"It's the Crude, Dude"

Reviewing Linda McQuaig's "It's the Crude, Dude"

By Stephen Lendman

Created Aug 1 2007 - 11:52am

Linda McQuaig is a prominent, admired, and award-winning Canadian journalist

writing about vital issues of concern to everyone. She was a national

reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail before joining the Toronto Star

where she now covers Canadian politics with her trademark combination of

solid research, keen analysis, irreverence, passion and wit. She's easy to

read, never boring, and fearless. The National Post called her "Canada's

Michael Moore."

McQuaig is also a prolific author with a well-deserved reputation for taking

on the establishment. In her previous seven books, she challenged Canada's

deficit reduction scheme to gut essential social services. She explained how

the rich used the country's tax system to get richer the way it's worked in

the US since Ronald Reagan and then exploded under George Bush. She exposed

the fraud of "free trade" (never called fair because it isn't) empowering

giant corporations over sovereign states while exploiting working people

everywhere.

She also showed how successive Canadian governments waged war on equality

since the 1980s, and in her latest book, "Holding the Bully's Coat - Canada

and the US Empire," she takes aim at the conservative Stephen Harper

administration's allying with George Bush's belligerent lawlessness and

phony "war on terrorism." Canada chose not to be part of Washington's

concocted "coalition of the willing" in Iraq but partnered in its war of

aggression and illegal occupation of Afghanistan.

Her last book before her latest one is another important tour de force and

subject of this review. It's titled "It's the Crude, Dude: war, big oil, and

the fight for the planet." It's no secret America's wars in the Middle East

and Central Asia are to control what a Franklin Roosevelt State Department

spokesman in 1945 called a "stupendous source of strategic power, and one of

the greatest material prizes in world history" - the huge amount of Middle

East oil with most of it believed to be in Saudi Arabia then. With it goes

veto power over how it's distributed, to whom, at what price, for whose

benefit and at whose expense. Today, one country above all others may be

that "greatest material prize" making it target number one America intends

to control for the strategic power and riches it represents.

The country is Iraq, and it's the reason US forces invaded and occupy it.

McQuaig's book explained it stunningly, beginning on her opening page: The

"oil motive" drives America's wars "given oil's obvious geopolitical

significance, and the fact that Iraq is the last easily harvested oil

bonanza left on earth." More on that below and also on the fact that with

less than 5% of the world's population and 3% of its oil reserves, the US

wastefully consumes one-fourth of all oil production with no plan to cut

back. It means a reliable outside source is essential pointing directly at

the Middle East where two-thirds of all proved reserves are located. They're

not inexhaustible, however, as oil is a finite resource. It means a crunch

ahead is inevitable.

McQuaig cited a US Department of Energy National Energy Laboratory report

saying: "The world has never faced a problem like this....Previous

transitions (like 'wood to coal and coal to oil') were gradual and

evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary," and may already

have occurred. Further, with America waging two costly oil-related wars for

much of what's left, gaining control has become violent with no letup in

sight and more oil-rich nations in Washington's target queue. More on that

below as well and the fact that oil consumption keeps increasing, two huge

emerging nations (China and India) need growing amounts of it, just at a

time production peaked and is declining. That's a combustible mixture now

playing out in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. It also affects Iran,

Venezuela, Sudan (for its Darfur oil riches) and other strategically

important oil-rich nations that dare defy America by wanting control of

their own resources along with the major share of revenue from them.

McQuaig deals with this timely and important subject in the part of the

world where it matters most - the Middle East and especially Iraq where

America came to stay. Her book is divided into 10 tantalizingly titled

chapters. It was written in 2004, updated in 2006, and is just as relevant

now as when first published. Some of the story is known, but much

information covered isn't common knowledge and key parts aren't discussed at

all in the mainstream. They include the rise of Big Oil and OPEC, Iraq's

strategic importance, its potentially immense and easily accessible untapped

oil riches, and America's intention to turn the nation into a centrally

located Middle East military base with plans to stay as long as there's

enough oil in the country and region to make it worthwhile. Current talk of

future force drawdowns and withdrawal is baloney. That will be discussed

further below as well.

McQuaig provides lots of relevant context for a full understanding of why

oil centrally dominates geopolitics today:

-- wars and the reason America fights so many of them - for the essential

resources, mainly oil, to keep the heart of capitalism beating, without

which it can't;

-- the dominant media's vital hyperventilating lead cheerleader role selling

them;

-- the power of the oil cartel and how it developed and grew after Edwin

Drake drilled the first commercially successful well in Titusville, PA in

1859.

-- how John D. Rockefeller ruthlessly built a powerful Oil Trust he

controlled; how it was nominally dismembered by Theodore Roosevelt's

trust-busting efforts early in the last century; yet how it endured through

joint ventures, interlocking directorates, mergers and "working (partial

ownership) control" of its separate pieces, the largest of which was

Rockefeller's Standard Oil of New Jersey, now called ExxonMobil. The old Oil

Trust would fit in its back pocket.

-- the role of the US auto industry and its addiction to gas-guzzling,

hugely greenhouse gas emitting, high-profit SUVs accounting for one-fourth

of all US auto sales;

-- the rise, fall and reemergence of OPEC;

-- the historical roles of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as dominant oil

producing nations and the central role Iraq plays today as the grandest of

grand oil prizes;

-- the hugely important issue of global warming fossil fuel burning causes;

how transportation is over one-fourth of the problem with passenger vehicles

the main culprit, and this industry's accounting for half of total oil

consumption;

-- and still more in McQuaig's powerful, riveting, and relevant account of

oil's central importance in our lives. Her book reads like a thriller. But

the story is real, and it's vital to know its contents. Read on for a

detailed sampling. Then buy and read the book for the full account.

Fort Knox Guarded by a Chihuahua

The title refers to language about oil-rich Canada that a US investment

service, called Daily Reckoning, used in a provocative newsletter article.

It said Canada owes us (their) oil. "Without our protection, (the country)

is the natural resources equivalent of Fort Knox guarded by a 'No

Trespassing' sign and a Chihuahua" because our military protects our

northern neighbor. That's likely news to most Canadians for a country with

no enemies. Canada, however, is extremely oil-rich, and counting its huge

amount of hard to refine tar sands oil ranks second in the world in total

reserves.

In her newest book, "Holding the Bully's Coat," McQuaig explains her nation

is currently the US's leading energy supplier. Canada's importance will grow

ahead as it plans to triple its oil sands production by 2015 to three

million barrels daily, earmarking most of it for US markets. It's part of a

secretly launched 2005 scheme called the Security and Prosperity Partnership

of North America (SPP) or North American Union.

It's a tri-national agreement hatched below the radar, controlled by

Washington, and advocates greater economic, political, social, and security

integration between the US (as boss), Canada and Mexico. In fact, it's an

ugly corporate-led plot against the sovereignty of three nations for greater

profits, enforced by a common hard line security strategy already in play in

each country. It's goal is a borderless North America under US control

without barriers to trade and capital flows for corporate giants, mainly US

ones.

It's also to insure America gets free and unlimited access to Canadian and

Mexican resources, mainly oil, but Canadian water, too. That will assure US

energy security while denying Canada and Mexico preferential access to their

own resources henceforth earmarked for US markets. The scheme amounts to

NAFTA on steroids combined with Pox Americana homeland security enforcement

partnered with Canadian and Mexican contingents. It adds up to the worst of

all possible worlds headed for an unmasked "deeply integrated" police state.

Canada is also currently hamstrung by a provision it agreed to in ratifying

NAFTA in 1993. It gave up the right to reduce its US energy exports (should

it need more of them) unless it cuts its own consumption by a comparable

amount. Oil-rich Mexico, in contrast, agreed to no such provision and got an

exemption Canada lacks. Canada has a loophole, though, SPP provisions will

close if enacted. NAFTA can't prevent the country's use of its newly

developed tar sands oil or the right to export them to other nations, as of

now. With that in mind, Canada is building a 720 mile oil pipeline from

northern (oil-rich) Alberta to British Columbia in the far west. When

completed, it will enable resources to be exported to China or any other

oil-consuming nation Canada chooses to trade with.

Meanwhile, back in the US, the Iraq war was launched in March, 2003.

Dominant media fear mongering helped sell it, giddy cheerleadering

accompanied its start, the reasons for going were reinvented when ones first

given were exposed as lies, excuse-making now explains why things haven't

gone as planned, and all the while we're told it had nothing to do with oil.

And fish don't swim, and birds don't fly. Instead, as McQuaig explained

"....the Iraq saga (was to disarm) a dangerous dictator (morphed into) a

battle to bring democracy to the Middle East (with) oil remain(ing)

strangely offstage, hidden in plain sight."

Clearly, oil drives US policy because of this nation's insatiable appetite

for 25% of world production Washington feels it has a birthright to use

excessively. We now compete with other growing economies for a dwindling

supply of an irreplaceable resource we can't do without. McQuaig noted that

prospect looms as "the world is much closer to running out of oil than most

government or industry officials are willing to admit." We now compete with

China and India along with developed nations, with China's prodigious growth

alone devouring huge amounts of a fast-depleting resource at current rates

of consumption.

McQuaig quoted Edmonton-based energy economist Mark Anielski saying:

"There's not enough oil to feed two (voracious) superpowers." Enter Canada

as already explained above and Venezuela to be addressed later in a separate

chapter on that oil-rich nation under Hugo Chavez. For now, it deserves

mentioning McQuaig brings him up because he made some "far-reaching deals

with China to develop Venezuela's considerable oil reserves" and build a

relationship with the Asian giant to supply it with increasing amounts of

future output.

The problem is no matter how much more oil is left in the ground, we're now

consuming more than we're producing. "Oil is finite and not recyclable,"

noted McQuaig, and past experience shows humans aren't smart or caring

enough to figure a way out of this dilemma without making painful changes

they haven't been inclined to do so far. Today, the world runs on oil. It

touches nearly all parts of our lives from running our factories to powering

cars and other means of transportation to growing the food we eat and much

more. McQuaig explained "no energy source in view....is as effective,

versatile, and potent as oil." Yet, the solution to our dilemma is to rely

on lots less of it, substituting less ecologically damaging sources like

wind, sun and waves.

We've already consumed around half the world's supply, according to many

reliable estimates, and have done it mostly over the last 100 years. There

may be about one trillion barrels left in the ground, but at current

consumption rates it'll be gone in forty years or less. Also, the easy to

find and produce oil is running out. It's nearly all been found except in

Iraq, making that country so attractive. The vast remaining reserves

elsewhere are hard to find, expensive to produce and more costly overall to

bring to market, like Canada's tar sands and Venezuela's heavy oil.

McQuaig noted an oil industry rule of thumb is companies should bring on at

least as much new oil as they produce. The industry, however, falls far

short of that, and some analysts, like Matthew Simmons, believe the world's

largest oil-rich nation, Saudi Arabia, has considerably less oil left than

it claims because it used up so much supplying the West as its swing

producer. As supplies get lower and scarcity grows in the face of rising

demand, oil prices will also rise, and one Wall Street firm, Goldman Sachs,

thinks they're not far from topping $100 a barrel.

McQuaig also raised a central issue she devotes an entire later chapter to -

a looming global warming crisis barely getting the attention it deserves

although credible climate scientists no longer debate what they know is a

major problem demanding attention now. Here she cited a

Pentagon-commissioned report describing global warming as a phenomenon "that

could transform the world dramatically in the next twenty years....with

major European cities (submerged) and Britain plunged into a Siberian

climate." The report also sees a coming plague of "typhoons, mega-droughts

and famine" ahead that will bring "catastrophic changes" causing "widespread

human strife and even nuclear conflict."

The Pentagon's concern is national security, so its top brass are planning

ahead for what McQuaig called "the prospect of life on earth reverting to a

primitive, desperate, brutal quest for survival" needing lots more Marines

available to subdue. That's no concern at the headquarters of the largest,

most profitable company on earth - oil giant ExxonMobil. It earned a record

$39.5 billion in 2006 on sales of $377.6 billion, more than double oil-rich

Venezuela's GDP the same year according to IMF data.

If ExxonMobil were a nation, it would rank number 20 in the world (based on

GDP) for 2006 ahead of Switzerland and Indonesia and slightly behind Sweden

and Turkey. It means this company has immense power and uses it to keep the

world consuming increasing amounts of what grows its sales and profits and

keeps elevating it higher in the world rankings of countries by size.

Notions like global warming, climate control measures, and Kyoto agreements

send chills through its boardroom. The company acts aggressively to deny a

problem exists or that oil and other fossil fuels are a cause for concern.

Conservative think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute echo the

same claim with its director, Myron Ebell, calling Kyoto defenders "an

animus against humanity." Because it gets generous funding from ExxonMobil

and other corporate interests, it has every incentive to be dismissive about

what there's virtual scientific consensus on.

Problem or not, the US intends to lock up control of as much of this

resource as possible by any means and whatever the consequences. The need

for it goes back decades as a "vital American policy objective." Referring

to Saudi oil, the FDR state department quoted above said their resources

"must remain under American control (to supplement and replace) our

dwindling reserves (when we had plenty of them), and of preventing this

power potential from falling into unfriendly hands."

All American presidents accept this notion, even Jimmy Carter in his

January, 1980 State of the Union address as he was about to leave office. He

laid out his Carter Doctrine (written by Zbigniew Brzezinski) stating: "An

attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will

be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of

America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary,

including military force."

The same theme with a different emphasis came out of Dick Cheney's 2001

energy task force. It acknowledged a dwindling supply of world oil reserves

focusing on the Middle East as a stopgap solution "where the prize

ultimately lies." He had a plan to get it that's discussed below.

Along Comes Iraq

From inception, the US was always an imperial nation. It was in our DNA from

the beginning when our earliest settlers slaughtered millions of Native

Indians for their land and resources in our great push West and South "from

sea to shining sea." Jefferson even sanctified it in our Declaration of

Independence calling Native peoples "merciless indian savages," and our

Constitution dismissed them as non-persons.

WW II changed everything, however, when America emerged as the only dominant

nation left standing. We became the world's unchallengeable economic,

political and military superpower with designs for world hegemony. It

emerged full-blown under George Bush post-9/11 whose administration-picked

officials designed an imperial grand strategy in 1998 as members of the

Project for a New American Century (PNAC). It revived Paul Wolfowitz and

Dick Cheney aide Lewis Libby's 1992 hawkish Defense Planning Guidance

putting in new form a plan for "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies,

Forces and Resources for a New Century. It also updated the Truman Doctrine

(state department advisor George Kennan devised) for "Cold War containment"

and an earlier strategy for US global military and economic dominance.

Today, the Middle East, Central Asia and all independent-minded oil rich and

other states have replaced the Soviet bloc, and the new evil empire is

"international terrorism" and "Islamofascist" threats to our national

security. It's the same old scheme for world dominance repackaged with new

names and faces replacing old ones.

Enter Iraq, the Bush administration had designs on before settling into

office. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed it was topic one in the

early weeks of 2001, months before 9/11 made attacking and occupying it

possible. He was shocked to discover the scheme was being hatched secretly

by Dick Cheney in the first meeting of the National Security Council held 10

days after the President's inauguration. The decision was taken with talk

moving on to logistics of "how" and "how quickly," and whether Iraq or

Afghanistan was number one or two in our target queue. The latter, of

course, came first with Central Asia's immense resources in mind, but it was

just prologue for the "shock and awe" that began in March, 2003 in the land

between two rivers in the cradle of civilization, now smashed by intent to

free up its oil bonanza for Big Oil to exploit.

Pulling off this scheme meant getting the public on board that works best by

scaring it to death with lots of help from round-the-clock dominant media

hyperventilating. It made it easy selling the concocted notion of "Enemy

Number One" Osama bin Ladin (a former CIA asset), Al-Queda terrorists and

the "smoking gun threat" of WMDs showing up in the shape of a

"mushroom-shaped cloud." Former Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's

Annenberg School of Communications, George Gerbner, explained how it works:

"Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled,

more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line

postures....they may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to

relieve their insecurities" and anxieties.

Paul Wolfowitz may have inadvertently revealed the Bush administration's

scheme to do it. He first said the WMD threat was chosen for "bureaucratic

reasons." Then he told Singapore journalists on an Asian visit it was the

only reason everyone could agree on, and finally he admitted Iraq was chosen

over North Korea because it's swimming on a "sea of oil." That went

unreported in the mainstream where "the word 'oil' remained unmentioned and

unmentionable."

When no WMDs were found, the reasons for war were reinvented. Now the

emphasis was to bring democracy to the country as a humanitarian

intervention, and being wrong about WMDs was chalked up as faulty pre-war

intelligence. Again, the real oil motive was kept off the table "in plain

sight" as McQuaig observed. It was also to remove a leader unwilling to let

his nation become a US pawn, an unforgivable sin in Washington's eyes,

especially if the state swims on a "sea of (mostly undeveloped easily

accessed) oil." Iraq's oil treasure is the last bonanza of "low-hanging

fruit" on the planet making it too rich a prize to pass up regardless of

cost or degree of difficulty getting control of it.

McQuaig explained exploration of Iraq's oil potential remained "frozen in

time" with almost no new development in over two decades because of

intervening wars going back to the 1980s and economic sanctions in place

following the Gulf war in 1991. Yet, even with dated information, it's known

Iraq has at least 10% of world oil reserves. If its potential ends up

doubling or tripling, as happened in Saudi Arabia in the last 20 years, it

could, in fact, have the world's largest proved reserves. McQuaig noted that

possibility is "staggering" in importance making the country "the most

sought after real estate on the face of the earth" according to an oil

analyst she interviewed.

In future years, with its production potential fully developed and oil at

$50 a barrel (it could be double that or more), it translates to revenue of

$70 billion a year pumping 5 million barrels daily and $100 billion at 7

million barrels. Today, Saudi Arabia produces 8 million daily barrels or

more if called on. Iraq is also strategically located between Saudi Arabia

and Iran at the top end of the Persian Gulf. It's thus ideally positioned

for a military base as McQuaig's quoted oil analyst observed saying: "Think

of Iraq as a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath....You

can't ask for better than that."

It makes the country so strategically important, Global Policy Forum's James

Paul argued losing Iraq would have been devastating for Big (US) Oil. It

represents "the whole future of the oil industry," frozen in time, hugely

endowed, and easy pickings for the lucky companies able to harvest it and

reap immense profits doing it. Because of its importance, the Cheney energy

task force included Big Oil giants in its secret discussions making plans

for war with Iraq and needing its input for parcelling out its resources

afterward. The Wall Street Journal reported in October, 2002 Cheney's staff

secretly met with ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips and Halliburton

executives on plans to secure and rehabilitate Iraq's oil fields.

Thereafter, they'd take them over and run them.

>From the early 1970s, most Middle East countries and Venezuela's oil

>industries were nationalized, and state-owned oil companies still control

>most of the world's oil. McQuaig noted "major international oil companies

>control a mere 4 per cent" but adjusted and prospered under that

>arrangement nonetheless. In the Middle East, and most everywhere else, they

>do the drilling and pumping under revenue sharing contracts with host

>governments.

We now know what McQuaig may have been the first to report in her book -

that Washington's plan for Iraq involved privatizing its oil industry along

with everything else in the country already sold off to foreign investors by

2007 or will be. She noted a secret 100 page contracting document drafted by

the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with Treasury

Department help. It detailed a plan to replace Iraq's state-run economy with

a privately owned one. It was a "Mass Privatization Program" calling for

"private sector involvement in strategic sectors, including privatization,

asset sales, concessions, leases and management contracts, especially in the

oil and supporting industries." McQuaig said it was to "make the country a

safe place for foreign investment," or put another way, a free-market

paradise for corporate America.

A state department subtler form of oil privatization was drafted as well

with heavy oil industry input. It laid out seven possible production models

all involving Iraq's oil nominally remaining under state control with

"operation and control of the oil fields....handed over to foreign oil

companies."

Subtleties apparently were abandoned in the final US-Big Oil drafted

"Hydrocarbon Law" scheme filled with secret provisions now before the Iraqi

Parliament. It's hugely contentious as it grants Iraq's National Oil Company

exclusive control of only 17 of the nation's 80 known oil fields. The others

are set aside for Big US and UK Oil investors mainly in a shameless act of

plunder. In addition, all new deposits found (the bulk of the country's oil)

are to be set aside for foreign investor development with provisions

allowing them to expropriate all earnings and invest nothing in Iraq's

economy. They also have no obligation to hire local workers, respect union

rights, or share new technologies. In addition, they'll be granted long-term

contracts up to 30 or more years, dispossessing Iraq and its people of their

own resources in a naked scheme to steal them.

Because Iraqi resistance to US occupation is so unrelenting, intense and

violent, there's no way for sure to know how future events will play out.

One thing is sure, however. Iraq's oil bonanza won't be as easy for foreign

investors to exploit as once thought possible and may never be.

The Man to See

In this section, McQuaig details the lucrative business of war-profiteering

showing why conflicts are great for business. For companies close to the

Bush administration, it was a bonanza waiting to be reaped from huge no-bid

contracts. First in line was Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton and

its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root. Since 2001 in Afghanistan and Iraq,

it was awarded upwards of $20 billion in war-related contracts the company

then exploited to the fullest with shoddy work, massive cost-overruns and

fraudulent billings, most barely drawing attention. Early on, Halliburton's

Iraq oil field repairs were so poor the US Army estimated it cost the

country $8 billion in lost production. It also botched a simple job

installing metering systems at ports in southern Iraq to protect against oil

being smuggled from the country.

In all, well over 70 US firms, most well-connected and many with familiar

names, shared in the contracting bonanza - companies like Bechtel, Fluor,

Parsons, Shaw Group, SAIC, CH2M Hill, the Louis Berger Group, the Rendon

Group, and at least 21 private security companies like DynCorp, Triple

Canopy, Erinys and Blackwater USA supplying around 100,000 hugely overpaid

paramilitary mercenaries (not the official phony 30,000 industry number).

They supplement 170,000 US occupying forces providing protection for other

war-profiteering companies and Iraqi officials.

Last year, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated the war's cost

would ultimately exceed $2 trillion when all factors related to it are

included making it the most expensive war ever adjusted for inflation.

Omitting parts of what Stiglitz included, the conservative Congressional

Research Service (CRS) June 28, 2007 Report for Congress showed $610 billion

already approved through FY 2007 and May 25, 2007 supplemental funding

covering Iraq and Afghanistan war related costs and other Global War on

Terror operations since 9/11. At that level, it's approaching the

inflation-adjusted $650 billion Vietnam war cost it may, in fact, have

already exceeded.

Add an administration requested $148 billion more for FY 2008 and the cost

jumps to $758 billion. Projections will likely go higher still with monthly

"burn rates" spiraling from about $8 billion in 2005 to a Senate-estimated

$12 billion now. Add in an administration requested DOD FY 2008 budget of

$648.8 billion plus another $148 billion war-related supplemental for a

grand total $796.8 billion - and rising for a bonanza of war-profiteering,

waste, fraud and abuse. CRS conservatively under-projects a total cost up to

$1.4 trillion for the next 10 years at reduced troop levels ranging from

30 - 70,000 on the assumption America is in Iraq and Afghanistan to stay

with major permanent base installations in place and being built to assure

it.

Capable Iraqi professionals and workers haven't shared in the spoils of war

and were never part of Washington's occupation plans. They've been denied an

operational role rebuilding and running the country's essential services

they can do as well as foreign investors and for much less cost. McQuaig

quoted former Iraqi oil minister under Saddam in the 1980s, Issam

Al-Chalabi. He's not Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi who conspired with the Bush

administration to plunder his own country, wanted to run it, and is the

current oil minister. Issam Al-Chalabi was incensed that companies like

Halliburton got contracts to put out Iraqi oil fires and rebuild the

country's oil wells and production capacity. "Iraqi professionals have been

doing this for decades," he said. "They are among the best in the world."

Iraq's National Oil Company is also capable of running the nation's oil

industry but will only get a sliver of it if the new "Hydrocarbon Law"

passes and becomes law. This was the key part of Washington's plan for

ownership and management that includes all of Iraq's economy to pass largely

into American business hands. McQuaig quoted a Jane Meyer New Yorker article

explaining winning contracts in Iraq is the realm of Dick Cheney, and

"Anything that has to do with Iraq policy, Cheney is the man to see." She

should have added anything to do with running America, Cheney's also the man

to see."

Washington always acts in Big Oil's interest, but the current administration

is closer to the industry than any previous one. It's staffed and run by

former oil and other energy industry executives, including the President and

Vice-President. Oil is central to US plans for world dominance, but Iraq is

only one part of the overall international oil picture, though the most

important one of all. Vitally important as well is OPEC, run by its member

nations and seen as a threat to Big Oil interests unless co-opted.

McQuaig explained ever since it became an important player in the mid-1970s,

Washington tried to "undermine its effectiveness and weaken its unity." It

succeeded because OPEC hurt itself and became less of a market influence

after the early 1980s. One Wall Street analyst said "it was on its deathbed"

by the late 1990s, until it suddenly began to revive. One man made it

possible by 2000, "sav(ing) OPEC" - Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. How it happened

is covered below.

Revolution and Ice Cream in Caracas

McQuaig reviewed Hugo Chavez's dramatic rise to become Venezuela's

president, his Bolivarian Revolution, the transformation of his nation's oil

policies, and his key role in the resurgence of OPEC. Chavez was first

elected president in December, 1998 and assumed office in February, 1999. He

proceeded to hold a national referendum so his people could decide whether

to convene a National Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution to

embody his visionary agenda. It passed overwhelmingly followed three months

later by elections to the Assembly to which members of Chavez's MVR party

and parties allied to it won 95% of the seats. They then drafted the

revolutionary Constitucion de la Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela. It was

put to a nationwide vote in December, 1999 and overwhelmingly approved

changing everything for the Venezuelan people.

The Constitution established the foundation and legal framework for

President Chavez's revolutionary vision for structural change. He's since

transformed his nation into a model participatory social democracy serving

the needs of all Venezuelans instead of the privileged few alone the way it

nearly always had been in the past. It allowed the people to choose their

leaders and gave them unimaginable benefits like free quality health care as

a "fundamental social right and....responsibility of the state....to

guarantee it." It banned discrimination, established the principle of

participatory democracy from the grassroots for everyone, guaranteed free

speech, a free press, free elections, equal rights for indigenous people,

and mandated government make quality free education available for all to the

highest levels, and much more. Venezuela under Hugo Chavez would never be

the same again, and the great majority of Venezuelans won't accept it any

other way.

Chavez had another goal as well - to resuscitate OPEC, give oil producing

states more power over their own resources and be fairly compensated for

them through prices they controlled, not Big Oil. It would thus allow him to

implement his Bolivarian Revolution from the greater revenues he'd get from

a stronger, more unified organization of 11 significant oil producing

nations. Chavez became a mediator to do it and undertook a whirlwind tour of

member states to sell his plan to their leaders.

McQuaig explained his idea was based on the simple notion that OPEC needed

stable prices kept within a "price band" Chavez proposed to be between $22 -

$28 a barrel that today seems low. It wasn't then with oil prices down

around $10 a barrel and less. Making the plan work was doable providing all

OPEC nations agreed to abide by it and not cheat as was common for added

revenue. The idea was for a united OPEC to cut production whenever prices

dropped below its lower band and increase it above the upper one, thus

letting basic supply and demand forces do their work. Chavez proposed an

OPEC summit in Caracas in September, 2000, all its nations agreed to come,

and after discussion signed on to implement the plan.

McQuaig summed up Chavez's achievement saying: "After being on the verge of

extinction only a year earlier, OPEC was very much alive" and still is.

Chavez's vision was "shaking up the international oil scene (but by doing it

made) himself persona non grata in Washington." He's been at it ever since

with his revolutionary social programs endearing himself to Venezuela's

majority poor and working population who now receive essential services

unheard of before and unimaginable in America now. He also promotes a bold

new trade initiative called ALBA - the Bolivarian Alternative for the

Americas. Unlike Global North one-way neoliberal schemes, it's an innovative

"fair trade" alternative based on complementarity, solidarity and

cooperation among participating Latin American states.

Chavez's policies are working. He built alliances with regional states and

is using his nation's oil revenues responsibly with impressive results. He

cut poverty in the country to around 25% of the population (when benefits

from state-funded social programs are factored in) compared to its 1998 and

2003 post-management-led oil lockout high of 62%. Unemployment also fell

from 20% in early 2003 to 8% in May, 2007, and inflation at, current high

levels, is dropping as well with government measures being taken to combat

it. All the while, business is booming with economic growth the highest in

Latin America. It averaged around 10% or more per quarter for over the past

three years, and finance minister Rodrigo Cabezas told Venezuela's state-run

ABN news agency the country will exceed 8% growth this year. It's coming

mainly from the private sector that added over 1100 new businesses and

industries in 2005 and 2006.

Nonetheless, Chavez is Washington's Latin American "enemy number one" having

tried four times to remove him and failed. McQuaig covered the dramatic two

day CIA-orchestrated April, 2002 aborted coup. It caused mass street outrage

and unwillingness of the country's military to go along. Chavez returned to

office, survived an economically devastating oil management-led industry

lockout, and resuscitated his nation and people impressively enough to win

reelection as president last December by a nearly 2 - 1 margin.

McQuaig sat down with him for an extended two and a half interview at the

Palacio de Miraflores (presidential palace) in Caracas in March, 2004.

Chavez eschews pomp and remains true to his part black, part Indian roots.

On December 3, 2006 election day, he drove himself to his polling station in

his signature red Volkswagen, accompanied by his grandson. For his interview

with McQuaig, he showed up casually dressed, and near the end of the session

ordered ice cream for his guest that came in the form of chocolate sundaes

topped with cherries.

Addressing questions posed, Chavez stressed the Bush administration was

"invaded by madness." He's also certain it tried ousting him in 2002, was

behind the oil management lockout, the August, 2004 staged recall referendum

to remove him that flopped badly, and several attempts to kill him with more

planned. He covered much more as well, including his desire for closer

cooperation among Global South nations in their common interest to shake off

the yoke of longstanding Global North neocolonial domination.

McQuaig also briefly covered America's involvement with Venezuela after oil

was discovered there early last century. Ever since, Venezuela's oligarch

elites and foreign oil interests collaborated to see "the country's immense

oil wealth largely disappeared into private hands, both at home and abroad."

There were occasional flirtations with change with leaders like Juan Pablo

Perez Alfonzo (a founding member of OPEC) asserting more control over his

nation's resources. Aligned against him, however, were powerful business

interests, and little success was achieved. Although the nation nationalized

its oil industry in the mid-1970s (along with most other oil producing

countries), its state oil company PDVSA was run by Venezuelan managers

deferential to foreign oil interests, mainly US ones.

Chavez is changing that and making impressive progress doing it, but still

has miles to go toward establishing his social democracy (or socialism) for

the 21st century. His task is enormous and involves no less than reversing

generations of entrenched privilege and institutionalized corruption in a

nation beholden to capital interests closely tied to Washington. He has two

vital things going for him though - mass people-power support determined to

keep him as President as long as he wants the job and the country's military

on board as well. If Chavez can survive Washington's aim to remove him, he

may remain Venezuela's leader for many years to come.

From Coffins to World Destruction

Here McQuaig dealt with one of the most vital issues of our time getting

increasing attention but few efforts to address meaningfully. Today, global

warming looms large as an urgent, pressing challenge demanding action now.

It emerged on the political radar in the mid-1980s and got world attention

at an international scientific conference in Toronto in June, 1988.

Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, an unabashed

corporatist, was its opening speaker. Astonishingly, he sounded an alarm

saying "humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally

pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences are second only to nuclear

war."

Early persuasive evidence of trouble ahead began surfacing back then. Today,

it shows conclusively that human activity in modern industrial states is

warming the earth's air and surface from fossil fuel burning greenhouse gas

emissions causing:

-- arctic ice cap melting;

-- rising sea levels;

-- changed rainfall patterns;

-- increased frequency and intensity of weather extremes like floods,

droughts, killer heat waves, wildfires, and hurricanes and cyclones;

-- water scarcity;

-- agricultural disruption and loss of arable land;

-- as many as one-third of plant and animal species extinct by 2050 by some

credible estimates; and

-- increasing disease, displacement and economic losses from extreme

weather-related events, lowering of ocean pH, reductions in the ozone layer,

and the possible introduction of new phenomena unseen before or never

extreme enough to threaten human life or ecological sustainability that will

when we experience them.

There's no longer a debate in the scientific community on global warming.

The near-majority consensus is the urgency to address it. It was almost as

true in 1990 when McQuaig noted the independent Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC) met. It was headed by Robert Watson whose credentials

included having been a senior NASA scientist. IPCC's first assessment report

powerfully stated the problem. It said the "greenhouse effect" is real and

the earth's surface has become noticeably warmer since the inception of the

Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.

IPCC was even grimmer in a 2007 report suggesting a worst case scenario of

"devastating harvests, dwindling water supplies, melting ice and loss of

species (that likely understate) the threat facing the world." The London

Independent's Information Environment Editor, Geoffrey Lean, made things

sound even worse in his article titled "Global Warming Is (accelerating)

Three Times Faster Than Worst Predictions" based on new authoritative

studies. One is by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) showing CO2

emissions increasing 3% a year now compared to 1.1% in the 1990s. It's

causing seas to rise twice as fast and Arctic ice caps to melt three times

faster than previously thought. Another grim study was by the University of

California's National Snow and Ice Data Center. It showed "Arctic ice has

declined by 7.8 percent over the past 50 years, compared with an average by

IPCC computer models of 2.5 per cent."

Global warming scoffers abound in a state of denial. They're in corporate

boardrooms, halls of government and a few co-opted climate scientists and

some in academia willing to sacrifice their integrity for whatever benefits

they get in return. They say the evidence is inconclusive, more study is

needed, and the financial costs of action will be prohibitive and hugely

damaging to the economy. Watson's response is "The economic costs of

inaction may be (far more) prohibitive," and many economists doubt

addressing the problem will be harmful at all. McQuaig noted 2500 in the

profession believe "(S)ound economic analysis shows that there are policy

options that would slow climate change without harming American living

standards, and these measures may, in fact, improve US productivity (more

than making up the difference)."

McQuaig then mentioned a second 1995 IPCC report making their case even

stronger, but not as strong as their latest one. Twelve years ago it said

increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide buildup is seriously altering the

world's delicate ecosystem. Since then, we got an important, if greatly

inadequate first step, with the enactment of the Kyoto treaty. It went into

effect in February, 2005 after 141 nations signed it, absent one vitally

needed one to make it work - the US when the Bush administration brazenly

withdrew from the process in March, 2001, barely after assuming office.

No other administration in US history is more closely aligned with dominant

corporate energy interests showing they call many of the shots in

Washington. One energy giant especially stood out in the rejection, and

McQuaig put it this way: Giant "Exxon....found a friend. The most powerful

government on earth had linked up with the richest (and likely most

influential) company on earth - and the world no longer seemed invincible."

One of the leading causes of global warming is a popular product first

introduced in the early 1980s, gained popularity in the 1990s, and now

dominates the passenger car business. It's the so-called sport utility

vehicle, or SUV, that McQuaig said has "less to do with sportiness and

glamour, and more to do with security in an age of fear." She refered to

them as a "mobile version of a gated community (with a) kind of me-first

aggressiveness" pushing everything out of its way. Thanks to the power of

advertising, their sales soared from a humble start. They now account for

one-fourth of new car sales despite their cost, poor fuel efficiency, and

the fact that families got along fine without them until Madison Avenue

creative geniuses convinced millions they couldn't live without them.

Here's the problem. SUVs are huge gas guzzlers, and the transportation

sector accounts for over one-fourth of US greenhouse gas emissions. SUVs are

exempt from so-called CAFE standards referring to "corporate average fuel

economy." The result is they emit around 40% more greenhouse gases per

vehicle into the atmosphere causing enormous damage. And no one needs these

vehicles in the first place except the auto industry earning huge profits

selling them and not about stop voluntarily. Like the energy industry, the

auto sector has powerful friends in Washington as well seeing nothing

changes that hurts them.

The global warming issue is so serious it must be addressed and can be if

Congress gets around to mandating it with a friendly administration willing

to go along. One answer is greater efficiency to achieve what automakers

won't address - making vehicles burn less gas using technology now known to

exist. McQuaig noted the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) said it can be

done with current technology, and its engineers did it with their own SUV

design that's 30% more fuel efficient than production models. Auto makers

continue increasing vehicle efficiency but use it for more powerful engines

and other new design features increasing profits. They reject fuel

efficiency citing the cost, but it really comes down to applying their

technological expertise where it produces the greatest return.

McQuaig summed up the situation saying it's clear "the voluntary approach

won't work with fuel efficiency." With stronger mandated CAFE standards for

cars and light trucks, including SUVs, oil consumption will drop

dramatically. US autos of all types are now projected to consume 12 million

barrels of oil a day by 2020. With easily attainable CAFE standards,

consumption could be cut to 7.5 million barrels or a 40% savings. The Bush

administration made things worse, not better, by adding a generous new tax

measure favoring SUVs in its 2003 $350 billion tax cut. It allowed the

self-employed to deduct the cost of a SUV purchase, thereby making them more

attractive to all kinds of new customers like doctors, lawyers, accountants,

the corner druggist, or anyone able to claim self-employment.

There's hope for change, however, based on recent Senate action. On June 21,

that body passed the first comprehensive bill on new CAFE standards in over

20 years, and it was a bipartisan effort. It wasn't a perfect one but did

raise the fleetwide average fuel efficiency standards for all cars, trucks

and SUVs by 10 miles per gallon over 10 years or from 25 to 35 miles per

gallon by model year 2020. So far, no action is scheduled in the House so it

remains an open question what's ahead along with what can be expected if

final legislation reaches an obstructionist President.

The Great Anaconda

Enter the Oil Trust and man who built it and himself into a hugely rich and

powerful business titan and king of the original "robber barons" - John D.

Rockefeller. None had more power and wealth or used it more ruthlessly than

this corporate predator whose central aim was crushing all competition and

making himself omnipotent in the growing oil industry. He did it by

"employing a mix of enticement, threats, coercion, double-dealing, lying,

cheating, bullying and ultimately using (his Oil Trust's) massive financial

resources to crush opponents" as McQuaig explained it. Sounds about the way

corporate giants operate today, except they now have friendly governments

and courts making it easy for them. John D. had to work for his power and

wealth starting from the bottom and building his oil empire from the ground

up.

Early on, he spotted an opportunity to do it shortly after oil was first

discovered in Titusville. He and a partner first invested in an oil refinery

in Cleveland that became one of the city's largest. He then bought out his

partner and started a second operation, opened an oil-selling company in New

York, and consolidated everything into what he called Standard Oil Company.

From there, McQuaig traces his rise to the business heights he achieved that

included entering into a phony, far-reaching "combination" with major

railways called the Southern Improvement Company. It was a scheme for

preferential rebates and eliminating competition.

The story goes on to cover a four decade-long account of how Rockefeller

built and consolidated his empire, crushing competition along the way

ruthlessly but effectively. It came to a head in a New York City courtroom

in 1907 when Theodore Roosevelt-picked lawyers went head-to-head in what

McQuaig called "a titanic legal battle." In the end, the government won when

the Supreme Court agreed with an earlier guilty verdict. It gave Standard

Oil six months to divest all subsidiaries that quickly dismembered the giant

company into a number of smaller but still large entities. The largest

retained half the value of the original conglomerate. It was Standard Oil of

New Jersey, now giant ExxonMobil, the largest, richest, most powerful

company on earth and still one of the most predatory and ruthless in the

spirit of its founder.

Today, the oil industry is more powerful than ever. It remains "a tightly

knit club" through its extensive interlocking corporate ties and a cozy

relationship with all administrations. None, however, are more accommodating

than the current one run by former oil men and staffed by many energy

industry officials making policies favoring them.

How Did Our Oil Get Under Their Sand

McQuaig continued the story as Rockefeller's spawned corporate empire began

eyeing opportunities abroad. There were plenty around with the Middle East

as ground zero holding two-thirds of today's proved reserves with most of

Iraq's still uptapped and uncounted. She explained by the early 1950s

international oil companies gained effective control of the region's oil and

sought to get back what they lost when countries like Iran nationalized

their industries to get a larger share of their own revenues.

Mohammed Mossadegh was its force as the nation's democratic leader. He no

longer would tolerate the special concessions British-owned Anglo-Iranian

Oil got in 1901 and had up to his tenure. It greatly advantaged Britain

leaving Iran only a sliver of its own oil wealth. His government changed

things by nationalizing the company, causing the British to feel he stole

their property, that, in fact, belonged to Iran. In response, the

international oil companies reacted together and imposed a worldwide boycott

on the country's oil. It succeeded by devasting Iran's economy, cutting its

oil revenue from $400 million in 1950 to less than $2 million in 1952. A

Dwight Eisenhower-approved first ever CIA coup followed in 1953. It toppled

the Mossadegh government, returned Shah Reza Pahlavi to power, and began his

26 year tyrannical rule that, by all accounts, was as repressive as Saddam's

and far less socially accommodative.

McQuaig called the coup "a defining moment in the Middle East." It "became a

powerful rallying point for anti-Western nationalism. It was embodied in

Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt whose advocacy of Arab sovereignty and

willingness to defy the West made him a hero throughout the region. It also

arose in Iran in the 1970s that resulted in the 1979 revolution. It deposed

the Shah, installed fundamentalist Islamic rule in his place, and sparked an

anti-Western fundamentalist movement across the region.

McQuaig also traced how oil was discovered early in the last century in the

Middle East with the international oil cartel moving in to capitalize on it.

She detailed the wheeling and dealing that went on with oil giants jousting

among themselves and with rulers of the countries whose oil they wanted

favorable terms on to exploit. These powerful companies mostly worked in

collusion carving up world oil markets and fixing prices among themselves to

their advantage.

McQuaig described how three of the giants, Shell, BP and Exxon, met at

Achnacarry Castle, Scotland in late summer, 1928 to end price competition

and stabilize world markets. Their leaders "hammer(ed) out an agreement in

writing that set the course for the international oil order for decades to

come," lasting through the early 1970s. It was not to compete, but rather to

set quotas, maintain existing market shares, cooperate in sharing

facilities, and avoid surplus production to keep prices stable.

They brought in Texaco, Gulf, Mobil and Atlantic to tighten their grip on

world markets and eliminate competitors by acquiring them. The idea was to

assure world production grew at a steady pace, and oil shortages and gluts

were avoided. The cartel was in charge reaping enormous profits from their

cozy arrangement. It was especially lucrative in the Middle East where oil

is easily accessible and production costs very low. It's hard believe

looking back to when Saudi oil sold for $1.80 a barrel, but easy to

understand with production costs in the Kingdom at just 8 or 9 cents leaving

over $1.70 profit with most of it going to the giants.

Things began changing when Libya's King Idris "was the first to figure out

how to avoid becoming yet another powerless country in the oil companies'

harem." He began using independents outside the cartel. Current Libyan

leader Mu'ammer al Qaddafi took power in 1969 and upped the anti further

demanding a 40 cent increase in the country's share of the revenue. He got

it and broke the cartel's power to control the oil game. At the same time,

he rewrote the rules in place to that time. As McQuaig put it: the "aura of

(cartel) invincibility was shattered. Inside the harem, things would never

be the same again."

The Harem Takes On the Sisters - The Rise of OPEC

The "Libyan breakthrough" turned out to be prologue for 5 original oil

producing member nations (that became 11) to assert control of their own

resources through OPEC that was founded in 1960 but had no effective power

until the 1970s. McQuaig reviewed its history explaining it "was the

brainchild of two men - Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo in Venezuela and Abdullah

Tariki in Saudi Arabia. Alfonzo was given responsibility for his country's

oil affairs after 1945 and set "guidlines (to redefine) the traditional

(one-way) colonial relationship" the oil cartel had with his country. A 1948

military coup disrupted his plans until he reemerged as oil minister under a

newly elected government with much more ambitious plans in mind. His idea

was for oil producing states to control the international market for their

essential product, and why not. It's their oil. The idea was simple.

Individually, the countries were weak, but together they had collective

strength.

Abdullah Tariki had similar ideas in Saudi Arabia. He opposed the oil cartel

believing oil producing nations should control their own destiny and assert

their sovereign rights. Tariki was highly educated and his country's only

university trained oil geologist. He became minister of oil affairs for the

country's eastern province that was the location of the cartel's Aramco

important Ghawar oil field operations. In that capacity, he saw how little

revenue Saudis retained, compared to the oil giants, and, as a result,

wanted to change the rules. How? By having Arab oil states unite to assert

their collective strength.

McQuaig noted, Tariki understood the advantage of making "common cause with

Venezuela." He wanted and got a secret gentlemen's agreement between the two

countries in 1958 that "constituted the first seed of the creation of OPEC"

that was later born in Baghdad in September, 1960 with five original members

having 80% of oil exports among them - Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq

and Kuwait.

It was a beginning but not as auspicious as conceived as in March, 1962

Tariki lost his job as Saudi oil minister. It was after King Faisal decided

to tilt more toward Washington and adopt more Aramco favorable oil policies

as the way to do it. Tariki was out, and the more accommodating Sheikh Zahi

Yamani was in. McQuaig described him as a "charming, urbane, thirty-two year

old lawyer....who loved New York and Western culture," and enjoyed lots of

it in his new job. Alfonzo in Venezuela lost his job as well, and OPEC would

never live up to his vision for it. However, McQuaig explained "it would

soon at least ensure that its members were admitted to the feast."

Things then changed dramatically in 1973. Supplies were tight, and the

notion that oil producing nations should control their own resources gained

prominence in the Middle East. Industry nationalizations began occurring,

and in October, 1973 OPEC nations demanded much higher prices. They got them

at a time of anger over the West's support for what became known as the "Yom

Kippur War." Egypt and Syria fought it against Israel between October 6 - 26

and almost won, save for the help from America that turned Israeli defeat

into victory. People old enough to remember recall the energy crunch and

long gas lines when prices rose from $3 dollars a barrel in steps to $11.65

and Saudi Arabia cut off shipments to the US until March, 1974.

Angst and rising prices in America affected politics in Washington, but the

oil companies loved it. Industry profits rose "beyond anything they'd seen

in the previous thirty years (raising the speculation) what role the

companies" may have had orchestrating the whole scheme that benefitted them

and oil producing states hugely at the expense of oil consuming nations. As

borne out later, they played an important role. In the face of recession,

demand fell and production was adjusted down to meet it while keeping prices

high. They're now around $70 a barrel that in 1973 dollars would only be in

the mid-teens and would have to hit $100 a barrel to match the $38 dollar

price in 1980.

McQuaig noted, all in all, "as pressure tactics go, the (1973 - 74) oil

embargo was pretty mild (and long) gas lines may have been annoying, but

nobody died in them." Of greater significance was where the extra revenue

ended up. It was in "the wrong part of the world" with it rising from $22

billion in 1973 over fourfold to $90 billion the following year and far

higher after the huge additional price hikes following the 1979 Iranian

Revolution. It made oil producing states rich but got them to recycle much

of their surplus back into Western investments, and in the case of Saudi

Arabia, in particular, into huge dollar purchases of US weapons as well.

McQuaig then explained OPEC's reformist zeal waned after Saudi King Faisal's

1975 death that had "far-reaching consequences for both OPEC and the world."

New Saudi King Fahd tilted toward a "special relationship" with Washington

and became accommodating on the amount of oil it would produce to please his

powerful ally responsible for his security. It meant OPEC's power as a

unified force was gone.

King of the Vandals

In 428 AD, the title belonged to Geiseric the Lame (or Genseric) who ruled

for 50 years and transformed his Germanic tribe into a major Mediterranean

power after he invaded North Africa to pillage and plunder. A more notable

predator, Alexander the Great, did it a century earlier and others like the

Ottomans, Mussolini and Hitler took their turns later on. Fast forward to

today and you get the picture about a modern-day plunderer doing the same

thing for much greater stakes than Genseric or Alexander could have

imagined.

For the past three decades, Washington's attitude toward the Middle East

hardened with some in the capitol believing America has a birthright to the

region's oil, and we'll send in the Marines any time we choose to claim it.

So we have, but with consequences partly anticipated in a 1975 US

Congressional Research Service study assessing the difficulties of occupying

the region for its resources. McQuaig explained it concluded "seizing oil

installations intact, securing them (possibly for years), operating them

without the owners' assistance, and guaranteeing safe passage overseas of

supplies and petroleum products....would be possible only if there were

minimal damage to oil installations and no Soviet armed intervention"

intervened, and no armed resistance now.

At first, the strategy was to arm and rely on local powers, like Iran under

the Shah and Saudi Arabia, to serve as proxy forces along with neighboring

Turkey and Israel. Chomsky notes these nations were to be what Nixon called

our "cops on the beat - the local gendarmes" to keep order in the

neighborhood. We still have them mainly in Israel and Turkey, but after the

1979 Iranian Revolution the decision was taken to assume a more direct role

in managing our regional interests that moved us "a step closer to

establishing...military control over the area."

The Carter Doctrine, noted above, threw down the gauntlet in 1980. It led to

the establishment of the Rapid Deployment (flexible, quick response) Force

(RFD) that became the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in 1983, focused mainly

on the oil rich Middle East.

McQuaig also reviewed the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It began with a

violent Baathist party coup in 1963. Saddam took part in it that led to his

assuming power in 1968. He was a nationalist unwilling to sell out Iraqi

sovereignty to Western interests making him a target from the start. The

lord and master of the universe tolerates no outliers, and Saddam was a

considerable one. He began nationalizing Iraq's oil fields in 1972 and

finished doing it in 1975. The oil cartel saw this as "an unpardonable

crime" requiring action that was delayed by the Iran - Iraq war of the

1980s. The Reagan administration saw an opportunity and used Saddam against

its greater Iranian enemy hoping they'd both destroy each other, and we'd

step in and pick up the pieces.

Once the war ended in 1988, things changed and plans were drawn for Saddam's

removal that resulted in the 1991 Gulf war, 12 years of hugely destructive

economic sanctions, and the March, 2003 invasion and occupation. US control

of the region's oil as the goal was already explained above because it has

the mother lode amount of world supply, and by 2010 Muslim states will have

about 95% of remaining light oil. Bush administration belligerency has now

raised the stakes. It increased Muslim anger against the West, Washington in

particular. If it continues growing, the longer term odds are that America's

grip on the region will slip and could end up lost.

It's hurtling that way today as the prospect of war with Iran looms that may

be a nuclear one. If it happens, it may engulf the whole region and entire

Muslim world. CIA's assessment of the prospect is blunt. If the US attacks

Iran, Southern Shia Iraq will light up like a candle and explode

uncontrollably throughout the country. It will also affect the Shia oil rich

part of Saudi Arabia producing a tsunami of Shia rage everywhere that may

unite the entire Muslim world in fierce resistance to America that would

have very dire consequences when it comes to oil and the interests of Big

Oil giants that prefer peaceful negotiations to open confrontation they fear

will make them big losers in the end. That's the state of things today

thanks to a modern day Genseric. He lasted 50 years. Mr. Bush may not finish

out his term in office with growing cries for his head.

Vroooooom

It's McQuaig's last word on the subject referring to Americans insane belief

we have a birthright to drive hugely gas-guzzling "18-wheelers that

accelerate like racing cars" and shove the world out of our way doing it.

She focuses on Bush administration policies in the wake of the 9/11 attack.

It changed everything but left the most important issues unaddressed.

There's little debate over how centrally important oil is that government

and industry focus on but the major media ignore. Controlling world supplies

tops the list of strategic aims starting in the Middle East and

headquartered in the richest of prizes in Iraq. There's no chance whatever

we'd be there if the country's main export was olives instead of oil. Then

there are nonsensical issues of removing a dangerous dictator and bringing

democracy to the region in the form of a humanitarian intervention.

Unmentioned is America does no such interventions, and our aim is to subvert

democracy, not bring or support it. That's how the rules of imperial

management work.

There are further vital issues unaddressed and unmentionable in public as

well. What's the real motive behind America's "war on terrorism" that's

quite different from the fictional media account we've gotten since it was

launched right after the 9/11 attack. Few in the West know "Enemy Number

One" bin Ladin was a CIA asset (not an agent) recruited through Pakistan's

ISI to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the idea one

sickly man in a cave outwitted the entire $40 - $50 billion-a-year American

intelligence establishment is preposterous.

He and Al-Queda have been assets ever since. They're used to scare the

public to death and provide a pretext for the Bush administration's

permanent war on the world and against the homeland. It's in the form of

hugely bloated military budgets and adventurism, oppressive police state

laws and loss of civil liberties, the greatest ever wealth transfer in

history from the public to the rich, and the systematic dismantling of what

remains of an imperfect social state Americans were once proud of

nonetheless. That's all sacrificed for the greater aim of unchallengeable

world dominance and an unrestrained use of military power maintaining it.

It's all for the sake of making the world safe for capital and limitless

amounts of energy resources needed to make it hum and grow.

We know incontrovertibly the Afghan and Iraq wars were planned well in

advance of September 11, 2001 to kick things off. We were practically

signaled they were coming in 1998 by the Project for a New American Century

schemers. They stated their wishes for a revolutionary hard line

transformation of the nation that would be long in coming "absent some

catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" that, low and

behold, happened that fateful day. The "shock and awe" on Afghanistan began

four weeks later, moved to Iraq in March, 2003, never stopped, and now

everyone's paying for it and targeted if we get in the way.

The danger today is greater than ever as the Bush regime may have more

ominous schemes in mind to bail itself out of its disastrous Middle East

adventure. It may even be extreme enough to be unthinkable - using another

major terror attack some analysts and DHS Secretary Chertoff think is

inevitable as a pretext to declare martial law in the name of national

security and end a functioning democracy as we know it.

Consider that compared to our claimed birthright to control and consume

limitless amounts of the world's dwindling resources and emit enough

greenhouse gases to destroy it way in the future that's someone else's

problem. McQuaig concluded her important book explaining that "efficiency is

our god (but) when it comes to the engine of the modern economy - energy" -

efficiency is discarded. Workable solutions abound at least effective enough

to mitigate our wasteful consumption habits, but volunteer methods to

achieve them won't work. Mandating them along with convincing the public

they're important is the only approach that can succeed and will if

implemented. If they are, the savings will be dramatic and enormous.

If not, we face an eventual ecological calamity too dire to imagine. In

addition, they'll be huge economic costs according to one analyst McQuaig

cited. He believed it could cost America 1 - 2% of GDP annually and the

world $1 trillion a year at least and likely much more. And it will only get

worse in the out years. Global warming is far and away the single greatest

environmental threat to the planet, second only to a nuclear winter. Rich

and poor alike will be victims because "We're all in the big greenhouse

together." It's the moral and survival challenge of our age with no time to

waste implementing a solution. Everyone's future depends on it as does

ending our resource wars that will destroy us if we don't. "It's (all about)

the Crude, Dude," and we better not forget it.

_______

About author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at

lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net [1]. Also visit his blog site at

sjlendman.blogspot.com [2].

--

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political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I

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Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107

"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their

spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their

government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are

suffering deeply in spirit,

and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public

debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have

patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning

back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at

stake."

-Thomas Jefferson