposed.
How his theory works geologically I don´t know but I can provide a bit of history:
To prove his theory which suggested much larger global oil resources, Thomas Gold needed to drill. Drilling doesn´t come cheap and the oil companies didn´t believe him. Needing a rich country without oil, and in need of expanding energyproduction he turned to Sweden. In 1980 Sweden had had a referendum which decided for a slow dismantling of the swedish nuclear power (we have barely started yet), and needed somthing to replace it with.
So Gold and the mayor swedish energy companies started a company, Dala djupgas (djupgas = deep gas) and started drilling around lake Siljan. They found oil, but not nearly enough for commercial purposes. It was a commercial disaster, and a geological draw. Gold had found oil, but were unable to get financial backing for more drilling.
According to that website there seams to be no reason why americans don´t use this simple way of replenishing oil fields in there own oilfields (which peaked in 1970 if I´m not mistaken) would be some laziness.
In short, it is quite possible that standard theories of how oil is formed and where it can be found is wrong, but this site and the replenishing theory doesn´t convince me.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 4:11 utc | 50
The site I refered to all the time was
http://www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html
as provided by DM
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 4:13 utc | 51
Now I´ve read the http://www.gasresources.net/ site to. This was much less tin-foilish.
My conclusion still stands however. I don´t know enough geology to say if oil is biotic or abiotic but the one mayor attempt that I do know of, where the abiotic theory was tried for commercial purposes, failed miserably. And that is what counts outside the geologist clubs.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 4:20 utc | 52
I only used the Vialls site as a starting point, and took his suggestion to do my own “research” (google) which is when I found the gasresources.net website – and subsequently many many references to abiotic oil (all from reputable sources).
(Gold, btw, is accused of plagiarism)
Leaving Vialls and any tinfoil hat stuff aside, it would be very interesting to study these papers in detail, as well as where this leads in as far as the Russian oil industry is concerned.
It was suggested that the investment in deep oil drilling is quite substantial – and there is always the tin-foil-hat theory that a plentiful resource doesn’t have the same leverage. Whatever. What I find really really interesting is simply the stand-alone issues of abiotic oil, and if this is not a resource likely to dry-up any time soon – how this affects everyone’s “world view”.
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 4:30 utc | 53
@SKOD
The are no bookmark HTML tags for individual articles, so here is the 1st part (extract) from the gasresources article re the Swedish project.
PRINCIPLE RESULTS OF THE MAJOR SCIENTIFIC
INVESTIGATIONS FOR hydrocarbons IN THE
SWEDISH DEEP GAS EXPLORATION PROJECT
J. F. Kenney
Gas Resources Corporation, 11811 North Freeway, fl. 5, Houston, TX 77060, U.S.A.;
Institute of Earth Physics, Academy of Sciences, Bolshaya Gruzinskaya 10, 123.810 Moscow, RUSSIA..
The Swedish deep gas exploration project involved the drilling of two deep wells in the granite environment of the Siljan meteorite impact structure. Although the preliminary scientific investigations which preceded the drilling of the deep wells were conducted with competency, the subsequent exploration activities delivered almost no value scientifically and none commercially. The drilling of the first well, Gravberg 1, was an engineering fiasco, and many of the most important of its scientific investigations were badly mishandled. The project for drilling the second well, Stenberg 1, in December 1991 degenerated into an “opera buffa” accompanied by financial chicanery.
The scientific information generated by the Swedish deep gas project has previously been mishandled particularly such connected with the observations of hydrocarbons. The drilling of the Swedish deep gas exploration project did not discover either natural gas or oil in more than trace amounts and has been a commercial failure. Regrettably there has been heretofore considerable misunderstanding concerning the scientific information generated by the Swedish deep gas project (more …)
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 5:00 utc | 54
Well, we will probably never run out of oil anyway. As far as I know, an oil field needs more and more energy (in the beginning it takes no energy, the oil gushes up) for producing a litre (or a gallon or barrel or any other unit). Eventually it reaches a point were it takes more energy than it yields, yet you can still get oil if you are willing to pay in energy for that commodity. As many american fields has peaked and reached a state where it takes a lot of energy to get oil, there should be ample interest from the american oil industry if there was a way of getting them to replenish. To find a scenario where the american oil industry doesn´t want to do this requires huge conspiracy-theories.
Of course, the western oil companies might be stupid, in which case the russians should buy up old fields used by westerners and start new fields where no oil is suspected by the western oil companies.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 5:28 utc | 55
Going to bed now. I expect all aspects of the abiotic/biotic oil question to be fully sorted out here when I wake up 🙂
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 5:30 utc | 56
.. well, the “deep oil” bit seems to be a proven case:-
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/DG12Ag01.html
http://www.geoscience.co.uk/geofrc/geobaseasia.html
http://www.spe.org/cgi-bin/viewpaper.cgi?paper=00080507.pdf
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/2004-01/13/Stories/15.htm
.. as for Western oil companies being “stupid”. I doubt that the people who make up these companies are stupid, but the corporate entity can certainly be stupid – or greedy – or a little myopic beyond the next quarter’s dividend. A common problem in the Anglo/American/Western corporate structure.
I need to check out what happened in the 2004 Geneva conference on abiotic oil … (not sure why I find this subject so fascinating)
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 7:26 utc | 57
DM
Any notion why the American Conservative, Lew Rockwell. etc. are so at odds with the Rand types over the war?
Posted by: anna missed | Jan 6 2005 10:39 utc | 59
@anna missed
To be honest, no, I can’t give a measured analysis.
Although I consider Buchanan et al to be essentially buffoons with their Death of the West nonsense (and I don’t share their superiority complex – or America’s superiority complex) – they do not appear to exhibit the same Straussian/Randian psychosis as the powers that be.
In fact, when all this madness disturbed my total apathy for anything remotely political, it was Buchanan’s piece on the Straussian Neocons (that there were indeed cabals of nutters projecting their dark visions on an oblivious world) – that sort of got me to sit up and start taking notice of what’s going on.
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 11:36 utc | 60
Short Attention Span Nation Presents … Foreign Aid!
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 6 2005 11:53 utc | 61
@Pat – What is the legal position of this? Is this something from the Iraqi statutes, or US law, or the Laws of Occupation ?
Posted by: DM | January 4, 2005 09:36 PM
Under the Transitional Law, I believe incitement to violence is a civil offense. But “defaming the US Army”? Please.
This is going to slide right off, but I’ll say it anyway: Consider the source, DM, and look at the (questionable, in and of itself) chain of custody indicated in the brief article. If the story grows legs, I’ll eat my hat.
It would’ve been somewhat more believable if they’d have thought to say that the child was picked up after US detention by neighborhood non-fighters (foregoing introduction of local combatants into the alleged scenario) and left out the “defaming” bit. But, hey, this article wasn’t written to make an impression upon ME. I’m not their target audience.
Posted by: Pat | Jan 6 2005 12:23 utc | 62
Here is the Conyer’s Report. All 102 pages (pdf) if anyone still cares.
Posted by: beq | Jan 6 2005 13:09 utc | 63
Now this is a precious read:
CNN ONCE AGAIN BECOMES A NEWS ORGANIZATION
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jan 6 2005 13:15 utc | 64
Raptors Raptured
Jerome, please return to the office.
A representative of the Animal Planet Criminal Court is here to take your deposition.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jan 6 2005 13:55 utc | 65
Good news for the health of our children. However, more needs to be done.
Europe takes aim at junk food ads
The 10 biggest food advertisers in England, all of which target children, have raised their yearly budget by a collective £100 million, or $150 million, in the last 10 years. The biggest food advertiser, McDonald’s, spent £44 million on ads in the past year, a figure that has doubled in the past decade; Coke was next in line, according to a report commissioned by the British government last year.
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“The evidence is quite clear that advertising has an impact on what children eat, and the advertised diet is an unhealthy diet, high in salt, sugar and fat,” said Gerard Hastings, of the Center for Social Marketing at the University of Strathclyde, who prepared last year’s report.
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To improve its nutrition reputation in England, McDonald’s now offers and advertises an array of salads, as well as porridge and fruit for McBreakfast. But on a recent day at the gleaming McDonald’s next to the Liverpool Street Underground station, the most aggressive and eye-catching promotion was for McDonald’s new “Twister Fries,” a high-fat food advertised by characters from the blockbuster movie “The Incredibles.”
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Such tie-ins are endemic in the junk food industry. In Europe, Cadbury’s pays sports stars to promote its chocolates. Disney and Kellogg recently created a new breakfast cereal, Mickey’s Magix (it is 83 percent sugar and starch).
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“Is this a breakfast cereal or a confectionary?” asked an incredulous Tamsin Rose, general secretary of the European Public Health Alliance, at a recent conference in Brussels.
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Posted by: Fran | Jan 6 2005 15:18 utc | 67
fyi — kpfa is carrying the gonzales senate confirmation hearing online this morning & the congressional black caucus hearing this afternoon
Posted by: b real | Jan 6 2005 15:49 utc | 68
DM:
I need to check out what happened in the 2004 Geneva conference on abiotic oil …
Do report what you find out.
(not sure why I find this subject so fascinating)
Well, now you have got me to. It is interesting because if they are right peak oil is out and more massive global varming is in.
Who is going to shatter my delusions at just having discovered that oil is abiotic ?
Not me obviously. So could anyone else try to convince DM – and now me – that oil is biotic?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jan 6 2005 15:50 utc | 69
Hmmm, here’s what I found in From the Wilderness about Gold and abiotic oil: 1, 2.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jan 6 2005 17:22 utc | 70
Boxer was the only one to stand up just moments ago. How convenient that Kerry is out of the country today… And where’s Dennis K? Stan Goff recently wrote that it’s time to take out the Democratic Party. They’re giving us plenty of rope.
Posted by: b real | Jan 6 2005 18:36 utc | 72
Unless my link is wrong, Kucinich is there and “Boxer would be joined by Senators Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and Barak Obama”
Posted by: beq | Jan 6 2005 18:44 utc | 73
i’m listening to the shenanigans so I can’t see who all is there, but other than Boxer & Tubbs Jones, there were no other signatures on the challenge to the ohio votes and when cheney asked if anyone else objected to the Ohio vote, nobody spoke up at that time.
Posted by: b real | Jan 6 2005 18:54 utc | 74
beq, interesting how difficult it is to find information – I have been going through the sites of CNN, CBS etc. and NYT, WP and others not headlines – however, again it is in the Guardian (actually I just seen its from AP)
Democrats Force Debate on Election Mishaps
Here too only Boxer and Tubbs are mentioned but I guess that is because most newspapers will get there information form AP too.
Posted by: Fran | Jan 6 2005 19:00 utc | 75
…but w/ comments from the likes of Sanders and Pelosi that this action isn’t about challenging a Bush victory, they have no doubt that Bush won, expect little to happen from our “representatives”. time for the power of the internet to force the issue.
Posted by: b real | Jan 6 2005 19:08 utc | 76
Thanks to a tip from Cloned Poster, this is a site I have been watching.
Posted by: beq | Jan 6 2005 19:25 utc | 77
Thanks Beq, this is a blog that is worth a visit.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 6 2005 19:32 utc | 78
@CP: Unfortunately, the filter won’t let me through to that one. Porn, you know 😉
Posted by: beq | Jan 6 2005 20:06 utc | 79
Posted by: Fran | Jan 6 2005 20:19 utc | 80
Beq
http://www.thepoorman.net/
Would love to know what filter you have?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 6 2005 20:30 utc | 81
Anyway, I’ll try it at home where I can look at whatever I want. Thanks. =)
Posted by: beq | Jan 6 2005 20:45 utc | 83
Fran
Thanks for the Pilger editorial.
To be sure, the tsunami also is used pervasively as vindication of US “exceptionalism.” What good American can ever tire of hearing how “We always” save those who call out for help? And “We” keep doing so, even while the least fortunate bite our hand that feeds them.
The tsunami: advantage Bush.
Posted by: slothrop | Jan 6 2005 20:47 utc | 84
Part of the problem is these people who suffer from the tirades of nature are mostly Muslims. Even this small datum, repeated in expiry, can help “Us” to see something peculiar about the conjunction of Islam and catastrophic failure.
Posted by: slothrop | Jan 6 2005 21:00 utc | 85
Jérôme
I don’t see how the respect of everybody’s full rights can be compatible with any form of aristocracy.
I’ve been too busy to respond, so I want to do so here to a previous thread’s obsession w/ a concept of freedom.
I insist the discussion is necessary because the present disaster in Iraq and the parlous calamity of global capital’s exploitation of the “developing world’s” labor and resources, not to mention the mountingly inextricable environmental destruction owed to capitilism’s version of “growth,” demand intelligent engagements of the bases for human freedom.
Jerome urged a more decisive agreement about capitalism per se. I disagreed very much w/ his view that “laziness, selfishness, cowardliness” were a part of human nature that capitalism helps to restrain. I said these qualities are the outcome of capitalist exploitation, in fact are qualities necessary in such a system of domination.
Jerome did not understand. So, I’ll offer one more kind of repudiation of his idealism. Inherently, capitalism’s accommodation of competition for resources (both variable and fixed costs) thereby encourages the constraint of persons to compete for resources. Competition succeeds because others are not permitted to compete. This is why capitalism is a system whose social relations are defined by domination. Thus, the system encourages selfishness (unrestrained capital accumulation), laziness (“structural” unemployment), cowardliness (expressed as political exclusion of the persons excluded from competition).
Therefore, Jérôme, what you claim as “rights,” based on your own schema of human nature within the rubric of capitalism, is the permission of of an elite to exploit the many. And, as we know from a casual glance through the daily news, the elites are doing just fine, while the immiseration of the many continues as usual.
Posted by: slothrop | Jan 6 2005 21:40 utc | 86
@CP re abiotic oil
Curiouser and curiouser ..
We appear to have an all-out slugfest between the peak biotic oil lobby Vs the abiotic oil cartel. Jean Laherrere appears to be a key player. Superficially at least, there are plenty of scientific papers with equations and chemical analysis that dispute his conclusions.
My contention is that the truth of this matter is pivotal in being able to make sense of the deluge of information/disinformation on a number issues that affect us all.
Algebraic equations were always my weak spot, but ..
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER!
‘Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?’ He asked. ‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’
I think perhaps with the application of some logical analysis, we can indeed get close to the truth of this matter, but I will have to begin at the beginning.
The “From The Wilderness Publications” appears to be partisan. If I ever get to the end, I’ll stop and let you know.
It wont be any time though, I’m off soon to explore the mysteries of Egypt while it is still safe to go there without a flak-jacket.
Posted by: DM | Jan 6 2005 22:08 utc | 87
DM – I have seen many of laherrere’s presentations and they are quite fascinating – and they look pretty convincing to me
slothrop – I have replied in the new open thread
Posted by: Jérôme | Jan 6 2005 22:36 utc | 88
@ CP: Tried your link at home where no one is uptight. I don’t know…. kittens, kids… maybe it was the “add inches to your ‘tache” thing. Anyway, cool site and added to my favorites. 🙂
Posted by: beq | Jan 6 2005 22:52 utc | 89
Since my children are almost grown I have started taking an interest in the macroworld. 911 sort of woke me up. On one side you have this suspect – The parallell US government with a 30 billion dollar intelligence budget who has access to to the 1/2 a trillion dollar US Military budget. The sitting President is the son of a former director of the CIA.As we all know, since WW2 the CIA has run 1000’s of covert operations all over the world. The guiding philosophy of the ruling party comes from Neo-cons who in year 2000 published an agenda posing the need for a Pearl Harbor type event. To the present readers I don’t need to outline more and to go into facts such that in June 2001 the procedure of scrambling of jet fighters in the event of hijacked airplanes required the approval of SEC of DEF donald Rumsfeld.
The official suspect is Osama bin forgotten who operated out of caves in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. He did inherit 200 million and gets millions from various radical Islamic factions. A typical so-called AlQaeda terrorist operation would be the US Cole event wherby it took 2 attempts to get a small boat loaded with explosives next to a US warship and then blow themselves up. Yes , the 1st boat sunk as it was maneuvering so that they could make a video of the event.
Arising out of the 911 exposition of possible Shadodw government complicity is the ‘Peak Oil’ concept. ON the surface it does seem to be the motivating paradigm behind the Bush dynasty. The present US imperialists are mainly sprung fromt the oil industry. They obviously believe in the organic theory of the genesis of oil. Present day American and British petroleum geologists believe in the organic genesis of oil. I used to believe simply because I never thought about it – That’s what they taught me in school just like the gradualism theory of geology that preceded plate tectonics.
The abiotic proponents say most oil used today was found in suface sedimentary formations because that’s the easiest place to find it. They are also saying the that the organic evidence is mostly contaminants and the C12 to C13 ratios representative of life processes are caused by bacteria that can process methane.
A convincing argument for the abiotics is the thermodynamic one. It takes mucho energy to drive the chemistry involved in taking a soup of
organic molecules with reduced hydrocarbons and nitrogenous and other formations into mainly methane and other alkanes (heptane, butane, octane etc) that have high energy values – similar to the difference between the energy value of wood and gasoline.
They also site the eperimental creation of oil in the laboratory using the mechanism they say is the responsible for the formation in deep in the earth – the high pressure and hgh temperature there imparting the nescessary energy for the formation of the alkanes from carbon and hydrogen. Hydrocarbons are common in most meteorites.
I would be interested in source material that describes how oil is formed from organic goo. Subduction of the sea floor? The grinding of tectonic plates? There are apparently 100’s of bilions of oil in pools beneath Saudi Arabia. I have yet to see an explanation for how such a massive concentration of organic detritus came to be in one place. This detritus would then heve been further concentrated in whatever porocess made it into oil.
I too would like to read the results of that 2004 Geneva conference
Gepay
Posted by: Gepay | Mar 26 2005 18:18 utc | 91