The Great Oil War [Chapter 2] : Iran

In chapter 1 of what now may be considered the beginnings of a World-War III we discussed what was then the active military action against Libya. We covered economic hitmen and the typical approach taken by western nations to overthrow or at least get nations to play along with their game.

Of course there are many other skirmishes going on, such as Syria but for me it is Iran which gets a "chapter 2" due to the clear escalation it represents. Back in 2005 Michael Ruppert described exactly the scene we are seeing play out with Iran today:

I know it is 2 hours long but please do take the time to watch as it is extremely important material. As you can see there are no mentions of nuclear weapons in this video and clearly what is happening now has been building for a long time far longer than this "sudden" nuclear media spotlight threat from Iran. Iran of course is simply going to be another theatre war as was described in "Project for a New American Century"'s report titled "Rebuilding America's defenses". The nuclear threat is the same WMD bullshit we were fed with Iraq.

Understanding the concept of "theatre" here is very important. It is theatre for your consumption, like a hollywood movie. If you have been watching the republican debates, one you might find quite interesting is the debate specifically oriented around national security. First of all, to begin: why national security? Why not the economy? It seems to me that national security really only comes up when the mass media exadurates the threats coming from countries with resources, or drugs. Then notice that for some reason all of the questioning is about Iran. You'd think with multiple wars going on, North Korea's leader near death, and China quickly gobling up global energy resources that some of the topics might have also made the list of "national security"; but instead it's a full 2 hours of essentially descriptions of theoretical scenarios involving Iran and how the candidates would respond to them. And respond they did, my most memorable response was Newt Gingrich talking on public TV about how he would use covert operations. Let me ask you, if Iran was such an imminent threat to their national security then why would they publically be discussing tactics they've yet to deploy? Why antagonize a nation you are not yet at war with by talking as though you are? Why give them the heads up? You see it was all for you, dear reader. It was a big scary show put on to promote a war with Iran and to scare the viewers with all of the scary theoretical scenarios the media (government?) could dream up.

I'd like to show you an interesting contrast. Here is some lovely theatre fluff for your consumption put out by ethicaloil.org to promote the ethical oil brand at the expense of Iran, and on the back of 10 years of propaganda and lies. It doesn't hold back at all even mentioning 9/11. It's 100% advertisement.

Here is an objective article put out by Zero Hedge about the dangers of Iran and oil price. See the difference? One provides facts and the other? Well the other tells you all about how great ethical oil is because you know.. war sucks. Sorry.. "conflict" sucks. The HuffPost article is so incredibly filled with shit I'm surprised Huffington even published it. Let's disect this sucker!!!!

Not everyone cares about the conflict footprint that comes with oil from Iran's loathsome regime. Plenty of countries are content to patronize a government that not only brutally tramples basic human rights, degrades women, and persecutes gays, but also uses the currency it collects from oil sales to build nuclear weapons so it can threaten and potentially attack its neighbors.

This is a real gem of a paragraph, let's look past the obvious and skip the demonization introduction. I'm not a fan of Iran but that sentence is clearly there to set your mood for this article. Tacked on to the end after the first three crimes get you all angry is this: "uses the currency it collects from oil sales to build nuclear weapons so it can threaten and potentially attack its neighbors". Obviously the author is hoping that the introduction has numbed your critical thinking here as this sentence is clear propaganda. The mention of using "oil money to build nuclear weapons" is interesting. First of all: I wasn't aware that ethicaloil.org had access to Iran's financials and second: that's a lot of oil money they've spent to not yet have a nuke, don't you think? It's an assumption on speculation presented as fact. Finally the author insults your intelligence by implying Iran has been threatening to attack it's neighbors with nuclear weapons when they re in reality denying these weapons exist at all. Moving on.

When France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, recently floated the idea of slapping an embargo on Iranian oil to pressure the mullahs to stop their dangerous and illegal nuclear arms race, he won support from Britain, but the rest of the European Union wasn't hot on the idea. They're just fine punishing ethical Canadian oil, but debated over punishing Iran's conflict oil.

Again, let's ignore obvious points such as the fact that there is a large ocean between us and Europe and the infrastructure to heavily douse Europe in Canadian oil doesn't exist anyway. What I find really interesting here is the idea implanted by the author that oil consumption at the moment is some sort of choice by these countries. For those who read this blog I shouldn't have to remind you that we only pump just under 2million barrels of ethical oil a day and I think it is safe to say that with the U.S.'s oil demand, and China.. Europe isn't getting any. Europe is demonizing our oil because it makes economic sense. They don't rely on our oil and they must appease those pesky environmental activists somehow. So they campaign against a product that doesn't impact them to gain popular support, just as ethical oil does against Saudi oil for popular support here. China is a brutal regime too, but we have no problem inviting them in and allowing them to use foreign temporary workers for staff.

But supporting conflict oil doesn't just mean promoting terror, persecution, murder, and war -- though it certainly does mean all those things. It also means promoting instability and risk. That's what the Europeans, and other importers of Iranian oil, are discovering right now. That's because the Iranian autocrats have declared that if the world continues to bring pressure to bear on them over their illegal nuclear program, they'll choke off world oil supplies by closing off the Strait of Hormuz.

The author doesn't know what "supporting terror" is, this is supporting terror with a direct result. Like I said, it is theatre for your consumption, dear reader.

In short, that could be disastrous to a world economy that's already perilously fragile. The Strait of Hormuz is the main channel through which Middle Eastern tankers transport oil for export from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Iraq. In addition, about 15.5 million barrels -- or a third of all ocean-transported oil and liquefied gas worldwide -- moves through the six kilometre-wide strait. Even for those countries, like the U.S. and Canada, who aren't clients of the Shariah oil state, the spike in oil prices that would be caused by such a major disruption of supply could be devastating.
This is what a world at the mercy of conflict oil looks like. It's a hostage situation. We either directly support the horrendous rule of the worst dictators on earth and, if we don't, they can cause the entire world great economic pain and, potentially, even spark warfare. As the National Post reports, Iran's decision could very well "trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil."

This paragraph is almost true, if you remove one word "conflict". It should read: "This is what a world at the mercy of oil looks like". Somehow the ethicaloil.org author has determined that Canada's ethical oil production will have no problem reaching the combined oil output of "conflict oil" countries. Considering that Saudi alone produces around 9million barrels / day I don't think I need to tell you why this assertion is a slap in the face to your intelligence.

Most of the time the difference is psychological: It's about values and the fate of persecuted people in foreign lands. Once in awhile the cost of choosing conflict oil becomes very palpable and very direct; 9/11 was one of those times, when Saudi oil money was linked to Al Qaeda.

Here's the kicker... 9/11!!!! Mixed in with the last three paragraphs of ethical oil promotional lines.

I guess the author hasn't heard that a lot of American money was "linked" too:

To conclude, the momentum behind this war has been building for years. It's no surprise that ethical oil would take advantage of this situation but seriously HuffPost, WTF? The Iran situation is certainly dangerous, it is something we should all be paying close attention to. Last year I predicted that oil prices would bounce between $80 and $100 for the remainder of 2010 (turned out true, no?). This year with the Iranian, Chinese, and Saudi situations I think we will definitely see $150, I can't say whether or not Zero Hedge's $200 will happen, that seems a little high. If it does happen, oil will be so hard to find on the market that it won't matter I believe.

Another sleepless night

It's 3:45am. For the past week I've had a churning in my stomach I can't shake, and with it I can't sleep. So much is on my mind, but so much is always on my mind -- why should this week be any different? So I'm going to just sit here, and write in my little space on the internet. I don't know yet even what I'm going to write about.

I can almost sense that the moment of just utter economic panic is closing in now. Since 9/11 who could have believed what we've seen? What we've witnessed? The G20s to riots in London. An utter war rampage in which now it's "nothing big" when we start attacking or invading a new country, It's seemingly become our right, and our right alone (NATOs) to globally police the world. I'm sick of it, seriously plain sick of it. Is this really all our "civilized" and "progressive" society is going to do? Wage war for the earth's remaining petroleum reserves while enslaving the future generations to debt servitude? These days it sure seems like it. So many people I speak to are so adjusted to the constant atmosphere of war and terror played on repeat to us through our discount Chinese slave labour TV screens.

Even when presented with extreme contradiction, such as NATO claiming to be worried about Al-Qaeda gaining access to Libya's weapon arsenal while simultaneously admitting that the "rebel" leader has links to Al-Qaeda! And people seriously believe this crap about our "war on terror"? Get over yourselves and the false sense of reality you have. Our leaders are liars.

This post isn't about Libya though, I still don't know what it's about. Maybe it's about the fact that the number of problems the world has on it's plate is overwhelming? Or maybe it's about the fact these problems are being left to a generation that will have no resources while the baby boomers drool over their stock portfolios and all of the monopoly money they think it will bring? Or how 10 years later it's perfectly O.K. that civil servants and the population was lied to about dust not being toxic from 9/11? The number of inconsistencies, lies, and glaring holes in not just 9/11 but the entire economic and political systems continue to mount and where is our Canadian voice? I'm still not hearing it. We are not going to be able to vote to fix these issues. Not at a federal level at least. The corruption of our system is utter and complete to the point where deception and propaganda infiltrates our lives almost 24/7. Marketing agencies are on a constant search to see where they can put ads next to get in your face. Cable companies continue to extend the time given to ads and then wonder why people are leaving their services. It's amazing anyone manages to end the day having any independent thoughts that weren't baked up for them by a public relations team.

The double-think in our world I believe can literally drive a non-adjusted person insane. If your memory is longer than 5 years then watch out; the plain criminality and denial can be a lot to handle. But no, none of these things are what is keeping me up tonight. So, what could it be?

I don't get this feeling often, maybe its some sort of super-power? I wish. It just feels like a climax of unseen proportions is barreling our way. Today was an insane news day. I'm still processing everything and trying to understand it. It seems Canada is stepping up it's police state. Two announcements today: Stephen Harper is predictably reinstating the charter violating anti-terror laws and in Vancouver's riot report, the "recommendations" certainly raise some suspicions. Take note of the vague terms such as 'hooligan demographic'. Do you know what that is? It's anyone, like "terrorist". I find it interesting in light of London which may arguably have the most CCTV cameras in the entire world and still had the recent riot, CCTV is still being recommended for riot prevention. Watch how fast 'hooligan' and 'terrorist' become one and the same. The writing is all over the wall at this point, Canadians really need to start noticing the path we are on. If you have never seen it, you need to see Into the fire -- this is their preparation for whatever is in store. I've been writing now for some time about how Canada will soon be in the same economic boat as the other western powers, does it still seem so unbelievable? If it does I'm sorry to say, but you have been brainwashed. Repeated statements such as 'economic stability' and all the other crap these politicians spout might sound fancy, but critically think about what they have said. Are they saying anything? Our banks are stable because we have "regulations"? Give me a break; we use fractional reserve banking, fiat currency and compound interest just like every other ponzi fiat economy. They are not stable, Canada's just in a different spot in the economic food chain. Just today I read an article about how we had better drop our "hostile corporate takeover" regulations. "Hostile takeovers in the U.S. are a lot more difficult" -- I almost pissed my pants laughing. Harder for who? Those not on the inside.

Am i rambling? I can't even tell anymore. There are so many problems, but in reality they are all one problem. A failed naked system, an emperor not only with no clothes, but no money in the bank either. The world's last economic hope of China has just reported that they anticipate a slowdown of growth in their economy. Probably because they are short on energy to grow it. It's simple logic, you see. But does either article point to the conclusions of the other? No. Everything is compartmentalized and packaged with a neat little bow for your half-thought out consumption.

I can feel tensions in my generation are growing. It's not a simple anger boiled around politics or economics. It's a complex, deep seeded anger, that either consciously or unconsciously is on every youths mind. When we see articles today about the baby boomer pensions crisis it's pretty well a huge red flag of hopelessness for future generations already debt ridden. If anyone from my generation believes there will ever be a pension waiting for them, it's a false belief. Maybe it's more faith than belief. Or even normalcy? My generation has been taught that you work hard, live it good, then retire. It's another form of double-think, we are constantly told by the system that everything is ok, and yet if there is a debt crisis now, a pension crisis now, what hope do we have in 40 years? This feeling of hopelessness is inherently political. It really makes me angry when simple-minded supporters of this corruption boil down events like the London or Vancouver riots to simple phrases. One of the more common one's I heard was "Well what do you mean they're poor? They've all got ipods and are tweeting.". Well what do you expect? this comes back to the 24/7 corporate invasion into our life. Madness that can drive actions like this. This isn't 1991, you don't need to be rich to have a cellphone, and most carriers are more than happy to sign multi-year contracts providing the phones for free. Just like how governments keep adjusting the CPI so that real inflation is hidden. Oh the price of food went up? That's ok, kids will just buy more Ipods because they are cheaper. This is the lunacy of the system we surround ourselves with, and then wonder why it's blowing up in our face.

The response from the system is becoming obvious. A campaign against western youth is well underway. The system knows we are long overdue for a generational revolution, and it just doesn't want to let go. It'll come none-the-less though, it's inevitable. Just as civil unrest has spread like wildfire in Europe and the Arab nations, it will be here too. One day in your streets you will see events like this for yourself. They are gearing up for a war against the generation they've stolen everything from. They know most of us will figure it out one day, and when that day comes the propaganda against them will be in full effect.

I'm going to try to sleep now.

10 years later, 9/11 questions rage on

10 years and 3 wars later with Osama Bin Laden apparently buried in the ocean many questions still remain about 9/11. For instance, if even 1% of the questions presented in the following presentations cannot be answered, then there is something the U.S. government has lied about. By the way, the 9/11 first responders are not allowed to be at the 10th aniversary.

These are listed in an order of quality. From best to worst. I do not subscribe to every theory presented here, I am only pointing out that there is a large number of questions and only a small number of them are needed as proof of an insider conspiracy.

Mike Ruppert - The truth and lies of 9/11




AIA Architect Richard Gage (part 1): 9/11 Symposium 11/03/07


Architect Richard Gage (part2) :9/11 Symposium 11/03/07




Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup




Truth Rising


9/11: Road to Tyranny

My thoughts go out to the families of this tragedy. One day you will have closure.

Debt Collapse - $20,000 Gold - Mike Maloney (FULL PRESENTATION)

A rundown on Alberta's future

So the deed is done, the U.S. has now officially been rated AA+ for an entire trading day during which the S&P took the ratings axe to many U.S. institutions. Many people who have read this blog probably look at it with an overly negative outlook. Please now look back at all of my posts and notice they revolve around two themes. The price of oil & the collapse of the USD.

I've been clear about three things in particular:
1) The USD will collapse.
2) The price of oil will not rise continually enough to sustain the oil sands developments, and the failing America's will not be able to afford it.
3) Alberta's failure will be due to lack of diversification or having all of our eggs in a failing market.

They are really not complex principles. Hard to believe maybe.. back in April, or March. Or if you followed me on Facebook before I moved to twitter/this blog for the two years on there in Canadians for an Energy Revolution. But are they hard to believe now?

I have to tell you all, I'm pissed. I do not write about these issues to be a "downer". I write about them because NOBODY is discussing them. I don't *want* Alberta to fail, but it WILL fail unless we address these issues now, TODAY. For over two years I have been posting news, writing blogs, emailing the legislature and parliament, and nobody wants to address a U.S.A. failure and the implications on Canada.

I don't have solutions for you. I'm not going to lay out any plans for you to follow. This is a job for the community to do. The communities around Alberta collectively need to discuss the very real and imminent problems in the economy that will be caused by maintaining the oil sands projects. They need to figure out how to adapt their economies away from an industry that puts multiple projects on hold if the price drops. This "stop and go" mentality is my main reasoning for my negative outlook on oil sands production capacity along with the three points above.

Extreme oil price volatility will be a fact of life now until 1 of 2 things happen:
1) U.S.A. stabilizes (won't happen)
2) USD is dropped as the reserve currency of the world. I've written a bit about this scenario here.

And Edmonton, for god's sake stop bothering with the stupid arena project already. Does our city counsel not understand that the world has big problems on it's doorstep? Canada is not invincible, it may seem so now but as I've said before we will be near the bottom of the list of countries affected. This is because we won't see a massive drop in revenue until our trade partners can't afford the costs involved. At this point, we will be hit fast and hard.

A chain-reaction is happening right now, as I write this. The last support in the U.S.A. economic house of cards has fallen and the debt collapse I spoke of on Friday is underway.

* Update | 08/09/2011: Seems that OPEC has now revised it's oil demand outlook downward once again. One of the reasons cited is the cost of oil hampering economic growth. Look back to point 2, The price of oil will not rise continually enough to sustain the oil sands developments, and the failing America's will not be able to afford it.

* Update | 11/09/2011: MSM articles about Canada's U.S. dependent economy are starting to emerge ( article1, article2 ). It's only a matter of time now before the truth is obvious and in our faces.

* Update | 17/09/2011: Will Canadian oil go to China instead of the U.S.? What Stefan doesn't understand in this interview is that it is not "individuals" from China investing in oilsands. It is the government of China investing. All oil in China is state run.

A conflict over ethical oil

By now anyone who follows energy, economics, or the environment has probably heard the term "ethical oil". If you are not familiar with it; it was coined by Ezra Levant in his book Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands. It also coined a lesser known term "conflict oil".

Recently a new blog came to my attention which was influenced by Ezra's book and it's causing quite the stir amongst environmental groups not sure how to counteract the image being portrayed. This image or argument is essentially that right now society requires oil, so would you rather get this oil from unstable, civil rights violating dictatorships or from friendly democratic Canada. This argument is painted for you in colorful contrasting advertisements which pop up on the blog showing the clear contrast between "life" and "death" (green or orange), along with exaggerated images to reinforce the idealism. A happy worker in a green field for "life", and a destroyed oil excavation site with Hugo Chavez imposed over top for "death" for instance.

Inside the site is scattered with cherry picked statistics, such as the employment statistics for nearby native communities. It is certainly a clever ploy by Big Oil which more or less renders the environmental aspect and argument moot as no matter what anyone says regarding environmental impact the response has become "well would you rather have 'ethical oil' or 'conflict oil'?". Clever indeed.

What the website fails to mention however is that as long as we have dependence on oil the world will always require conflict oil. Lets put this in perspective, here is a chart showing world oil consumption and production. Do you see the spread between European oil usage and production? How about for North America? Never-mind even about Asia-Pacific, but consider it none-the-less. For this argument we will not look at it as we don't need to. So roughly from that chart, you could say that if Europe and North America didn't import (or export), production would need to increase by what? 20million/day? 30million/day? Well according to Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Canada's total production in 2010 was 2.8million barrels / day. By 2025 they estimate 4.3!!! (Keep in mind, this is the oil industries estimates, not the *REAL* numbers.).

So here is what I ask you Ezra, how is your argument for Canadian oil relevant at all? The world doesn't just need oil, the world needs conflict oil. There is no magic bullet to make that not so, and no amount of Canadian ethical oil (rated at 1.5million barrels / day in 2010 (World usage = at least 85 / day)) will change that. Do you know why Ezra? Because unlike ethical oil, conflict oil doesn't need $100 / barrel to pretend a profit is coming in.

The oil sands are environmentally damaging and are not financially viable. We don't even know what the untold costs in environment and water usage are. They will never ever ever add up to more than a drop in the world oil usage bucket, because production is inefficient. It requires too much energy to make a barrel of low-quality "oil" from these projects of last resort. Remember when $70 / barrel was "expensive" and enough to make Alberta a profit? What happened to that? now we need $100. What happened is the input costs caught up with the output costs, and we don't want to know what happens if a sudden market move drops oil well below the input costs as it takes time for those price fluctuations to reach production. In other words the oilsands *only* bring in profit during sudden upward market moves in oil up until the time input costs rise due to the cost of oil. Get it?

Conflict oil vs. Ethical Oil is a straw-man argument. The infinite growth economy doesn't care how many people die to fuel it, or how much of the environment is destroyed. All it cares about is fueling more growth, which needs more resources, or the debt pyramid we've sold our kids into will collapse on our heads. You've been warned.

PS: Here is another reason to not buy into ethical oil vs. conflict oil.

* Updated | 08/08/2011: Well it's Monday now. The U.S. S&P downgrade has taken effect in the market; and what do you know, this appears in my twitter feed. Yea, wow. Amazing I know. Get it yet? The oil sands are a MONEY LOOSER. The price CAN NOT climb forever. What is worse: we are selling our resources short, without our own stock or "strategic petroleum reserve". That's right, we have no SPR.

The Great Oil War [Chapter 1] : Libya

Well with the precedent setting U.N. resolution to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, it would appear that the international great oil war has begun. Now with the power of the newly formed global governance alliance behind it. Many would point to Iraq and Afghanistan as chapter 1 of this great war, but I would call that the preface. These wars and the policies formed here because of them were simply setting the stage of what was to come.

Like most operations conducted by today's power brokers that are typically clumsy and short-sighted; this operation likewise is already beginning to fall apart. The Arab league is rethinking their support of the resolution -- probably after realizing that in the long term western domination won't work in their favor.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that Muammar Qaddafi is a nice guy. What I am saying though is that NATO isn't really all that nice either. This invasion has nothing to do with how violent a dictator Qaddafi is, or that the Libyan people want our idea of "democracy". This invasion is step 3 in the typical approach taken by western nations in getting what they want.


Step 1) Send in the economic hitmen.
Step 2) Attempt a CIA lead revolution or 'coup'.
Step 3) Bomb them back to the stone age.

Obviously step 1 (which is usually done behind closed doors) and step 2 (which we witnessed) have failed.


So why is the U.N. security council so concerned about Libya and not say Bahrain? Well naturally interests = money, money = energy, and energy = oil. Guess what happened last week? It would seem Europe wasn't too concerned over being cut off from Libya's oil supply even though Libya is one of their top suppliers and right afterward Hilary Clinton promises to bomb Lybia. Of course the bombing itself will and is driving oil prices higher.

Coincidence? No. But don't take my word for it, take it right from ex-CIA Ray McGovern: