Axis of Appeasement – The Inconvenient Truth

David J. Jonsson
August 23, 2006

On January 20, 2002, President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address stated:
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
Today, we are seeing the allies of the United States possible becoming the “The Axis of Appeasement.” The question remains to see if the allies joined for freedom and liberty will support a battle against the forces of evil.
In any war, the critical elements of success are:
Who is the enemy?
What are their goals?
What is the definition of success, and finally
What will the world be like if we lose?
Up to the time of the Munich Agreement in 1938, these questions were not answered. The West faces the same situation following the cease-fire in Lebanon in 2006. The West better decide on the answers to the questions or be prepared to live under Shariah Law in a totalitarian Islamic state. The question that has to be answered is: Would you choose appeasement and wind up as a lampshade in a palace or fight for Western democracy, freedom and liberty?
Funding Terror
An Inconvenient Truth
The Reality of the Inconvenient Truth
Islamists Recognize the Value of Joining with the Leftist Movement
The Cease-Fire in Lebanon is Reminisant of Munich in 1938
Founding of the Green Party
How it all Began
Fischer: A self-justification
Al Qaeda Forges the links with the Leftist/Marxist Alliance
Al-Qaeda Issues An ‘Invitation’
Complications on the Issue of Profiling
Joe Lieberman vs. Ted Lamont
August 12, 2006 Anti-War Demonstrations
The US and Israel Stand Alone
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Role of Hezbollah in the Middle East
Islamist Sunni-Shia Convergence
Following the Strategies Laid Out by The Muslim Brotherhood
The Project and the Protocols of Zion
Al-Qaeda Book on Managing Savagery
The Underlying Cause Driving the Axis of Appeasement

Funding Terror

I led a recent round-table on current affairs on the campus of a major university, the subject was funding terror and how to reduce the threat of terror by eliminating funding—and if that was possible. Naturally, a logical portion of the discussion dealt with the role that energy plays in providing the funding. But more important to the subject is: What other ways funding is provided?

The first question raised by one of the participants was: How do I know that the organizations that I support are not supporting terror? In my opinion, we are not just fighting a war on terror, but witnessing a war between those who wish to impose an Islamist totalitarian form of government verses Western democracy, capitalism, freedom and liberty. In many cases it may be the extension of the same battle that tore Europe apart during most of the twentieth century that has now spread to the Muslim world. The current clash also includes the added dimension of a battle for the control of oil. The West no longer has control of oil resources to provide energy security. See also my earlier article: Give Me Energy Security And I Will Give You A Foreign Policy.

The discussion evolved. Funding of terror really involves many aspects; it can take the form of direct monetary transfer to terrorist organizations, it can include providing labor in the form of organizing demonstrations which promote ideologies which are anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Western democracy, and it can also take the form of supporting causes which prevent the development of energy self-sufficiency thus making the U.S. dependent for our energy supplies from countries supporting terrorism. Jihad should not be considered exclusively a terrorist action, such as blowing up planes and trains; it may take the form of economic jihad such as financing Islamist projects, white-collar jihad—influencing the media, promoting Islamist ideologies in schools and universities or just plain participating in a demonstration or peaceful march. However the goal remains the same, to bring about the Islamic kingdom of God on Earth and to impose Shariah law.

Which leads us the main question, which organizations and/or action of individuals promote anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, etc. I believe that the well-known statement: “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, eats like a duck, it probably is a duck.” How would one apply this comment to the present situation? Some of the organizations mentioned in this study are leaders of protest marches preaching these ideologies. The spokespersons for the organizations have made speeches espousing the ideologies; the funding (eating) includes organizations espousing similar beliefs. I would have to add that certainly not all and possibly most of the organizations do not have all the characteristics, however they do have association through their sponsorship of the events, interlocking of funding and interlocking of boards. I might add, that just like the duck that provides excellent food and delicious pate and other useful products; terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas also have two sides. On the one hand, they provide schools, hospitals, and support for the poor and food. Environmental organizations raise our awareness of need to protect our environment for current and future generations. The goal is therefore is sort out their multiple functions and goals. The Islamists recognized this dual role and therefore have utilized these organizations in their strategy. The strategy is laid out in the sections on “The Project” and “Managing Savagery.”

The “The Project” an ambitious strategy intended “to establish the kingdom of God over the whole world recommends “to study the local and world centers of authority, and the possibilities of placing them under influence,” “to enter in contact with all new movements engaged in the jihad wherever that it is on planet, to create cells of the jihad,” and “to nourish the feeling of rancor with regard to the Jews.” The document describes the strategy planned to ensure a growing influence of the Brotherhood on the Muslim world. It is stipulated there that the Muslim Brothers “should not act in the name of the Brotherhood, but infiltrate in the existing organizations. Their existence will not be located, and then neutralized.”

If the pattern and actions of the organizations appear to be consistent with the strategy laid out by the Islamists, then one must pay special attention.

If you spend some nights and weekends at a whorehouse, your spouse has every right to assume the reason for spending time there is not for the purpose of playing tennis.
In the document below are presented from newspaper accounts and other sources the association of organizations behind the statements, protests and actions. The Islamist strategy has recently been made public through the publication of translated documents. It is for the reader to further explore the links.

Think about it; check it out. Are you naively funding terror? Because we still have freedom and do not live under a totalitarian government we must respect the rights of others to express their opinions and enter into dialog. However just the participation in an elected form of government and/or economic development does not necessarily lead to freedom, liberty and elimination of terror. Suggested reading: Promoting Democracy and Fighting Terror by Thomas Carothers from Foreign Affairs, January/February 2003 and Development and Democracy by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005.
The Islamist strategy of infiltrating in the existing organizations, NGOs and foundations, many of which perform apparently valuable services is extremely valuable to the cause of establishing a totalitarian form of government. The existence of Muslims with an Islamist agenda and supporters of their cause are not easily located and then neutralized.

An Inconvenient Truth

As Jagdish Bhagwati commented in an article on August 16 in the Financial Times Al Gore has been busy returning global warming to center stage with terrifying warnings of disaster with his best-selling book, An Inconvenient Truth, and the popular companion documentary. Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, has joined – even led – the renewed focus on global warming, charging Sir Nicholas Stern, the economist, with solving the problem. Alongside his successful initiative on Africa, this is to be his sure-fire international legacy as he ends his last term in office.
One has to ask: Which is more important in the near term the preservation of democracy, liberty and freedom or global warming?

Khamenei—the supreme religious authority to Hezbollah followers—said. “With God's help you (Hezbollah) were able to prove that military superiority is not (measured) in the number (of soldiers), planes, warships and tanks. Rather, it depends on the power of faith and holy war,”
Just as the Iranian soccer fans hold photos of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, during the Iran and Syria Asian Cup 2007 qualifying soccer match in Tehran on Wednesday Aug. 16, 2006, anti-war demonstrators at protest marches on August 12 demonstrations in the Stop the US Israeli War rally in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and worldwide held up signs in support of the Hezbollah and Hamas. The enemy within has reached America’s shores.

The Reality of the Inconvenient Truth

In reality, the Inconvenient Truth represents a much broader significance. The environmental movement represented by Al Gore plays a significant role in the “The Axis of Appeasement” and is directly linked to the formation of Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance.
The Inconvenient Truth is that many of the environmental, social justice, anti-war, leftist, and Islamic groups have in common senior personnel, members of advisory and director boards and in some cases common supporters and funding including foundations and corporations. The organizations in many cases have interlinking of the boards. In many cases these organizations are the cosponsors of the rallies and protests we are seeing occur on a global scale. This is in no way to say that all supporters of some of these causes are not sincere in their desire for a better world. As a conservative environmentalist we all need to support environmental action that is also critical for your future. However, support of the organizations naively or otherwise can be contributing to support of organizations that are against liberty and freedom and seek to establish a global totalitarian government.

The war against the Islamists will not be won with military might and the war on terror; the battle must also be waged in the media, the schools, the NGOs, and the board rooms of corporations.

The Islmists are following the plan laid out by the Muslim Brotherhood as described and documented in numerous places. The West is falling into line with the plan and strategy.
Islamists Recognize the Value of Joining with the Leftist Movement
The Islmists recognized early on that alliance with these groups provided the grass root support and manpower locally in the West to impact the media, education, and ultimately political elections. Hence the Islamist slogan “from the schoolhouse to the White House.” The Islamist goal remains—world domination and the establishment of the totalitarian Islamic kingdom of God on Earth. It is this cabal, which I refer to as the Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance which is making up the “The Axis of Appeasement.”

The “unholy alliance” of the leftist with the Islamists cannot last; liberalism cannot survive under the rule of a totalitarian regime imposing Shariah law. At some point one side will decide that this must end. Victor Davis Hanson in his article in National Review Online Hope Amid Despair? commented: In an amorphous war of self-induced Western restraint, like the present one, truth and moral clarity are as important as military force. This past month, the world of the fascist jihadist and those who tolerate him was once again on display for civilization to fathom. Even the most timid and prone to appeasement in the West are beginning to see that it is becoming a question of “the Islamists or us.”

The Islamist is willing to die for their cause. Many liberals may die because of the support of their cause.

The Cease-Fire in Lebanon is Reminisant of Munich in 1938

The perceived victory of the Hezbollah in Lebanon followed by the cease-fire agreement may be the pivotal moment in the creation of a new world order.

It is pivotal in the same sense that the Munich agreement between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain was pivotal in an earlier battle against the enemies of freedom. The accord in October 1938 revealed to the world that the solidarity of the Western allies was a sham, and that the balance of power had shifted to the fascist dictators.

As reported in the article Iran praises Islam ‘victory’ August 17, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme religious authority to Hezbollah followers, in a message to Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, described the militant group's clashes with Israel as a “victory” for Islam.

“Your unprecedented holy war and steadfastness are beyond the limits of my description. It's a divine victory. It is a victory of Islam,” Khamenei said in the message read by an announcer on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.

Hezbollah is heavily financed and backed by Iran's Shiite Muslim theocracy.
“With God's help you were able to prove that military superiority is not (measured) in the number (of soldiers), planes, warships and tanks. Rather, it depends on the power of faith and holy war,” Khamenei said.

“You have ridiculed the myth that the Zionist army is invincible,” he said.
Khamenei said Israeli attacks that killed Lebanese civilians and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure have exposed “the real face of America and some European countries, side-by-side with the hated and repugnant Zionist face.”

“They (Israeli attacks) have also uncovered the level of falsehood surrounding the hollow slogans ... about human rights and democracy,” Khamenei said.

He lashed out at President Bush for declaring that the Israeli assault in Lebanon was self-defense and had defeated the Shiite guerrillas.

Resolution 1701 shows that, for the time being at least, the balance has likewise shifted to the terrorists and their state sponsors. Like Munich, it marks the triumph of the principle of putting off until tomorrow what needs to be done today. Like Munich, it will mean not peace in our time, but a bigger war in our future.

“We have passed an awful milestone in our history,” Winston Churchill said after the Munich agreement was signed. “Do not suppose this is the end… This is only the first sip, the first foretaste, of a bitter cup that will be proffered to us year by year.” Despite the failure of appeasement, Churchill still believed the Western democracies would make the “supreme recovery” and take up the banner for freedom again.

The United States and the forces of democracy will recover from this debacle—even with a Democratic Congress in 2006 and a Democratic president in 2008. The reason will not be because Bush's opponents—“The Axis of Appeasement” have a better strategy, or a clearer vision, or even a Winston Churchill waiting in the wings. It will be because the Islamists will give us no choice.

Less than a year after Munich, Nazi panzers rolled into Poland. Instead of fighting a short, limited war over Czechoslovakia, the Western democracies ended up fighting a world war, the most destructive in history. The war with the Islamists is coming. It is only a question of whether it will be at a time or on a ground of our choosing, or theirs—and whether it is fought
within the shadow of a mushroom cloud.

Without the background of history as a guide, it is difficult to understand the present.

Founding of the Green Party

In January of 2005, Germany's Greens, now the strongest Green Party in the world turned 25. There won't be any grand parties or brouhaha. They did a bit of that in 2004 to fete the unofficial 25-year anniversary. Since then, they have strayed from their sunflower-laced ideals, which over the years included pulling Germany out of NATO and instigating super high gas prices. Still, it is worth taking a moment to raise a glass to a party that began as a scruffy band of pacifist idealists and has evolved into one of Germany’s biggest power players. Many of the Greens' early devotees were members of the famous '68 generation, a group of left-wing radicals who wanted to change the world. Others were Trotskyites and Maoists. They sailed into the German conscience on the wave of post-World War II memories and experiences. That wave remains powerful even today and continues to influence the Greens' and other parties' policies.

How it all began

The founding of the Green Party was hardly done in a flurry to civilize the nation in 1968 and the years that followed, at the height of the Cold War, Berlin and other German cities saw pitched battles against police in protest against the Vietnam War and “Nazi” influences in postwar West Germany.
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They, themselves, never thought of it that way. For them, the important thing was changing, not bettering, the system. They produced a newspaper called “APO Press” - APO standing for Extra-Parliamentary Opposition - to spread the '68ers revolutionary message: against war, against US “imperialism” and against the alleged “fascist” tendencies of West German politics, especially the police.

“People know that the Sixties changed Germany.” And the Sixties changed the world. In many cases it is the same players and political ideologies that are leading the “Axis of Appeasement.”
The '68 movement made a fatal mistake, when Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader co-founded the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and sought to justify the use of terrorist methods to try to bring down the West German state.

“The resort to terrorism killed the protest movement.”

Today, it uses the media, the Internet, education and politics to change the world. The goal remains the same—political power to impose their ideology. The Islamists using the same techniques are gaining political power globally.

Success in the “War on Terror” may win a battle, but will not win the war against the Islamists. With the Leftists against the War on Terror as put forward in the Wall Street Journal article on August 16 by George Soros: A Self-Defeating War, the effort to even win the battle becomes more difficult. The article in the U.K based Socialist Worker further supports the position of George Soros: Who are the true terrorists? “The only way to stop Islamist terrorism is to end the domination of the Middle East by Western imperialism. This won’t happen overnight. But by continuing to build a united and dynamic mass movement against the “war on terrorism”, we can show that there is a better way of opposing the crimes committed by our government.” In the interview presented below of Jimmy Carter, the same theme is put forward about the crimes of the United States.

Fischer: A self-justification

Joschka Fischer attended lectures on Marxism at Frankfurt University, though he was not officially enrolled. The self-taught Marxist became a leading figure in a group called “Revolutionary Struggle”, getting a job in a car factory to stir up revolutionary ideas among the workers.

He has frankly acknowledged his mistake as a young man in succumbing then to the lure of revolutionary violence. But he firmly maintains that the '68 movement was essential to German democracy.

In a speech in London in January 2005, Fischer said the protest movement had given birth to his party, the Greens.

And that, he said, had brought about “the integration of radical left-wing groups - Leninist, Trotskykist, anarchist, feminist or whatever - into the democratic process.”

“It is very important,” he added, “to rethink the process of the '80s.” That was the decade when Fischer abandoned direct action and entered politics, and the Greens built up their support in preparation for their current role in government. His conclusion: “So it can be very productive.”
The creation of the Green Party did, however, manage to civilize one group of Germans –the scrappy band of disillusioned rebels—many of who were the children of bourgeois, the children of privilege or even Nazi families—who nonetheless gravitated to what they called “alternative scenes.” For many of these radicals, the Green Party came too late. For them, the best solution came in the form of the terrorist group the Red Army Faction, which was founded in the late 1960s and was dedicated to obliterating class differences through violence. At the height of its power in the 1970s, the RAF—founded by, among others, Ulrike Meinhof—was Europe's most feared terror organization and is responsible for the death of dozens. The RAF disbanded in 1998, the same year the Greens got their first taste of federal power. Hardly a coincidence.
Not that the Greens have similarity with the RAF. Naturally, oceans of difference separate the two and politically they have nothing in common. But many of their members began in the same idealistic place. In 1998, the split was complete: the political status of each group arrived at wholly different realities.

But will the Greens’ success continue or will they simply be a phenomenon of one generation? It's a question debated by many. No party better understands how to play the media game than the Greens. And no party leader does his job better than Joschka Fisher, the Moses of the movement. The use of the media has been key factor in promoting the agenda of both the Greens and the Islamists.

Abandoning the hard line of “boots on the ground” and combining with and the embracing of environmental movement with Leftist/Marxist ideologies and the anti-War ideologies provided a powerful base for the alliance with Islamists.

The Greens gained financial support and the willingness of a cadre of people willing to die for a cause and the Islamists gained the credibility and most important the access to the manpower and halls of power.

Al Qaeda Forges the links with the Leftist/Marxist Alliance

It was al Qaeda’s number two man—Aymen-al-Zawahiri—who first advocated a Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance against Western democracies. In August 2002, he urged al Qaeda sympathizers to seek alliance with “any movement that opposes America, even atheists.” The strategy of penetrating and joining existing organizations was put forward in “The Project,” to be discussed below.

Like Joschka Fischer before them, al Qaeda recognized that they could utilize the media and political action to accomplish their goals. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt followed the lead.

According to Susanne Koelbl writing on August 17 in Spiegel Online: Terrorists are becoming increasingly adept at producing high-quality videos. DVDs depicting bloody beheadings are now available at markets in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They're also on the Web.

That the Internet has become a communication platform for terrorists—as well as for their supporters and their adversaries—is nothing new. These days, though, a close monitoring of the Web reveals the increasing brutality of the international jihadist movement. The radicals' isolation and desperation is also on full display. The images, though, also document the vulnerability of Western armies in the remote mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Iraq, together with the challenges they face in dealing with the realities of the countries in which they operate.

Intelligence services believe that the Pakistani city of Quetta is home to what is probably the most professional media workshop of terror. The city, in the state of Beluchistan in the Pashtun border region, is considered a Taliban stronghold. And it plays host to al-Qaeda's propaganda headquarters, the “Foundation for Islamic Media Production,” or “Al-Sahab.”

The most important statements issued by the godfather of terror Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the head of al- Qaeda's Iraq division until he was killed in June, were edited and processed here. What began as an amateur operation producing poor-quality videos has since turned into a highly professional outfit.

Al-Qaeda Issues An ‘Invitation’

In February 2005, Jane's Defense Weekly wrote with concern about what it called “significant developments” in the composition of jihadist terror cells, including “an increase in the number of members who have 'joined' and were no longer 'recruited.'”

An Arabic pamphlet circulating on Islamist Web sites at about the same time, titled “How can I become a member of al- Qaeda?” seems to confirm that the path to al-Qaeda & Co. is growing ever shorter. The pamphlet's response to its own question, according to a translation provided by the Washington based institute SITE, is as follows:
Al-Qaida is no longer merely an organization fighting Jews and crusaders alone. Today the al-Qaeda issues an ‘invitation’ that asks all Muslims to rise up in support of God's religion. ... Whoever answers this call is seen as part of al-Qaeda, whether or not you wish this to happen. But if you are a true Muslim, you have no other choice but to heed this call.
With this approach, al-Qaeda is attracting instant mujahedeen who like the London bus and subway bombers, essentially recruit themselves within a breathtakingly short amount of time. As a result, they are far more unpredictable and difficult to recognize than Afghanistan veterans.
Complications on the Issue of Profiling

The debate over profiling airline passengers revived after the thwarted Islamist plot to bomb 10 airplanes in London on Aug. 10. The sad fact is, through inertia, denial, cowardice, and political correctness, Western airport security services — with the notable exception of Israel's — search primarily for the implements of terrorism, while largely ignoring passengers.
The profiling techniques such as Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT, now operating in twelve U.S. airports did discover passengers with forged visas, fake IDs, stolen airline tickets, and various forms of contraband — its utility for counter-terrorism is dubious. Terrorists trained to answer questions convincingly, avoid sweating, and control stress should easily be able to evade the system.

The fact that the Muslims are recruiting themselves for al-Qaeda complicates the issue of profiling. As reported in a UPI article on August 16, a number of prominent persons such as the former Metropolitan Police Chief Lord John Stevens has lent his support to profiling at all airports, saying Islamic terrorism in the West has been 'universally carried out by young Muslim men,' usually traveling alone or in small groups.

Meanwhile Times of London columnist Martin Samuel scoffed at arguments that terrorists rarely fit a certain profile.

In the event of racial profiling, there will be no Mid-Surrey branch of al-Qaida forming on the hoof. As for cunning disguises, we know them. There are two looks: beard on and beard off,' he wrote.

Evidently neither Lord Stevens or Samuel have ever attended a meeting of the outlawed militant group al-Muhajiroun, which counts numerous young men, women and even children of white and black British descent among its members.

When this UPI journalist went undercover into a London meeting of the group last year, she was shocked to meet a significant number of white British converts to this radical interpretation of Islam, many of whom were young women from middle class families in rural counties such as Dorset, Somerset and yes, even Surrey.

Like their dark-skinned, bearded associates, they too swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and pledged to raise their children to become suicide bombers, with no apparent concern that they did not fit the usual profile of a potential terrorist.

A similarly flagrant disregard for stereotypes was displayed by July 7 bomber Germaine Lindsay, of Jamaican origin, and the white British Muslim convert suspected in last week`s airline plot, from the genteel Buckinghamshire town of High Wycombe.

One can be sure that should Osama bin Laden get wind that airport officials are focusing their search on young men of Asian appearance, individuals like these will be the first he turns to carry out his next plot.

Likewise, the assumption that all citizens of the Arab and Muslim world are of one appearance is mistaken. Throughout the Middle East, particularly in countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Iran, there are millions of individuals with fair coloring who would be indistinguishable from their European or American counterparts.

As the Association of Chief Police Officers rightly warns, stereotyping terror suspects will 'create a gap' in policing for terrorists to exploit. Start looking for dark-haired individuals and one can be certain that Al Qaeda will put aside its contempt for western values and start reaching for the peroxide, if it furthers their cause.

Three conclusions emerge from this discussion. First, because Islamist terrorists are all Muslims, there does need to be a focus on Muslims. Second, such notions as "Muslim-only lines" at airports are infeasible; rather, intelligence must drive efforts to root out Muslims with an Islamist agenda.

Daniel pipes in his article Time to Profile Airline Passengers? in the New York Sun on August 22, commented: Noting the limited impact that losing 3,000 lives had in 2001 and building on my "education by murder" hypothesis — that people wake up to the problem of radical Islam only when blood is flowing in the streets — I predict that effective profiling will only come into effect when many more Western lives, say 100,000, have been lost.

Joe Lieberman vs. Ted Lamont

When antiwar activist and atheist Ned Lamont, the heir of the Lamont family fortune and its vast political clout announced he would seek to unseat an incumbent Democratic Senator, all of Lieberman's Democratic colleagues in the US Senate quickly distanced themselves from Joe, stating that it would not be right for them to side with either candidate during the August primary race, adding that—whichever one won—they would solidly support the winner of the August 9 primary. There was no doubt in the minds of any of them that the winner would be Ned Lamont. However, as election eve approached, Lieberman cut Lamont's double-digit lead of 13 points down to 6—51 to 46 and then, 4 points.

On the eve of the election, it was anyone's ball game. So, late in the 9th inning, Connecticut's senior Senator Christopher Dodd [D] showed up for a pre-balloting photo op with Lieberman. So did New York's Chuck Schumer [D]. So did Massachusetts' Edward Kennedy and so did Delaware's Joe Biden. None were 100% sure that Lamont would win. If Lieberman won the nomination, he would be reelected. If he was reelected, his colleagues within the Democratic Party needed to make sure Joe was not mad at the party—or those colleagues who would have to count on his vote. The night before the balloting it was clear that the election would be decided by voter turnout. But, the moment the count was tallied; all of them ran to embrace Lamont as the winner.

As the Lieberman Campaign worked to get voters to the polls, hackers stepped in. With the primary boiling down to how the candidates used the means at their disposal to provide transport for voters, or directions to polling places, the Lieberman camp discovered their website had been hacked and knocked out of cyberspace. Lieberman supporters who needed a ride to the polls could not access the Lieberman for US Senate website to contact the Campaign for ride share information. Lieberman told reporters that:

“...[s]omething outrageous happened to our website today. It's been hacked and sabotaged and knocked down. We don't know that it's my opponent's campaign—but who else would have the motivation to hack into and knock down our website on primary day?”

This showed the power of the Internet and its role in political movements. These events are not unnoticed by Al-Qaeda, as we will see below.

Lamont forces, of course, denied they had anything to do with the sabotage—and, they probably didn't. There were enough anti-war, anti-American George Soros MoveOn.org people around to do the dirty work. Asked by the media if his people sabotaged Lieberman's website, Lamont called it “just another scurrilous charge” by Lieberman as he denied tampering with the website. Lamont offered to send a technician to fix it. But having Lieberman's website down during peak voting hours may have given Lamont just the edge he needed to eek out a primary victory.
The anti-war contingent of the Axis of Appeasement plays a role in U.S. elections. Jon C. Ryter in his article When The Invisible Power Chooses To Be Seen commented: This is a significant and sad step in the Democrats’ transformation from serious political party to mouthpiece for the anti-war, anti-capitalist, “Blame America First” crowd. No longer merely the lunatic fringe, the far left—best represented by Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, various Hollywood half-wits, and MoveOn.org, funded by billionaires like George Soros and Peter Lewis—now openly control one of the two major political parties in America. This race has shown that there is no longer any place for moderation or alternative points of view in the party ranks. Though not all Democrat voters are left-wing radicals, not even in deep-blue Connecticut, any potential nominee for office must gain the approval of that group. Not even a long-time favorite like Joe Lieberman can represent the Democrats if he expresses a conflicting point of view on a major issue like Iraq.
This is the group the Islamists and their supporters have apparently hitched their wagon to—at least temporarily. The Internet is also the choice of the Islamists.

The Internet
Widely recognized as the indispensable tool of anti-war activists, the Internet has indeed revolutionized the organization of social movements in general. As a low cost, global tool for communicating and disseminating information, the Internet works below the radar of the mainstream media, providing a wide variety of information websites, on-line petitions, and up-to-date schedules of events.

MoveOn exemplifies the modern activist organization, skilled at Internet communication for the purposes of petition-signing, on-line fundraising, and gathering the masses for street protests. Founded to promote civic action and democracy, MoveOn has rapidly become one of the best-known Internet-based organizations involved in the Anti-War Movement. Wes Boyd, MoveOn founder, said his organization was designed to “connect with those who do not support the war but who aren’t always comfortable with showing their feelings by taking to the streets”. Following the October 2002 protests, MoveOn decided that the anti-war rally was “all over the map politically and not very appealing to a mainstream perspective”, so they discussed forming a more ‘mainstream, patriotic coalition’ that would be more “welcoming to mainstream constituencies”.

Since then, MoveOn has leveraged the Internet to create a new kind of organization with the ability to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and move tens of thousands of people to action within hours. On March 11, 2003, MoveOn delivered a petition to the fifteen members of the United Nations Security Council with more than one million signatures collected from around the world in less than five days. In another effort, MoveOn collected more than $400 000 US to finance anti-war television advertisements. The money funded a re-made version of the “Daisy” ad, originally aired in the 1960s, which shows a girl plucking petals from a daisy, contrasted with a missile launch countdown and nuclear mushroom clouds. MoveOn’s most recent activities include the organization of a global candlelight vigil (vigils were organised in more than seven thousand communities around the world), as well as petitioning, emailing policy makers, raising and distributing money, as well as other forms of direct activism and grassroots media buying.
The organization currently has more than 750 000 members in the US alone, and is both active and supported worldwide. One of MoveOn’s organizers, Eli Pariser, suggests reasons for MoveOn’s success: “In a sense, part of MoveOn’s attraction is that it aims for normal people, not just activists, and it engages them successfully…Part of its appeal is that it serves as a ‘direct line to god’. There is no big bureaucracy. You make a contribution, you sign something, and you get immediate action.” MoveOn is also a member of the Win Without War coalition.

August 12, 2006 Anti-War Demonstrations

More then 30,000 demonstrators filled the streets around the White House chanting, “Stop the US-Israeli war against Lebanon and Palestine” in Washington, D.C. Similar demonstrations were held in other major cities across the country and worldwide. The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation and the National Council of Arab Americans initiated the demonstration.

As reported on the A.N.S.W.E.R website: “Speakers at the Washington D.C. demonstration included, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark; Mahdi Bray the Executive Director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; Mara Verheyden-Hilliard an attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice; Brian Becker the National Coordinator of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition; Dr. Mounzer Sleiman of the National Council of Arab Americans; Osama Siblani Publisher at Arab American News; Peta Lindsay Howard University student and Coordinator ANSWER Student and Youth; and Dr. Clovis Maksoud the Former ambassador from the Arab League to the U.N, Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), and others.”

To get some image of the Stop the US Israeli War rally in San Francisco, August 12, 2006, you may view the photos of the flags of the Hezbollah and Hamas.

The article posted on the ADL website: ANSWER, Antiwar Rallies and Support for Terror Organizations provides interesting background on the organization. The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, which has organized scores of antiwar demonstrations in the U.S. since its founding by the New York-based International Action Center (IAC) in 2001, has played a key role in inserting anti-Israel sentiment into the antiwar movement.

ANSWER’s National Coordinator Brian Becker described the march as the first national protest against “the new U.S.-Israeli war” that is “killing the people of Lebanon and Palestine.” During a recent appearance on FOX News, Becker said, “The acts of the Israeli government, the Israeli Air Force, with U.S.-supplied weapons and U.S. taxpayer money are acts of terrorism against civilians.” He later added, “Do I consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization?” “The answer is no.”

Becker’s view of Hezbollah is no surprise. ANSWER, which considers Israel a capitalist outpost for Western powers, has supported anyone that counters the spread of capitalism around the world, including genocidal dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosovic. This worldview has been apparent at many ANSWER rallies that have included support of Palestinian terrorist leaders over the past few years.

The August 12 march follows many rallies organized by ANSWER, IAC and other anti-Israel groups across the country since the start of the current Middle East conflict in June. These rallies have promoted a very harsh and unapologetic message denouncing Israel and U.S. foreign policy. They have also included a proliferation of anti-Semitic expression and support for the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

March 20, 2004: ANSWER organized major antiwar demonstrations in New York City and San Francisco to coincide with antiwar rallies against the war in Iraq across the United States and the world. Other antiwar groups led by United for Peace and Justice, the other major protest organizer, initially intended to focus solely on the situation in Iraq, but ANSWER organized a coalition of anti-Israel groups who petitioned United for Peace and Justice to include an anti-Zionist message at there events. United for Peace and Justice eventually acceded and anti-Israel messages pervaded the demonstrations.

Sojourners is a member organization of the Win Without War and United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalitions. Giving voice to Sojourners' intense anti-Americanism, Jim Wallis called the U.S. “… the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.” Please note, as a coalition of organizations, UFPJ does not have individual members. Individuals are encouraged to join a local group in their community. For the list of national and international member groups see: United for Peace and Justice. Truly an astounding list brings together the Green Party, anti-war groups, Greenpeace, Code Pink and socialist and communist party organizations.
In New York, Al-Awda, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and other pro-Palestinian groups waved Palestinian flags, while some chanted “Intifada Intifada, Long Live the Intifada.” The anti-Israel presence was even more dominant at the nearly 10,000-strong rally in San Francisco. Signs and messages included “No blood for Israel,” “I want you to die for Israel. Israel Sings: Onward Christian Soldiers” and a model Israeli tank with dollars dripping blood and the sign, “Paid for with US tax dollars.” Another sign read, “I Love NYC even more without the World Trade Center.”

Many conspiracy theorists attended the New York City and San Francisco protests. A group called the 9/11 Truth Alliance [A member group of United for Peace and Justice.], which contends that the Bush administration staged the attacks, distributed signs saying “Stop the 9-11 Cover-Up” at both rallies. It also handed out “deception dollars,” large replicas of paper currency covered with links to conspiracy and also anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Web sites.
December 2003: At the Second International Cairo Conference, ANSWER representatives met with Hamas leader Osama Hamdan. Hamdan, who heads Hamas in Lebanon and openly supports suicide bombing, was invited to the conference by the event’s sponsors, the International Campaign Against U.S. and Zionist Occupations, a movement co-founded by the IAC. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who heads the IAC, co-director Sara Flounders, and Elias Rashmawi of ANSWER all served as organizers for the conference. This conference is described in my article The Origins of the Next Great War are Visible.
To understand the magnitude of impact of the Anti-War Movement and the list of the organizations interlinked it is suggested that you read: THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT WAGING PEACE ON THE BRINK OF WAR Geneva, March 2003 –Centre for Applied Studies in International Negotiations (CASIN).

The US and Israel Stand Alone

In the Spiegel Interview with Jimmy Carter on August 12, 2006, he is quoted as follows:
SPIEGEL: You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this circumstance, does it come as any surprise that Washington's call for democracy in the Middle East has been discredited?
Carter: No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.
SPIEGEL: But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?

Carter: I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no.

SPIEGEL: One main points of your book is the rather strange coalition between Christian fundamentalists and the Republican Party. How can such a coalition of the pious lead to moral catastrophes like the Iraqi prison scandal in Abu Ghraib and torture in Guantanamo?
Carter: The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God's ideas and God's premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases – as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world – it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant. Another thing is that a fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality. And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them – which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern. And, of course, fundamentalists don't believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it's just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Role of Hezbollah in the Middle East

According to report on August 17, 2006 by the GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE BRIEF Strategic Forecasting, Inc. “Organizations like Hezbollah are needed in Egypt, Iraq and Jordan to assist Muslims in continuing their campaigns against Israel, leading Sunni religious scholar, Qatar-based Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi [Spiritual leader if Muslim Brotherhood.], said during a speech at Cairo University, Egyptian daily al-Masri al-Youm reported.”

Recognize that the Muslim Brotherhood has worldwide influence through its offshoots in the U.S. and on college campuses.

As reported by the AFP on August 17, 2006 Leading Islamist calls for holy war on Israel. The prominent Islamist preacher Sheikh Youssef Al Qaradawi has called for a holy war against Israel, an Egyptian newspaper reported Wednesday. [Note the parallel call: Ayatollah Ali Khamemenei also called for ‘holy war’.]

“Muslims must carry out jihad to liberate all the land of Islam. Palestine does not belong only to the Palestinians but to all Muslims,” Qaradawi was quoted as saying by the Al-Masri Al-Yom independent daily. [This is a very significant statement, thus promoting the concept of the ummah, the Islamic kingdom of God on Earth—one world without borders.]
The Egyptian-born cleric, best known for his regular appearances on the Qatari satellite channel, Al Jazeera, said that the Islamic world “needs men like those of Hezbollah: in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and everywhere.” [Qaradawi is bridging the gap between the Sunni and Shia—a common enemy is Israel and the U.S.]

“There isn't even an Arab willingness to fight Israel,” he complained at a seminar at the University of Cairo, adding: “The peace that the Arab leaders are calling for is in fact a capitulation.”

Qaradawi, who now lives in Qatar and has close links to the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, said that Islamic law, or Shariah, dictated, “if a land of Islam is occupied, the entire population must resist and start jihad.”

The 78-year-old achieved star status with his appearances on Al Jazeera's weekly religious affairs program “Al Sharia wa Al Haya” (Islamic Law and Life) and has consistently defended Palestinian suicide attacks against Israel. Qaradawi is a brilliant and very influential scholar of Islam and has a huge following not only among Muslim countries, but throughout the world.

Islamist Sunni-Shia Convergence

On Wednesday 16 August 2006 From Ikhwan’s official website we learn of the Islamist Sunni-Shia convergence occurring in Lebanon: Lebanese Ikhwan announces it will join Hezbollah in reconstruction.

On August 21, 2006, President Bush pledges the United States will increase its humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Lebanon to $230 million to help the country recover after weeks of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Speaking at the White House August 21, Bush said the funds would help the Lebanese people return to their communities and rebuild their homes, restore infrastructure such as bridges and roads and rehabilitate schools in time for the beginning of the fall school year.

“Our nation is wasting no time in helping the people of Lebanon,” he said. “America is making a long-term commitment to help the people of Lebanon because we believe every person … deserves to live in a free, open society that respects the rights of all.”

Islamists have wasted no time moving in to gain support. In these critical first days after the war, Hezbollah and its financial backers in Tehran have seized the moment. They are appeasing those who might have been expected to denounce Hezbollah from the wreckage of their homes. And they are entrenching their support among a growing army of sympathizers.

Iran’s money is crucial. Estimates vary widely, but one Hezbollah source said as much as $1 billion had been made available by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president; another that the Iranian leader had placed no limit on the money pouring in.

After the UN-brokered ceasefire solidified, the Lebanese Islamists announced that they will be a partner in reconstruction operations. In an exclusive statement to Ikhwanweb, Deputy Chairman of the Lebanese Jama’a Islamia (The Muslim Brotherhood offshoot in Lebanon) said that the reconstruction process requires strenuous efforts especially financial ones to restore or rebuild the war ravaged areas.” The reconstruction process requires astronomical sums of money, and of course our group cannot afford such hefty funds, so we intend to share with our utmost financial and other relief works, especially that we took part in so many relief activities during the war, opening our institutes and schools before the displaced citizens and provided them with all available accommodation”, he said, adding that it is Hezbollah which has a plan for the reconstruction of the south. He quoted Hezbollah Chairman Hassan Nasrullah in his recent address as pledging to reconstruct the south and pay one -year rent for the war-hit families pending the end of the reconstruction plan and their return to their homes, adding that Iran could provide financial aid for the Hezbollah’s reconstruction plan

Following the Strategies Laid Out by The Muslim Brotherhood

On October 28, 2005, President George W. Bush denounced IslamoFascist movements that call for a “violent and political vision: the establishment, by terrorism, subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.”

The Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun) also known as the Ikhwan is a good example of what the President described and what he must protect us against.
The Muslim Brotherhood (“MB”) organization describes itself as a political and social revolutionary movement; it was founded in March 1928 in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna, who objected to Western influence and called for return to an original Islam.

The Brotherhood is an expansive and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries, dedicated to creating a global Islamic order that would isolate women and punish nonbelievers. Its members and supporters founded al Qaeda, as well as one “of the largest college student groups in the United States.”

Quoting from my latest book: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad - The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance.

Al-Banna had connections to Sufism, and he used the sufi-tariqa model for organizing the Brotherhood while rejecting Sufi “superstitions.” At first, the Muslim Brotherhood concentrated mainly on moral and social reforms, establishing educational and welfare programs. Then, following its rapid growth, it became more politically active and founded a secret military arm. It developed a tightly knit organization with a network of branches, subdivided into secret cell groups, with a missionary network that spread into Syria, Palestine and the Sudan. Members were recruited from rural and lower class backgrounds, as well as from the urban middle classes, and they received intensive ideological and physical training.

Al-Banna outlined a gradualist strategy in three stages: the Propaganda (preparation) Stage, the Organization Stage (aimed at educating the people), and finally, the Action Stage. While tactics might change, the strategic objectives of the Brotherhood remain unchanged: to receive explicit political recognition so as to be able to operate freely in the social, economic and political arena, and to implement Shariah in an Islamic state.

The strategy of al-Banna has and is being implemented today in Europe and the rest of the world. We are witnessing the effect of the final stages in Europe. He could only have dreamed of the success we are seeing today.

The Project and the Protocols of Zion

According to Sylvain Besson, an investigative journalist for the daily newspaper, Time, in Geneva, in his book of “La conquete de L’Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes“ (The conquest of the occident: The secret project of the Islamists), Swiss authorities made a worrying discovery at the time of a searching carried out in the villa of Egyptian banker Youssef Nada in Lugano in November 2001. Swiss investigators discovered “The Project,” an ambitious strategy intended “to establish the kingdom of God over the whole world.”

“The Project” is a fourteen-page leaflet, dated December 1982, calling for the Muslim Brotherhood’s conquest of the world. It is a detailed roadmap to attain this objective. The Muslim Brothers must infiltrate existing institutions, rather than create their own. It calls for a guerilla war against Israel in the Palestinian territories and support to diverse armed Muslim groups from Bosnia to the Philippines. Swiss investigators confirm that the Project is the proof of the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in supporting and inspiring the “worldwide jihad.”

Nada was the manager of the “Al-Taqwa” bank, suspected by the Americans of supporting terrorism. However, Nada, who has denied any ties with terrorism, has admitted being in the past one of the principal leaders of the international branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Nada denied to have written “The Project,” as it was simply kept during twenty years. The Time article explained why “Islamic researchers” wrote this document, but it does not represent an official position of the Muslim Brotherhood. The identity of its author, for example, remains unknown. (al-Qaradawi was a director of Al-Taqwa bank and the intellectual guide of the European Council for Fatwa and Research.)

The document also recommends “to study the local and world centers of authority, and the possibilities of placing them under influence,” “to enter in contact with all new movements engaged in the jihad wherever that it is on planet, to create cells of the jihad in Palestine,” and “to nourish the feeling of rancor with regard to the Jews.” The document describes the strategy planned to ensure a growing influence of the Brotherhood on the Muslim world. It is stipulated there that the Muslim Brothers “should not act in the name of the Brotherhood, but infiltrate in the existing organizations. Their existence will not be located, and then neutralized.”

Accordingly, the Project could play a part in creation by the Muslim Brothers and their heirs to a network of religious, educational and charitable institutions in Europe and in the United States.
The Project indeed recommends “to build institutions—social, economic, scientific and medical, and to penetrate the field of the social services to be in liaison with the people.” Some of the most successful strategies leading to conversion and ultimate membership in jihadist organizations have been through social organizations, including daycare centers and nurseries.
The importance of the Project is due as much to its history, and that of the men who surround it, than with its contents. Its intellectual origins go back to the years 1960, when Sa’id Ramadan, the “theorist as a chief” of the Muslim Brotherhood, found refuge in Geneva. In September 1964, its newspaper, El Muslimoun, published a text inviting it to launch an “ideological war” against the Occident. It was then a question of answering the creation of the State of Israel, considered by the Islamists as an element of a vast plot against the Islamic religion and its faithful: “This is why we are convinced that this elaborate ideological plan must be countered by an ideological plan quite as elaborate, and that it is necessary to answer its ideological attacks, with its ideological war, by an ideological war.” The article explicitly refers to the “Protocol of Elders of Zion,” a document manufactured by the Tsarist police force that describes an alleged Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. Although it is a forgery, this text’s anti-Semitism is taken seriously in the Islamist media.

In August 2004, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the “Protocol” was quoted during a recent meeting of he European Council for Fatwa and Research (CEFR). According to a participant in the meeting, the Protocol of the Elders showed the existence of a Jewish plot intended to destroy the values morals of the Muslim families. It is understood that to such ideas, the Islamists wanted to react by developing their own “Project.”

Al-Qaradawi’s ideas fall into line with some of the ideas of the Project. Thus, in a text published in 1990, the CEFR proposed to develop the presence of the Islamic Movement within the “groups of Jihad” in order “to eliminate all the foreign influences from the grounds of Islam, from Morocco to Indonesia.”

Just as a side, for most European secret services, Tariq Ramadan, the new advisor on terrorism to British Prime Minister Blair, is the unofficial head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. It looks as if the infiltration is working fine! It is not every day that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2004 revokes a visa issued to a Swiss-national scholar scheduled to teach at one of America’s premier universities. But this has just happened, and it is a good thing. The Swiss scholar is Tariq Ramadan. He is Islamist royalty—his maternal grandfather, Hasan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. Tariq is a Swiss citizen because his father, Sa‘id Ramadan, also a leading Islamist, fled from Egypt in 1954 following a crackdown on the Brotherhood. Sa‘id reached Geneva in 1958, where Tariq was born in 1962.

Thanks to his pedigree and his talents, Ramadan has emerged as a significant force in his own right. Symbolic of this, Time magazine in April 2004 named him one of the world’s top hundred scientists and thinkers. And so when Notre Dame University went looking for a Henry R. Luce professor of religion, conflict and peace-building, it unsurprisingly settled on Mr. Ramadan. As Lee Smith writes in The American Prospect, he is “a cold-blooded Islamist, whose cry of death to the West is a quieter and gentler jihad, but it’s still jihad.”

Al-Qaeda Book on Managing Savagery

Also contributing to the West’s understanding of the Islamist’s strategy for world domination is the book The Management of Savagery. Stephen Ulph describes the content of this book as the thinking of an al-Qaeda strategist on the next stages of the struggle. Posted on the al-Ikhlas jihadi forum [http://ekhlas.com/forum] the work is entitled Idarat al-Tawahhush, “The Management of Barbarism,” further defined as “the phase of transition to the Islamic state.” Due to the strategic importance of the document, Terrorism Focus of the Jamestown Foundation has undertaken an in-depth examination of the Arabic text.

Published by the Center of Islamic Studies and Research (an al-Qaeda affiliate), the 113-page work ‘Management of Barbarism’ aims to map out the progressive stages of establishing an Islamic state, from early beginnings in defined areas in the Arabian Peninsula, or Nigeria, Jordan, the Maghreb, Pakistan or Yemen, and its subsequent global expansion. The author is Abu Bakr Naji, a name familiar from his contributions to the Sawt al-Jihad online magazine (which are republished at the end of this book).

By “Management of Barbarism” the author refers to the period just after the collapse of a superpower, the period of “savage chaos”. It appears pointedly to be a method of not repeating the experience of Afghanistan prior to the rule of the Taliban, and of improving controls over the periods experienced, for instance, in Somalia after the fall of Siad Barre.

Jihadi strategy.

The ‘Path of Empowerment’ theme constitutes the strategy of the mujahideen. In this the author further sub-divides into three distinct phases:
1) The Disruption and Exhaustion phase
2) The Management of Barbarism [Savagery] phase
3) The Empowerment phase
In the first “Disruption and Exhaustion” phase, the mujahideen are to a) exhaust the enemy's forces by stretching them through dispersal of targets and b) “attract the youth through exemplary targeting such as occurred at Bali, Al-Muhayya and Djerba.”
At the “Management of Barbarism phase”, the mujahideen are to “establish internal security, ensure food and medical supplies, defend the zone from external attack, establish Shariah justice, an armed force, an intelligence service, provide economic sufficiency, defend against [public] hypocrisy and deviant opinions and ensure obedience, and the establishment of alliances with neighboring elements that are yet to give total conformity to the Management, and improve management structures.”

The “Empowerment” phase is an extension of the above. The policy is to continue Disruption and Exhaustion activities, at the same time establishing logistic links with the various Management zones. A conspicuous example of this phase is the series of events leading up to the September 11 attacks on the United States, which “destroyed the peoples' awe of America and of the lesser ranking Apostate armies.” The fall of Afghanistan, the author explains, was either planned to happen, or was due to happen even without the September 11 events, and had as the result the multiplication of jihadi groups bent on revenge.

[As shown above, the result of the Lebanon war was the destruction of awe of the Israeli military might.]
As for future targeting, this should be variegated “in all parts of the Islamic world and beyond it. For instance, in striking at tourist resorts frequented by Crusaders, all tourist resorts will have to be secured,” with all the dispersal of energy and costs [economic jihad] this involves. The same goes for Crusader banks in Turkey employing interest, or petrol installations near Aden, which will subsequently oblige security hikes for refineries, pipelines and shipping. “If two apostate authors are simultaneously liquidated in two different countries, it will require the security for thousands of writers in the Islamic world.” [The Islamist terrorist plot against the airlines in London resulting increased security and flight delays.]

An important feature of this phase is the attention to be given to media and propaganda strategy, both for winning support and recruitment, and for deterring opposition. [The extensive Iranian propaganda claiming victory for the Hezbollah in Lebanon, resulting in increased support for the Islamists throughout the region and possibly the world. Thus the events and subsequent cease-fire agreement empowered further the anti-war movement.] The media strategy should ‘target in depth middle ranking officers in the armed forces [of Muslim nations] to push them to join the jihad.’ It should ‘aim at every stage to justify operations to the populous legally and intellectually … given that, assuming that our long struggle will require half a million mujahideen, getting such a number from a nation of millions is easier than from the ranks of the Islamic movement.’ [Thus the linking with the leftist’s anti-war movement.]

Jihadi Tactic

The third theme, “The Most Important Principles and Policies,” gives details on tactics. After discussing the necessity of establishing a proper chain of command, in both the doctrinal and military fields, the author outlines important military principles (“striking with the heaviest force at the weakest point; a superior enemy is defeated by economic and military attrition”). He further suggests four major reference sources: “The Encyclopedia of Jihad (prepared by the mujahideen in Afghanistan) [The Encyclopedia of Jihad is now available on the web. See: AL-QAIDA'S ONLINE UNIVERSITY - Jihad 101 for Would-Be Terrorists], the al-Battar magazine; the writings of Abu Ubayd al-Qurashi in the al-Ansar magazine, along with other works on the al-Uswa website; general works on military science, particularly on guerrilla warfare, provided the student rectifies the errors in them respective to Islamic law.

In the sub-section “The Application of Vehemence” subtitled “The Policy of Paying the Price,” Abu Bakr Naji warns against the dangers of anything other than maximum violence as a deterrent, or as a response, even if the response should take years. The response, the author states, “is best done by other groups and in other countries than those suffering the act of enmity … to give the enemy the sense of being surrounded and his interests exposed … and to confuse him.” An example of this method would be, say, in response to the Egyptians' imprisonment of mujahideen, an attack by mujahideen upon an Egyptian embassy in the Arabian Peninsula or the Maghreb, or the kidnapping of Egyptian diplomats, who should be “liquidated horrifically” if the mujahideen's demands are not met.

Stress is then laid upon the need to understand how international politics work. In the sub-section “Understanding the Rules of the Political Game” Abu Bakr Naji highlights how mujahid groups that refused to soil their hands with profane political calculations paid the price. The difficulty of reconciling Islamic legal propriety with pragmatic military interest is resolved, in the author's eyes, by recourse to the example set by [the 14th century jurist] Ibn Qayyim, who set Prophetic precedent as a preference, but not an obligation.

An important feature of this game, Naji illustrates, is the manipulation of the international media, and ensuring that the message gets through to the target, in its widest sense, and not just to the minority elite. “We must therefore set up an association whose purpose is to ensure the communication of our demands to people, even if this should expose them to dangers akin to the perils of combat … such as the taking of a hostage. After raising the hullabaloo concerning him we demand that media correspondents publish our demands in full in return for his release … Our demand might be a statement of warning or justification for an operation.” An effective response to government media's demonization of mujahid actions is to prepare the ground by first demonizing the target as something Islamically forbidden or serving the economic interests of the enemy. Naji then gives an imaginary scenario of an attempt to adjust oil prices in favor of the people where a deadline is issued and an oil engineer or manager or journalist is kidnapped to ensure that the demand is fully publicized.

Points of weakness

The fourth major theme in the work covers “The Most Pressing Difficulties and Obstacles” that will face the mujahideen. These are listed as the diminution in the numbers of believers as casualties in war, the lack of sufficiently trained administrators (and the relative social distance many of these have from the rank and file) and the problems caused by over-enthusiasm in the behavior of some. Naji also highlights the problems that will be faced with old loyalties to other Islamist groups impeding administration in the new Management phases, or the threat of schism.

The Underlying Cause Driving the Axis of Appeasement

It appears to be lack of moral values corresponding to the Judeo-Christian ideologies and seeking economic gain at any cost further drives it. Some of the Fellows at Hoover Institute have published recent articles about the subject but do not seem to have the answer to counter the influence. The ideologies seem to go back the lack of understanding the risks dating to the 1930’s as noted by Victor Davis Hanson in his article The Brink of Madness and Thomas Sowell in his article Pacifists versus peace. It appears that this may have coalesced into the “The Axis of Appeasement.”

Man Seeking Consensus

Man by nature seeks consensus. But the means he manipulates for this end do not always serve the purpose. Human history is full of momentous events whereby certain individuals or groups have endeavored to effect an agreement but the consequences of these events have far exceeded the innocence of their initiators. Religions or belief systems have always occupied a significant place in man’s struggle for consensus. Some contemporary intellectuals have stressed the importance of inter-religious communication to the degree that without a factual understanding between the adherents of various world religions, they claim, the future of mankind will remain under threat. In seeking this consensus we are witnessing the rise of the ‘Axis of Appeasement’. The name that is commonly used for this new era is postmodernism.
Following in the footsteps of the pre-postmodern Nietzsche – God is dead, the intellectuals that were the philosophers of the Frankfurt School developed philosophies known as “Critical Theory’ or ‘Cultural Marxism’ thus promoted postmodernism to go after the hearts and minds of the population. The intellectual ‘reformers’ of Islam are utilizing these same successful tactics used to create the Postmodern Era and are now utilizing ‘Critical Islam’ as the guideline - the strategic weapon for communication with the adherents of other religions. Thus one of their slogans is ‘From The Schoolhouse To The White House’.

The uniformity of fundamental beliefs among believers of the same religion is no longer in intact, due to exposition to various propaganda influences of different cultural orientations. Easy access to the knowledge of alien cultures has caused considerable polarization among co-religionists, so much that difference of opinion between two members of a religion on essential matters may become greater than that may exist between members of two different religions. A good example of this is the discrepancy in respect of worldview between a traditional Muslim and a secular one. The former may feel that a practicing Christian is nearer to him than the secular Muslim as far as the similarity between their respective fundamental (metaphysical) beliefs is concerned. In such a situation it would be more befitting for a Muslim that is anxious to propagate his belief, to start with his coreligionist: the so-called secular-minded Muslim, rather than attempting to convert a Christian. It is also this ‘Moral Trade Deficit’ within the Christian church that provides the vacuum being filled by postmodernism and ‘Critical Islam’.
As we witnessed following the 3/11 terrorists attacks on the trains in Spain during run up to the election in 2004, the terrorists were able to control the election. The populous were more concerned with survival amidst chaos than with experiencing truth and significance. One more step toward achieving Osama bin Laden’s goal of returning Andalusia into the caliphate.


Bio: David J. Jonsson is the author of Clash of Ideologies –The Making of the Christian and Islamic Worlds, Xulon Press 2005. His new book: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad: The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance (Salem Communications (May 30, 2006). He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics. He worked for major corporations in the United States and Japan and with multilateral agencies that brought him to more that fifteen countries with significant or majority populations who are Muslim. These exposures provided insight into the basic tenants of Islam as a political, economic and religious system. He became proficient in Islamic law (Shariah) through contract negotiation and personal encounter. Jonsson may be reached at: djonsson2000@yahoo.co.uk

Col. Drake and the Age of Oil

by Byron King

for Whiskey & Gunpowder
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THERE HE WAS, as big as life and looking quite good for a man who died in 1880. I was on a visit to the Drake Well Museum, just south of Titusville, Pa. I was walking into the museum compound, and whom should I encounter but Col. Edwin Drake, dressed in the period garb one is accustomed to seeing in the grainy old photos. “Well, hello, Col. Drake.”

OK. It was not the real Col. Drake. This fellow is an actor who has been playing the role of Col. Drake for about 10 years. He gives talks to museum visitors and appears in films or news articles that call for a Drake look-alike. He has read much of the literature available on the life and times of Drake, he dresses for the part, and he is just the plain old spitting image of the famous man, down to his bushy brown beard. He is as near as one can get to being in the company of the famous man, and his life and remarkable times.


The Oil of Titusville

“Let me make something clear,” said Drake. “It was not I who found the oil of Titusville fame. The area is one of many oil seeps, from which petroleum simply flows from the ground and then runs down into the creeks and streams. The Seneca Indians had been gathering oil from the local creeks for several centuries, and there is evidence that other more ancient tribes also gathered the oil of these parts even before then.”

Drake is referring to the archaeological evidence that goes back about 1,500 years indicating that people were digging oil pits and gathering Pennsylvania rock oil since A.D. 500 or so. In all likelihood, the oil was used as a patent medicine, as a body rub, and for purposes such as caulking canoes. There is documentary evidence that white settlers were shipping small quantities of Seneca oil south for sale in Pittsburgh as early as 1790.

“Before my arrival in 1858,” said Drake, “there was an immense amount of timber in these parts. One of the largest firms in the area was a sawmill working on Oil Creek. The operators of the sawmill knew also of the oil, and gathered it up when it formed pools on top of the water. They too used the oil as patent medicine, and in the course of things noted its very good lubricating properties on the moving parts of the sawmill machinery. This had much to do with my eventually being here.”

Drake continued: “For many years, people had performed simple experiments on the oil, such as boiling it and collecting the various fractions that condensed. They noted that the different fractions had different properties. One of the owners of the sawmill, Mr. Brewer, was acquainted with certain members of the scientific faculty of Dartmouth College. Mr. Brewer sent to that school a sample of the local rock oil. One of the professors at Dartmouth forwarded the sample to the famed chemist Benjamin Silliman of Yale.

“Professor Silliman evaluated the oil and determined that it had many useful properties. It was, of course, well known as a lubricant, but it also could be used for purposes of illumination by burning it in lamps. There was at that time a growing demand for some substance to burn in lamps for the purposes of illumination. Professor Silliman prepared a report on the Seneca oil for a banker and investor from Connecticut named Mr. Townsend. It was Mr. Townsend who hired me and sent me to Titusville. My job was to determine if we could extract oil in large quantities.”

Pits and Holes

Drake went on with his discussion. “My first effort to recover oil was simply to dig a large pit into the ground in an effort to gather the oil at the bottom. But after several feet of digging, the hole started to fill with water from the very shallow water table. We were, after all, right next to a creek. So I lined the pit with wood planks, but even that did not keep out the water. We tried to drain the pit, but the water entered faster than the pumps could remove it. A pit was not going to work.

“It was then that I began to travel to other places and observe how people were mining substances and harvesting the products of the Earth. Near the town of Tarentum, on the Allegheny River, I encountered salt drillers. They would pound down an iron pipe into the salt beds and pump out brine water. After evaporating the water, they were left with salt. But some wells also produced an oily residue with the salt, so it became apparent to me that the oil might be flowing underground with other fluids. I decided to adapt the use of the iron pipe in an effort to push down a hole for oil near Oil Creek.

“Also, I heard of men working near what is now Parkersburg, W.Va. (it was Virginia back then), who were pounding down holes into the ground with iron tools. I hired a tool smith, named ‘Uncle Billy’ Smith, appropriately, to obtain or manufacture for me such similar tools.

“When I returned to Titusville, I immediately set about to drive down a hole into the ground using the digging tools. Shortly after starting the hole, I lined its walls with an iron pipe that we pushed down along with our drilling tool. This kept the walls from caving down into the hole, and also served to keep out most of the water from the adjacent soil. Once we hit bedrock, we kept on pounding down our hole.

“On Aug. 27, 1859, from a depth of 69 feet, we lifted our first quantities of oil from the hole, about 25 barrels in total.

“Thus, my achievement was not really in discovering oil, because the oil was already there for the taking. Nor was it my idea to use the oil for whatever purpose, because there were others who came before me. It was not even my role in history to extract the oil by digging downward for it, because others were already attempting the same thing. But my most notable accomplishment was in applying the concept of using a conductor pipe to protect the walls of the drill hole on the way down to the oil-bearing formation. This technique is still in use today, and is the foundation of the technology upon which is built the modern oil industry.”

Why an Oil Age?

Col. Drake brings up many good points that serve to explain the origins of the oil age, if not the origins of modern history. Why do some things happen the way that they do? What makes history?

People had known about the oil of the Titusville region for at least many centuries, certainly long before it was called Titusville. Why did the Seneca Indians, or their more ancient forebears, not usher in the Age of Petroleum? In another part of the world, by comparison, starting in the 16th century, the Spanish were importing barrels of oil from what is now Trinidad and Tobago, as well as from Venezuela. The queen of Spain, among others, used the oil to treat various family ailments. Why did this not usher in the Age of Petroleum?

And people certainly knew about digging pits, if not making holes in the ground, as well, long before Col. Drake muddied his boots along the banks of Oil Creek. Again, why does the credit for ushering in the Age of Petroleum go to Col. Drake? At about the same time that Drake was drilling his well in Titusville, other people were drilling holes in the ground in what is now West Virginia and eastern Ohio and southern Ontario near Petrolia. Within a year of Drake’s well at Titusville, other people achieved similar results in extracting oil from the rocks of New Brunswick, and there were even oil wells put down in Romania and southern Russia.

Even the initial news of Drake’s well at Titusville was overshadowed by events just two months later, when abolitionist John Brown took over the U.S. federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va. (now West Virginia). Most people had other things about which to think than some oil prospector driving down a hole in the backwoods of northwest Pennsylvania.

A Confluence of Events

What created the modern petroleum industry was a confluence of circumstances, and certainly of events. Col. Drake’s innovation in driving a hole into the earth was just one of many things along a long chain of events.

The oil, of course, had to be there, and Titusville was the right place with its relatively shallow oil-bearing rock formations. And one of the principal virtues of the Seneca oil was that it was (and is) devoid of asphaltic fractions. It is light, sweet, and even smells kind of good. But science also had to advance to the point at which there was a rational, if not economic, purpose behind the demand for what Col. Drake called “large amounts” of oil. Here is where Professor Silliman’s report to Mr. Townsend comes in, a scientific basis for an economic investment.

Backed by the Connecticut investors, Col. Drake perfected a means to extract oil by drilling a hole lined with conductor pipe. But Col. Drake may not have been the first person to do this either. There were similar attempts ongoing near Parkersburg, W.Va., and Petrolia, Ontario.

But after Drake’s well came even more wells in 1860, drilled into the Devonian bedrock of northwest Pennsylvania by Drake’s imitators, albeit with great caution and trepidation, because the Drake well may have been a fluke for all anyone really knew. By late 1860, the wells were starting to come in on a regular basis and oil drilling was becoming a relatively predictable business.

And then came the U.S. Civil War. U.S. federal expenditures skyrocketed, and the central government rapidly exhausted its reserves of gold and silver. The U.S. government resorted to issuing paper currency, the well-known “greenbacks.” These fiat dollars flooded the U.S. economy, causing a general inflation in price levels. People who understood the nature of inflation were keen to find some means of protecting their purchasing power. Then as now, money flowed into hard assets, and there are fewer assets harder than bedrock sandstone filled with oil.

The World’s First Oil Boom

Much of the federal spending for the Civil War would end up in the pockets of two classes of people: New York bankers and Pittsburgh industrialists. It was this mixture of capital and industry, building upon the presence of oil, a scientific use for the substance, and a novel means for extracting it, that sparked the world’s first true oil boom.

Even in the midst of a general Civil War, the New York money flowed to the iron mills of Pittsburgh to purchase pipe and other equipment to install in the oil patches of Titusville. The foundries of Pittsburgh could just as easily roll tubular goods for the oil fields as cast cannon for the Union Army. The equipment shops of western Pennsylvania could just as easily manufacture pumps and gear drives and sucker rods as any other implement of war. And so they did.

The federal spending boom sparked the classic wartime phenomenon of currency flooding the national economy. Much of this money found its way into speculation on oil leases, and then into the capital equipment for developing those leases. Had there been no Civil War, one can only wonder if there would have been the Pennsylvania oil boom of the 1860s.

As a necessary concomitant of the oil boom, the Civil War itself created a vast underground army of laborers for the oil fields. To be sure, the development of those fields required an immense amount of backbreaking labor. This labor force included deserters from combat on both sides of the fight, draft dodgers, immigrants from foreign shores, and freed slaves who were searching for work away from the sound of the guns.

Thus did the U.S. Civil War bring together a large amount of new money, invested in leaseholds in the oil country of Titusville, plus capital equipment and a ready supply of labor. Here was the confluence of events that sparked the modern petroleum industry.

As the oil wells came in, they sparked an oil boom in the mid-1860s. Production soared and prices crashed. Investment waned, and by the late 1860s, the price of oil was drifting upward again. There was another boom and another bust in the early 1870s. The industry was irrational from an economic perspective, and something had to happen.

Something did happen, in the form of a man who desired, and eventually acted, to bring some semblance of rationality to a chaotic industry. He was a businessman from Cleveland, Ohio, named John D. Rockefeller. He conceived a method of bringing a certain sense of standardization to the oil industry, and eventually did exactly that.

So this takes us from Col. Drake to Mr. Rockefeller. We will discuss Rockefeller in my next article in Whiskey & Gunpowder . Without Rockefeller’s effort, one wonders where the oil boom would have gone. Where would we be today? We are all both products and prisoners of history.

Until we meet again…
Byron W. King


Byron W. King is a practicing attorney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with real clients and real law books on his shelves. After graduating from Harvard University more years ago than he cares to discuss, Byron worked as a geologist in the exploration and production division of a major international oil company. He has followed developments in the oil and gas industry for almost three decades. However, in the process of seeking more excitement than a man can safely obtain from flaring over-pressurized gas whipping out of a 21,000-foot well, Byron also served for many years in both the active and reserve components of the United States Navy.While in the sea service, Byron logged more flight time in tactical jet aircraft than George W. Bush, as well as 127 more carrier landings than the recently-re-elected commander in chief. Among other assignments, Byron has served as a field historian with the Navy.Byron looks at current events, economics, and politics through the lens of history. He brings to the table a unique perspective that incorporates many millions of years of the Earth’s geologic history, and blends its significance into the more recent, man-made kind of tale.

Nothing Like Business as Usual

by Byron King
for whiskey and Gunpowder
free subscription here

ALI SAMSAM BAKHTIARI is a retired “senior energy expert,” formerly employed by the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) of Tehran, Iran. He has held a number of important positions with NIOC since 1971. He is currently attached to the director's office in the Corporate Planning Directorate of NIOC, and specializes in questions related to the global oil, gas and petrochemical industries. This alone ought to pique your interest because Bakhtiari has the ear of the most important decision-makers in Iran. What is he telling them?

Fortunately for us in the West, Bakhtiari is also an independent consultant who writes and speaks to a worldwide audience on the subject of oil depletion in general, and Peak Oil in particular. His tribal name, Bakhtiari, means “companions of good fortune,” and the story of his life is somewhat emblematic of that meaning. Based on what I have seen, Bakhtiari has a gift for understanding, and a unique ability to share this gift with others. There are few more qualified people in the world who can discuss Peak Oil. So when Bakhtiari talks, people ought to listen.

And as an aside, anyone within the Western diplomatic or military community who deals with Iranian issues at almost any level needs to understand what Bakhtiari has been telling the leadership of Iran. What do the mullahs know about oil that you may not know? It might just explain a few things about Iranian behavior.

Oil at $100-150 per Barrel

In a recent public address to the Senate of Australia, Bakhtiari stated that “I can see a range of $100-150 [per barrel of oil] not very far into the future.” He amplified this statement as follows:

“We are entering an era in which we know nothing much, where we have a brand-new set of rules…One of these new rules, in my opinion, is that there will be in the very near future nothing like business as usual. In my opinion, nothing is usual from now on for any of the countries involved. And the lower you are in the pile, the worse it is going to get.”

Bakhtiari believes that the world is at Peak Oil, producing about as much conventional oil on a daily basis as will ever be produced, now about 84 million barrels per day. From here on, the oil markets of the world will be dealing with the ongoing effects of oil field depletion and irreversible production decline. By 2025, Bakhtiari expects that the world’s daily production of conventional oil will fall to a level between 50-55 million barrels of oil per day. Bakhtiari counsels that the world’s governments, industries, and people accept the fact and begin to prepare. There is no time to lose.

Bakhtiari is pessimistic about the prospects for large-scale energy projects based on manufactured fuels, such as coal-to-oil and gas-to-oil projects. His reasons are many, ranging from the scale and cost of such projects to the raw environmental degradation they cause. In addition, much of the feedstock for these projects, for raw material and/or process heat, is supposed to come from natural gas. But natural gas supplies are about to “peak” worldwide and commence their own irreversible curve of decline, so this is not a long-term solution. Of the 30-million-barrel-per-day decline in conventional oil production that Bakhtiari envisions over the next 20 years, he anticipates that manufactured fuels will substitute for only about 5 million barrels per day. “This is a drop of water in the ocean,” says Bakhtiari.

In addition, Bakhtiari is pessimistic on the future of ethanol as an oil substitute, because it will pit the world’s food supply against the needs of the world’s built-up transportation system for liquid fuels. “People have to eat,” says Bakhtiari.

Four Phases of Decline

Bakhtiari views the future in terms of four phases of transition, or, as he puts it, T1, T2, T3, and T4. Fortunately for the world’s users of petroleum, the “hidden advantage” of Bakhtiari’s T1 is that worldwide oil supplies will remain almost constant during this initial phase. That is, new discoveries and production that is now coming on line will compensate for the production that is lost due to depletion. T2, T3, and T4 will be, as Bakhtiari puts it, “more turbulent phases.”

At the end of T1, Bakhtiari envisions “two major scales tilting.” There will be a supply of conventional oil, all of which will be subject to world demand. That is, there is not now, and will not be at the end of T1, any “swing” production, such as the cushion that Saudi Arabia provided during the past 40 years or so. Supply will dictate demand, and when the supply is gone, the demand will go unsatisfied. “In the end, it will be the total shift” to oil supply dictating demand. Rising prices will clear the market, and the prices will rise precipitously.

According to Bakhtiari, one of the key problems for the world in facing this ongoing T1 phase is that so-called “mega projects” for high-cost oil and other alternative fuels take 10-20 years to construct and come online. These mega projects include such things as large offshore oil developments in deep water, substitute oil industries that manufacture oil from natural gas or coal, or refineries capable of handling heavy oils or tar from tar sands. The problem is that rising oil prices, and spot shortages in the coming years, will trigger increases in prices for other commodities, like cement and steel.

Rising Costs and Risks for Capital Projects

One prominent example that illustrates Bakhtiari’s point was just announced by Shell Canada Ltd. Shell Canada recently announced that an expansion of its Athabasca oil sands project will cost as much as $12.8 billion, because relentless cost pressures are swelling its budget. This is nearly three times the cost per barrel that was originally planned, as recently as 2002. According the Shell Canada’s president, the economic environment has changed “quite substantially” in just a few years.

As recently as mid-2005, Shell Canada estimated that expanding its plant at Athabasca would cost about $200 per barrel per day of capital cost. Now the estimate is that the eventual cost will top $300 per barrel per day, and possibly approach $350 per barrel per day. That is, under these cost estimates, a facility capable of producing 10,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent product might cost as much as $3.5 billion just to build, let alone the future costs of to operating on an ongoing basis. And to construct facilities capable of producing 1 million barrels per day of oil equivalent will require a capital investment of about $350 billion.

At the same time, major companies that operate in the international environment are seeing their political risks rise along with the capital costs. Increasing exposure to large projects in problematic countries has taken much of the edge off the previous enthusiasm for expansion in such regions. For example, in Venezuela, the government of populist leader Hugo Chavez is tightening the terms of operating contracts, and imposing royalty and tax rates that are all but confiscatory.

Venezuela recently announced that it was reforming one of its production contracts with Chevron to create a “joint venture” between Chevron and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company. The net effect is to remove 90,000 barrels per day of oil production from the control of Chevron and place the oil under the control of the Venezuelan entity. In order to meet its own requirements for volumes of oil, Chevron will have to find other sources of petroleum. While Chevron has announced that it plans to remain in Venezuela, some other major Western oil firms are contemplating simply abandoning operations there.

In addition, many major capital projects are subject to damage from natural events, such as last year’s Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Chevron, for example, recently announced a $300 million charge against earnings for uninsured damage caused last year to its Gulf of Mexico operations during Hurricane Katrina.

Five Steps of Preparation

Bakhtiari has a “to-do list” of what he considers to be the most urgent steps for governments, businesses, and private individuals. His list is worth highlighting here:

(1) Reprogram the mind. That is, just throw out any previous business-as-usual thinking and similar rosy scenarios. Nothing will remain as usual, going forward. This also means that people should engage in as much lateral thinking as possible. Do not just come up with Plan B, but come up with Plans C, D, and E as well. People should challenge themselves, and their associates, not just to expect the unexpected, but to begin thinking the unthinkable.

(2) Reduce oil consumption, mercilessly. According to Bakhtiari, the normal 30% of wasted use should be shed offhand. Governments, businesses, and individuals should also pay down debt levels as swiftly as possible, because the effects of T1 will inevitably bring higher inflation and interest rates. Minimize travel of all sorts to economize use of oil-derived fuels, because it is going to happen in any case. Reduce all types of consumption and just plain get leaner and be ready for even bigger cuts. This is as close to where you live as revising home lighting and heating systems, and also includes reducing the size and number of automobiles as soon as possible.

(3) Reuse as much as possible. Many things are easily reusable, but it will require a mental focus to accomplish the effort. Whether it is plastic bags or retreaded tires or outdated appliances, it is important to adopt a new cultural mind-set toward the scarcity of manufactured goods and products. The most important thing to care for and husband may well be fresh water, which is already in short supply and will almost certainly be a precious commodity in the future. Bakhtiari even mentions wood as a future critical commodity.

(4) Recycle as much as possible. Bakhtiari believes that tomorrow’s industrial boom will be in recycling industries on a worldwide scale. Recycling much of what is now considered garbage should be made mandatory, as in Germany or a handful of U.S. cities, such as Seattle and Pittsburgh. Industrial production should design “recycling” into products from the time they are on the drawing board, as is now the case in some sectors of the automobile and computer industries, as well as some other business sectors.

(5) Reward people for their efforts. Bakhtiari urges using market incentives to reward people for reducing, reusing, or recycling. It is far better to make use of positive subsidies, instead of negative reinforcement. The implications of Peak Oil are negative enough even without the prospect of negative reinforcement.

Addicted to Oil and Cold Soup

“Whether we like it or not,” said Bakhtiari in a recent posting, “all developed societies are addicted to crude oil and its myriad derivatives.” However, he continues, “Many decision-makers are trying to park ‘Peak Oil’ in the farthest corner of their minds (praying it will go away), and remain in denial that there is no replacement for oil.” Bakhtiari amplified this comment in another discussion:

“Nobody likes the idea of Peak Oil. Firstly, you have the politicians. Naturally, a politician will never say that there is such a thing as Peak Oil. It is suicide to give bad news, so a politician will never do that…Secondly you have the media. The media do not like Peak Oil. Why? There is no sponsorship for Peak Oil. The oil companies do not like Peak Oil because you should not say that your soup is cold; you should always say that it is very hot and very tasty, yes? So nobody wants to hear of this phenomenon of Peak Oil.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

Bakhtiari is a prolific writer and speaker, and he has much more to say on the subject of Peak Oil. We will review his work in future Whiskey & Gunpowder articles. But for now, where should leaders in the government, business, and the private sectors be focusing their attentions? Here are a few ideas.

Governments and the private sector should make every effort to come up with projections of oil production and demand at local, regional, national, and international levels. Based on these projections, the next step is to assess the implications of reduced availability and dramatically higher prices for oil and related transportation fuel.

Governments and the private sector should also, at the same time, strive to reduce in absolute terms local, regional, and national demands for oil and oil-related products. The oil supply simply will not be there a few years hence. Thus, it is imperative to make energy policy that allows classical market mechanisms to work rapidly, in order to foreclose the future political urge during the next “crisis” to come up with some sort of top-down, command economy form of coercive policy.

Related to the foregoing, governments and the private sector should work to assess the potential of new sources of liquid fuel, and alternative transportation methods, to meet (or, preferably, substitute for) a significant share of respective national fuel demands. This must take into account technological developments and both short- and long-term environmental and economic costs.

There is something ironic here. The government of Iran is making trouble for many nations and people in this world, what with its nuclear program, sponsorship of international terrorism, dealings with North Korea, and other bills too lengthy to describe just now.

But for all of the trouble that many people in the West (and elsewhere, truth be told) think is being caused by the government of Iran, here is an Iranian among the most direct and sincere in identifying and proposing the elements of a solution to a profound energy dilemma.

Until we meet again…
Byron W. King

Byron W. King is a practicing attorney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with real clients and real law books on his shelves. After graduating from Harvard University more years ago than he cares to discuss, Byron worked as a geologist in the exploration and production division of a major international oil company. He has followed developments in the oil and gas industry for almost three decades. However, in the process of seeking more excitement than a man can safely obtain from flaring over-pressurized gas whipping out of a 21,000-foot well, Byron also served for many years in both the active and reserve components of the United States Navy.
While in the sea service, Byron logged more flight time in tactical jet aircraft than George W. Bush, as well as 127 more carrier landings than the recently-re-elected commander in chief. Among other assignments, Byron has served as a field historian with the Navy.
Byron looks at current events, economics, and politics through the lens of history. He brings to the table a unique perspective that incorporates many millions of years of the Earth’s geologic history, and blends its significance into the more recent, man-made kind of tale.

Iran, Lebanon, Russia, and India—It is about Power and Oil!

David J. Jonsson
July 24, 2006


In a recent article – Iran Reaches the Mediterranean I indicated that for Muslims, three cities of the Christian faith have particular significance: Jerusalem, Constantinople and Rome. The fall of Constantinople is described in detail in my earlier book, The Clash of Ideologies--The Making of the Christian and Islamic Worlds. Iran with its relations and support of Hamas and Hezbollah now has access to the Mediterranean and is the neighbor of Jerusalem. Italy was the first country from which Iran withdrew is funds. In my new book, Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad – The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance I discuss how this Alliance is coalescing on a global scale through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Mercosur in South America. Although, the world is focused on the potential for destruction by Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), the real potential for an economic holocaust exists as discussed in the book: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad. The asymmetric War being waged is occurring simultaneously through terrorism, military action and economic means. The conflicts in the Middle East can not resolved leading to sustainable peace until the U.S. and the West develop a strategy for energy security and self-sufficiency. Implementing a strategy for self-sufficiency will needless to say be expensive and require sacrifice. Continued military action and endless conferences will not resolve the issues. The unacceptable alternate option is to accept totalitarian rule and elimination of our freedom and liberty.

Similarities to Events Leading up to WW1
The Rise of Shiite Power in the Gulf
The Three Factions in the Struggle for World Domination
The Rome Conference, the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-4 and the Euro-Arab Dialog (EAD)
The Taef Accord of 1989
The Arc of Shiite Control vs. the Sunni Pan-Islam
The Roles of Hezbollah and Al Qaeda
Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
Venezuela and Mecosur Flame the Fires of Conflict
Venezuela and Egypt to Gain Seats on the United Nations Security Council
Russia and Iran Challenge OPEC – Russia Leaves the West?
The Role of the Petroleum Commons
Sunni Terrorism Spreads East
The Apocalyptic Teaching of Islam
Conclusion
Similarities to Events Leading up to WW1
Recent events in Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt make it imperative that we pay heed to the apocalyptic teachings of Islam—both Shia and Sunni. Then you must also recall the events of 1914 leading up to WW1. One should also consider that following WW1 and the fall of Ottoman Empire’ the secular government of Ataturk in Turkey was formed and also that following these events the Muslim Brotherhood was formed. Today, Turkey is again an Islamic state.

The assassination of the Austrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist terrorist provided the senescent Austro-Hungarian Empire the excuse it had been looking for to wipe out the Serbian nationalists, which provoked the pan-Slavic nationalists at work for the czar to threaten the Austro-Hungarians with destruction, which led Germany's Kaiser to pledge retaliatory war against Russia, which prompted the French, who had an anti-German alliance with Russia, to begin mobilization. . . . Nobody wanted global conflagration, yet nobody knew how to stop it, and the American president (Woodrow Wilson, who was not yet a Wilsonian) did nothing to help avert the coming war. Within a month, the war came, and it took the remainder of the 20th century for the world to fully recover.

The Leftist activists of the world are decrying the “lack of proportionality” in Israel’s response to the unprovoked attack on its military personnel and civilians within the State of Israel, it would be important to recall a similar episode in United States history.

In a personal communication from Dr. Steve Carol Senior Fellow Center for Advanced Middle East Studies he recalled the situation on March 6, 1916, where a group of 360 Villistas (followers of Pancho Villa) crossed the international border between the United States and Mexico and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. Their immediate goal was to obtain weapons from the nearby headquarters of the U.S. 13th Cavalry. 18 Americans were killed and additional 9 were killed in pursuit of the attackers back to the border. German agents directed by Luther Wertz, a key German operative in Mexico, led the raid. Germany wanted to keep the United States out of World War I, which was then raging, and sought to divert U.S. attention from Europe to south of the border.

The unprovoked attack on the United States triggered demands for retaliation and punishment of the raiders. There was no talk of “proportional” response.

As a result, President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing and 6,000 American troops on a “Punitive Expedition” into Mexico. The force crossed into Mexico some two weeks after the initial attack and would penetrate some 300 miles into Mexico. During its nine-month stay in Mexico, U.S. forces would clash with Villistas as well as with Mexican Federal troops.

The Villistas again attacked the United States on May 5, 1916, raiding Glen Springs and Borquilla, Texas. This prompted President Wilson to send an additional force of 8,000 troops into Mexico. On June 18th he additionally called up the Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona National Guard and sent 150,000 men to patrol the U.S. border. Wilson also placed an arms embargo on Mexico, which included food and even horses.

On June 24th there was a clash between U.S. and Mexican forces at Carrizal, with 84 U.S. soldiers being surrounded by superior Mexican forces. Over half escaped but 14 were killed and 24 U.S. servicemen were taken prisoner.

Wilson’s reaction was immediate. The next day he demanded the released of the captured soldiers and to back up his demands he mobilized the entire U.S. National Guard and incorporated it into the regular army. He dispatched American warships to patrol and enforce a blockade on Mexican ports on both its east and west coasts. All the American prisoners were released five days later on June 30th. There was no talk of a “lack of proportionality.”

U.S. forces while in Mexico, did not catch Pancho Villa, but they crippled his ability to strike at the United States and inflicted heavy casualties on his forces.

The American force was withdrawn, unexpectedly, on January 25, 1917, not due to any Mexican or international pressure, but rather because the U.S. had obtained information that Germany intended to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, a step that would bring the U.S. into World War I. Additionally the U.S. had obtained proof, via the Zimmermann Telegram that Germany was seeking an anti-U.S. alliance with both Mexico and Japan. Thus the U.S. force was withdrawn so as not to give Mexico additional cause for considering such an alliance.

I review this familiar history for those of us (myself included) who've been wondering how the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers (and the killing of eight others in the Hezbollah raid) has escalated in less than a week to what may be the brink of a cataclysmic regional war with ghastly global implications. The two crises and the sets of conflicting forces are by no means parallel, but in each the power of nationalism, the sense of national victimization, the need for revenge, the opportunity for miscalculation, the illusion of attainable victory, and all-around fear and rage loom large.

If you thought that the latest Middle East crisis is just another in the endless war of Arabs and Jews killing each other, you’re wrong. There is a telltale sign that there is a major new development underlying this bloodshed and mayhem.

That sign: the world's Arab powers have not launched their customary tirades against Israel. Indeed, astonishingly, the collective voice of the Arab world, the 22-nation Arab League, has criticized the Hezbollah, the Iranian Shiite Muslim sponsored terrorist group that is attacking Israel from Lebanese territory. This should not be interpreted, as some have described, as a moderation of their anti-Semitic position toward Israel. The Arab League blamed Hezbollah for “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts” in kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and launching missiles at Israel. It is the first time that the Arab League has criticized any Muslim force engaged in a war against Israel. Thus, setting the stage for the renewed conflict between Shia and Sunni on a world scale.

The Rise of Shiite Power in the Gulf
Although there is no such thing as pan-Shiism, or even a unified leadership of the community, the Shiites share a coherent religious view since splitting off from the Sunnis in the seventh century over who was the legitimate successor that was to lead the Muslims. As described in Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad, the lack of a unified leadership does not preclude their desire to form the Ummah (Islamic community) among all Shiites. The Shia have developed their own concept of jurisprudence (Shariah – Islamic Law) and practice. The separate schools of jurisprudence do in fact complicate Islamic financial transactions.

The sheer size of the Shia population today makes them a powerful constituency. Shiite population accounts for 90 percent of Iranians, the majority in Iraq, some 75 percent in Bahrain and 45 percent of Lebanon. Some 70 percent of the people living in the Gulf region are Shiites.

Why is Hezbollah making provocative attacks on Israel? Iran sees itself as the region's great power. Iran is feeling under threat, and, at the same time, feeling a surge in its own potential power. It feels under threat because the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have brought American forces onto its frontiers. However the Shiites seek to cooperate in a limited fashion with the U.S. in Iraq, maintaining a measured degree of instability to keep the pressure on the Sunnis until they have accomplished their goal of total control. Keeping the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, opening the new front in Lebanon reduces the pressure on Iran and their nuclear ambitions and prevents attention to potential near conflicts in Latin America as we discuss below.

This role of the U.S. in Iraq emboldened the rise of Shiism throughout the region. The Middle East that will emerge from the crucible of the Iraq War may not be more democratic, but it will be more Shiite and it will be more fractious. Such actions will lead to the desire of both Shia and Sunnis to increase armaments of WMDs including nuclear capability and likelihood of further armed conflict. It should be remembered that far more people have been killed in the conflicts between Sunni and Shiites than between the Arabs and Israel.

And it is this sense of vulnerability that is helping stir the thrill of its own potential power. Yes, the invasion of Iraq did bring the U.S. uncomfortably close to Iran, but it also removed the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, a trenchant enemy.

The invasion of Iraq also gave new urgency to the Iranian project to acquire the nuclear bomb, an act of insurance lest the U.S. decides to move against another of the “axis of evil” states. In the interim, however, the chaos in Iraq and America's apparent helplessness has tempted Iran to think of the U.S. as being weak.

And the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President has reinvigorated the revolutionary fervor and apocalyptic teaching in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq on July 19 forcefully denounced the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, marking a sharp break with President Bush's position and highlighting the growing power of a Shiite Muslim identity across the Middle East.

The comments by al-Maliki, a Shiite Arab whose party has close ties to Iran, were noticeably stronger than those made by Sunni Arab governments in recent days. Those governments have refused to take an unequivocal stand on Lebanon, reflecting their concern about the growing influence of Iran, which has a Shiite majority and has been accused by Israel of providing weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.

A growing number of Iraqi officials have stepped forward in recent days to condemn Israel. Their stance also calls into question one of the rationales for the U.S. invasion of Iraq - that a U.S.-backed democratic state here would become an ally of Israel and catalyze a change of attitude across the rest of the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia is also upset by the possibility of Iran developing nuclear capability and hence will probably not standby without developing their nuclear capability, which in all likelihood is underway.

The Three Factions in the Struggle for World Domination
The recent world events lead one to the conclusion that there are three principle players in this current struggle—the Shia faction represented by Iran and their surrogate pawns represented by the Hezbollah or Hizbollah/Hizbullah or Hezb'Allah (meaning Party of God) in Lebanon and Syria, Hamas in Palestine, the Sunni faction including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other predominant Sunni countries and the Israel aligned with the United States. However as reported by Lydia Georgi - RIYADH in Middle East Online it should be noted that Saudi Arabia, has indirectly blamed the Iranian-backed Hezbollah for Israel's onslaught against Lebanon, is wary of Tehran using Arab states to pursue its own agenda, experts said July 18, 2006. The oil-rich kingdom last week accused the Shiite militant movement, without naming it, of “adventurism” that put all Arab countries at risk by capturing two Israeli soldiers and triggering Israel's offensive.

“It is necessary to make a distinction between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventurism by certain elements,” an official source said.

“The kingdom is not concerned by the extension of Iran's influence per se but by the fact that it uses Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to pursue its political interests,” commentator Qenan al-Ghamdi a columnist for the Saudi Al-Watan daily, said.

“When these countries land in trouble, it is Saudi Arabia that bears the consequences, as happened in Lebanon in the past and will happen again now” after the devastation caused by Israel's attacks, he said.

Some will recall that back in 2000, Hezbollah was held up by fellow Shiites as well as Sunnis and some Christians as a model for resisting Israel. The division today springs from the reality that did not exist six years ago—the rise to power of the Shiites in Iraq and the recurrence of increasing tensions between the Shiites and Sunni.

The withholding of condemnation of Israel by Saudi Arabia did not last long. In a report by Aljazeera on July 25, 2006, the Saudi king Abdullah has warned that war could break out in the Middle East if attempts to broker peace in the region fail. In a statement read out on state television on Tuesday, King Abdullah said, "If the option of peace fails as a result of Israeli arrogance, then the only option remaining will be war, and God alone knows what the region would witness in a conflict that would spare no one."

His remarks were unusually forthright for the world's top oil exporter, which has called for ceasefire but blamed Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group for the crisis that has so far killed at least 413 people in Lebanon and 42 Israelis.

The comments also appeared to be aimed at the United States, Israel's ally that has resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Saudi Arabia pledged $500 million to rebuild Lebanon and $250 million for the Palestinians. The kingdom will also transfer $1 billion to Lebanon's central bank to help its economy.

The diplomat said the financial support was a sign of a tussle for influence once the fighting stops in Lebanon between Iran, backing Hizbollah, and Arab states, behind the government.

The Rome Conference, the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-4 and the Euro-Arab Dialog (EAD)
The Rome Conference on Lebanon takes place on July 26. Among those expected at the Rome conference are: the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union.

The recent events are a reminder of the events leading to the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-74, which then led to the Euro-Arab Dialog (EAD) that pitted European countries against the U.S. in need to gain access to oil. It was also the EAD that led to the beginning of the Islamization of Europe. The events surrounding the Embargo and the EAD are documented in Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’Or and Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad.

Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a speech this year, “No one who is honestly assessing the decline of U.S. leverage around the world due to our energy dependence can fail to see that energy is the albatross of U.S. national security.”

The Taef Accord of 1989
Saudi Arabia sponsored and hosted the Taef accord of 1989 which ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war in 1990 and has since helped fund its reconstruction. In the current crisis, it has offered 50 million dollars in immediate aid.

The Taif accords transferred power away from the Lebanese presidency, traditionally given to Maronites, and invested it in a cabinet divided equally between Muslims and Christians. The Taif accords also declared the intention of extending Lebanese government sovereignty over southern Lebanon. Though Israel eventually withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, armed Hizbollah militia remained in control of the area, apparently maintaining a tacit arrangement whereby Hezbollah could harass Israel within limits, but not so seriously that it would provoke a massive retaliation. The Hezbollah essentially created a separate state within Lebanon. A state that did not benefit from the economic gains in the Lebanon reconstruction after the civil war.

Even if Syria, which is an ally of Shiite Iran and likewise a supporter of Hezbollah, were attacked by Israel, Saudi Arabia would also end up footing the bill.

A member of the appointed Shura (consultative) Council, who asked not to be named, said Saudi Arabia could not sit back and watch Lebanon being used “as an arena for settling scores or waging proxy wars”.

The Arc of Shiite Control vs. the Sunni Pan-Islam
At the same time the Shia faction has built up their alliance of countries stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean—including Iraq, Syria and recently Lebanon and Palestine. It has been the long-term goal of the Sunnis to build a Pan-Arabic Ummah stretching from Indonesia to Andalusia (Spain). The only country blocking total access is Israel. A result of the Iraq war was to oust control by the Sunnis from Iraq and replace it with a Shia dominated government. In many respects this has placed the U.S. military in the crosshairs of the Sunni faction. According to report in the Financial Times on July 20, 2006, to appease the Sunnis, the U.S. yesterday said it had decided not to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia over its policies towards religious practices and minorities following commitments by the kingdom to halt the dissemination of extremist ideology and to promote tolerance of non-Muslims.

John Hanford, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, was due to explain to Congress why the State Department would issue a waiver for Saudi Arabia under the Religious Freedom Act. Saudi Arabia was designated a “country of particular concern” under the act in 2004.

The Roles of Hezbollah and Al Qaeda
Hezbollah and al Qaeda are known to have cooperated in the past, but it doesn't appear they have worked together closely. The main reason for this is sectarian. Al-Qaeda is mostly made up of Sunni Muslims and Hezbollah is mostly Shiite Muslims. However, in spite of comments above, there is a recent trend for Sunnis and Shiites to cooperate against a common enemy, i.e., the United States and Israel, so don't be surprised if something more turns up. Hezbollah is trying to both destabilize Lebanon's anti-Syrian government and promote itself as a powerful, regional, revolutionary group. Hezbollah seeks influence beyond Lebanon.

According to Daniel Byman director of Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies writing in Foreign Affairs in the November/December 2003 issue: “In the U.S. demonology of terrorism, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are relative newcomers. For most of the past two decades, Hezbollah has claimed pride of place as the top concern of U.S. counter terrorism officials. It was Hezbollah that pioneered the use of suicide bombing, and its record of attacks on the United States and its allies would make even bin Laden proud: the bombing of the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the U.S. embassy there in 1983 and 1984; the hijacking of TWA flight 847 and murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem in 1985; a series of lethal attacks on Israeli targets in Lebanon; the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992 and of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994. More recently, Hezbollah operatives have plotted to blow up the Israeli embassy in Thailand, and a Lebanese member of Hezbollah was indicted for helping to design the truck bomb that flattened the Khobar Towers U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia in 1996. As CIA director George Tenet testified earlier this year, “Hezbollah, as an organization with capability and worldwide presence, is [al Qaeda's] equal, if not a far more capable organization. I actually think they're a notch above in many respects.”“

Aside from al Qaeda, no terrorist group has killed more Americans than Hezbollah, which is bankrolled by Iran to the tune of at least $100 million a year. Hezbollah's main theaters of operation are Lebanon, its home country (where it killed hundreds of Americans during the 1980s), and the West Bank and Gaza, where it helps Palestinian rejectionists target Israel. But the group is active in the United States as well. Hezbollah is believed to have cells in at least 10 U.S. cities, according to an article in the Washington Times on May 24, 2005. It is interesting to note that Hezbollah operatives have sneeked into the U.S from Mexico. In March 2005, Mahmoud Kourani of Dearborn pleaded guilty to providing material support for Hezbollah. He will be sentenced next month. Kourani (whose brother is Hezbollah's chief of military security in southern Lebanon) is an illegal alien who sneaked into the United States from Mexico in February 2001. Federal authorities have repeatedly arrested suspected Hezbollah operatives for attempting to smuggle night-vision goggles and other military equipment to the organization. One suspect, arrested in 1998, skipped bail and fled to Lebanon before returning to the United States last year to face federal charges. In 2003, a federal court convicted a Hezbollah cell based in Charlotte, N.C., on charges of aiding Hezbollah by operating a cigarette-smuggling ring. The leader of that group, Mohammed Hammoud, received 155 years in prison.

Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
Russia also has a stake in this conflict. Russia brought Iran into the SCO and was rewarded by being admitted as an observer into the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). Iran is also a major market for Russia and China—both members of the SCO. Both Russia and China are active in investment and weapon supply to Venezuela—a leading member of Mercosur. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said on July 14 that U.S. backing of Israel is responsible for flaming tensions in the Middle East and putting the world on course toward another “Holocaust.”

Venezuela and Mecosur Flame the Fires of Conflict
“The fundamental blame falls again on the U.S. empire. It's the empire that armed and supported the abuses of the Israeli elite, which has invaded, abused and defied the United Nations for a long time,” Chávez said in a speech during a military act in Caracas.

It should be noted that Venezuela is a major oil suppler to the U.S. and through their Citgo, which is wholly-owned by Petróleos de Venezuela. On July 12, Venezuela's state-owned oil refining subsidiary in the U.S. is to halt petrol distribution to about 1,900 filling stations in the U.S., although the company denied on Wednesday the decision was motivated by tensions between Caracas and Washington.

Latin America accounts for 8.4 per cent of daily world oil output, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but energy supplies from the region make up 30 per cent of U.S. energy imports, or about 4m barrels a day.

According to an article in the Financial Times on June 25, future supplies of oil from Latin America are at risk because of the spread of resource nationalism [The doctrine of the Petroleum Commons.], a study by the U.S. military that reflects growing concerns in the U.S. administration over energy security has found.

An internal report prepared by the U.S. military’s Southern Command and obtained by the Financial Times follows a recent U.S. congressional investigation that warned of the U.S.’s vulnerability to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s repeated threats to “cut off” oil shipments to the U.S.

In an article in the Financial Times on July 24, Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas reported that: Richard Lugar, chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, has urged the Bush administration to adopt specific “contingency plans” for a potential disruption to oil supplies from Venezuela.

In a letter sent to Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, last Friday, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times, Mr Lugar warned the US that it needed to “abandon” reliance on a “passive approach” to energy diplomacy.

Mr Lugar's warning follows the release last month of an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which found that the US was ill-prepared for an oil embargo by Venezuela, the world's fifth largest exporter. President Hugo Chávez, whose government has been emboldened by a torrent of oil revenues, has several times warned that he would “cut off” oil supplies to the US if Washington persisted in allegedly plotting his overthrow.

“Venezuela's leverage over global oil prices and its direct supply lines and refining capacity in the US give Venezuela undue ability to impact US security and our economy,” Mr Lugar wrote in his letter to Ms Rice.

The GAO study, commissioned by Mr Lugar, a Republican, estimated that a Venezuelan oil boycott would raise oil prices by $11 (€9, £6) per barrel over a six-month period and reduce US economic output by $23bn.

Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela's ambassador to the US, dismissed as “absurd” the GAO study's premise that Mr Chávez would purposefully shut off oil supplies, citing the economic impact it would have on his own country. Venezuela ships two-thirds of its oil to the US, or about 1.5m b/d and oil accounts for about 80 per cent of export revenue and half of fiscal revenue.

However it should be noted that Venezuela is currently constructing super tankers to move its oil to China.

Hugo Chávez, a cast of thousands of demonstrators and a guest appearance by Cuba's Fidel Castro made the July 20, 2006 summit of Mercosur, the South American trade pact, very different from those of the past. Normally a humdrum affair, full of dull deliberations about trade technicalities and pious hopes for a brighter, more integrated future, the presence of Venezuela's always-controversial leader in particular livened up proceedings.

Having dropped the suit and tie sported at the Mercosur presidential summit earlier on Friday in favour of his customary olive-green fatigues, the Cuban leader's anti-US rhetoric was rivalled - if not in length - by a fiery warm-up address from his admirer, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

Following formal accession this month, Venezuela is one of five full members of Mercosur, along with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The bloc's area of influence now stretches from the Caribbean in the north to Patagonia in the south.

Indeed, both Argentina and Brazil formally encouraged Bolivia to become the sixth full member of the group, while Mexico's foreign minister, Ernesto Derbez, said he hoped Mexico would become an associate member of the group - along with Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru - before Vicente Fox's presidency comes to an end in December.

On paper at least, Venezuelan membership ought to be good news, but for the U.S and the West, is it?

Together, the pact's five countries constitute what should become a single market of 250m people. Intra-regional trade, already recovering strongly from the financial crises of 1999 and 2001-2002, should get a fresh boost from Venezuela's vast oil wealth - and Mr. Chávez.

Venezuela, for example with Argentina, have also unveiled plans to jointly raise money on international markets, with a bond deal that Néstor Kirchner, Argentina's president, said could be “the first step in the construction of a multinational development bank, a financial space in the South”. See: Venezuela to put pep into Mercosur summit. One target of such a bank is to attack the hegemony of the U.S. dollar.

Hugo Chávez's appearance at the Mercosur summit in the Argentine city of Córdoba will be just the first stage of his most extensive global tour to date.

Over the next two weeks, the Venezuelan president will visit at least seven countries, mostly in Asia, plus, as he put it before his departure, “perhaps some in the Middle East and a few in Africa on the way”.

Officially, the former army officer says his oil-financed mission is to deliver a “message of peace” and to “save the world”.

But his journey will also entail a serious lobbying effort to secure diplomatic support for Venezuela's bid to secure a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council that will be available soon.

Venezuela and Egypt to Gain Seats on the United Nations Security Council
According to a report on Venezuela Analysis.com on July 19, 2006, Venezuela is being granted observer member status in the Arab League, which is also expected to support Venezuela’s bid for a UN Security Council seat. These two announcements coincide with the second Arab-South American Summit, which took place the week of July 19 in Caracas. These events of the recent weeks give further credibility of the Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance and their control of world oil and other natural resources.

Under the shadow of an escalating war in the Middle East, the second Arab-South American Summit got underway in Caracas. Building on the first ever meeting a year ago in Brazil, delegations from fifteen Arab countries and twelve South American nations are gathering for two days to assess the progress of political, economics, cultural, environmental, and technological agreements reached in 2005. In addition, leaders attending the summit focused attention on the host country’s admission into the Arab league, the UN Security Council bids of Venezuela and Egypt, and the current crisis engulfing the Middle East.

In the first order of business, Venezuela was granted observer status in the Arab league. Membership will be formalized in September, when Venezuela joins its neighbor Brazil and several OPEC partners in the 22-nation group. More than 10 million people of Arab descent live in South America, most of them in Brazil.

President Chávez also secured Arab League support for Venezuela’s UN Security Council bid. “We expect 22 countries to support the (Venezuela) candidacy.” Stated Ahmed Benhelli, Secretary General of the Arab League of Nations. With Arab League assistance, Foreign Affairs Minister Alí Rodríguez Araque on Tuesday guaranteed Venezuela has obtained more than the 128 votes necessary to win a non-permanent seat at the Security Council, as a number of international organizations have already agreed to support Caracas, including the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) and the Common Market of the South (Mercosur). In return for Arab league backing, Egypt is seeking South American support in its Security Council bid.

This development comes on the heels of President Chávez’s harsh condemnation of recent Israeli attacks against Lebanon. On Sunday President Chávez bashed the “elite” in Israel, whom he accused of being aggressive at the behest of the United States. The incursions into Lebanon and Gaza were labeled “madness” by the President, as he went on to note Israel has nuclear weapons of mass destruction, “but nobody says anything because behind it is the empire” – a reference to the Bush Administration.

The official position of the Venezuelan government was released the day before when the Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a press release that stated, “The Bush Administration veto to impede the consideration of this crisis within the framework of the U.N. Security Council is unacceptable. The hegemony exercised over this body is the clearest denial of said organization as a space for reasonable settlement of conflicts. This is the reason why our country keeps firmly upholding the necessity of democratizing this body, and therefore endeavors for a seat on the Security Council.”

It should be noted that Russia as a result of control of large hydrocarbon reserves is a major economic power to contend with. Europe is beholden to gas supplies from Russia. Russia supports Iran—both in support of the Hezbollah and the nuclear program and as a weapon supplier to Latin America-Venezuela and Africa. Russia and China are the leading members of the SCO with Iran in an observer status. Russia also holds observer status in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Russia and Iran Challenge OPEC – Russia Leaves the West?
Russia on the one hand is challenging OPEC for oil dominance and simultaneously challenging the hegemony of the U.S. dollar through the oil weapon. These actions merge in the form of Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance. From the Russian perspective, the Saudi role and OPEC model have benefited the United States, which can pressure Saudi Arabia into opening the spigot to deal with supply emergencies; the U.S. also pressures other oil producers, such as Libya, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Indonesia, by military methods, diplomacy, and economic sanctions. In the Russian alternative, the U.S. will be far less influential, and have fewer levers, commercial or military, to effect pressure on the energy suppliers. Russian arms and defense-industry partnerships are on offer to relatively weak, intervention-prone energy producers in Africa and Latin America to offset U.S. pressure.

A global movement toward the Russian model would greatly increase the impact of the oil weapon.

In the OPEC model, the benchmark is Brent crude, priced in U.S. dollars. In the Russian model, the discount and disadvantage between the Brent and Urals benchmarks will be reduced, and pricing will evolve toward a currency basket, including the ruble. According to the Moscow Times on May 16, a senior economic official said Monday that Russia would have a domestic petroleum exchange—an idea backed by President Vladimir Putin last week—up and running by year's end, but experts doubted whether oil would trade internationally in rubles anytime soon.

Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Kirill Androsov, who is also a Rosneft board director, said a domestic exchange for oil products would begin trading by the end of 2006 and an international exchange that would sell crude oil sometime in 2007, RIA-Novosti reported.

According to Iran News and Iranian Culture Journal of July 6, Iran will start the initial phase of its planned Iranian oil bourse at the end of September. An oil ministry official told that his ministry had already presented the relevant documents to the economic and finance ministry and the bourse organization. See also: Structural Changes – Destruction Of The U.S. Dollar.

In the OPEC model, suppliers hold much of their cash and government securities in U.S.-controlled institutions. In the Russian model, cash is held in the form of a currency basket; conversion from cash is sought into non-U.S. assets, particularly in the European market. In the Iran Oil Bourse oil trade would be Euro initally.

In the OPEC model, investment in new energy reserves should be open to, and may be controlled by, U.S. corporations and foreign government national oil companies. However, in most Islamic countries, private and foreign ownership is governed by Islamic Law (Shariah) laws.

According to the Topic Report: Access to Global Oil & Gas Reserves by Britt Dearman published January 23, 2006 Dearman is the originator and editor of Weekly Energy Perspective; IOC’s can participate to some extent in the upstream business in these countries, the bulk of the reserves ownership is dominated by countries with national oil companies (NOC’s). An estimated two-thirds of all global oil reserves are controlled by NOC’s. A large number of countries require that IOC’s partner with NOC’s in upstream developments or they allow IOC’s to provide only services. An internal Apache study estimates that IOC’s have full access to less than 10% of all of the world’s reserves.

IOC’s generally have strict investment guidelines. Limited access to upstream investment opportunities tends to increase competition among IOC’s, which reduces the return for the eventual winners. In addition, countries are extracting more from IOC’s and/or changing the rules. For example, Russia and Venezuela have collected back taxes from companies because of new tax law interpretations. They have also used the state’s power to acquire assets or to force more favorable terms for upstream activity.

The extraction of more money from oil companies is not limited to Russia and Venezuela. The U.K. raised the corporate tax rate on oil companies and some politicians in the U.S. are considering a windfall profits tax again. The timing for the U.K is remarkable because they became net importers of gas last year, thus making them partially dependent on Russian gas supply and are expected to become a net oil importer this year. The U.K. is taking away from oil company’s funds that could be reinvested to increase production and energy security in the country. Countries including Ecuador and Bolivia have also imposed new restrictions or nationalized the assets of the IOC’s.

Even the Democrat controlled State Legislature in California is attempting to pass laws that are hostile to the IOCs, including a plan to tax windfall profits and a proposal to regulate refineries as public utilities.

Some countries with NOC’s have different incentives than IOC’s such as security of supply. They have more at stake (e.g. - growing an entire economy) than earning a rate of return on its investment. NOC’s are also in a position to make different types of offers that IOC’s cannot match. For example, China NOC’s can work in countries that are off-limits to U.S. companies. China can also offer trade agreements and potential political support.

The Role of the Petroleum Commons
IOC’s have the technology, the capital and the expertise needed to increase global production. The political actions of countries, state legislatures and potentially the actions of the Global Compact within the framework of the United Nations have done more to limit the availability of oil than any other factor.

Demand for natural gas is rising rapidly. Russia and Iran control 50 per cent of global reserves. For a comprehensive analysis of the role of Petroleum Commons influence on the International Oil Companies (IOCs) see: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad – The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist – Islamist Alliance. In the Russian model, national companies, state-controlled champions, or joint ventures in which Russian interests are in the majority should control strategic reserves. According to MOSCOW Reuters on July 16, Russian state oil firm Rosneft, which last week raised $10.4 billion (5.7 billion pounds) in the country's largest-ever IPO, said on Monday the government would control around 85 percent of its stock after the flotation.

Rosneft said in its final IPO prospectus the share of the Russian Federation would be 85.2 percent if the IPO's global coordinators do not exercise the over-allotment option, and 84.8 percent if they exercise it in full.

According to John Helmer writing in the Asia Times on July 18, in the U.S.-backed OPEC model, national suppliers depend on U.S.-controlled market intermediaries, traders, pipeline and shipping companies, and retail distributors for access to markets and point of sale. In the Russian model, in exchange for access to Russian energy supplies, there will be Russian state-controlled champions in energy transportation. Russian state-controlled corporations will also have investments and influence over trade and market retail networks.

The Russian model also extends to energy-convertible coal, uranium, and other mineral resources. Through negotiations for Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the U.S., Australia, Canada and other resource-exporting states have sought to gain unlimited access to search and development of Russian mineable resources. The Russian model rejects this, and instead assigns priority and equity control of domestic resources to national resource companies. The model proposes tradeoffs and partnerships in resource exploitation in third countries, especially the developing states.

The U.S.-backed OPEC model assigns international priority to the Arab states. The Russian model assigns priority to the Central Asian alliance, including China, India, and Iran—all members of the SCO; secondarily to Latin America (Venezuela, Brazil—Mercosur); and ultimately Africa.

On this fundamental choice between the Russian and OPEC models, Russia is waiting to hear where South Africa stands. One thing is clear - South Africa's dependence on OPEC for its crude-oil imports has been growing. In 1996, 75% of South Africa's oil imports came from the Persian Gulf states, led by Iran. In 2003 - the latest year for which figures are available - this had grown to 78%. Saudi Arabia has also jumped ahead of Iran as the leading supplier. Nigeria is the leading African supplier of oil to South Africa, with 16% of total in 2003. Imports from Russia are possible, but have been negligible so far.

Sunni Terrorism Spreads East
The Sunnis are active in the terrorism war with bomb attacks on transportation infrastructure in London, Spain, and India. The Bangalesh and Pakistan links are also connected to the terrorist acts in India. Since the last few years, it came to light that ISI and various militant organizations based in Pakistan are using Bangladesh as a transit point for pushing terrorists into India. Indian security agencies have flight details and details of armed training camps in the neighboring country. With the tightening of security on the Pakistan border, export of terror from Bangladesh has become a reality, and the extension of the terror network to other parts of the country is a potential threat to India’s security.

The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has learned that Bangladesh's ruling party (the BNP) is becoming ideologically allied with fundamentalist Islamic elements within the country and is maneuvering to steal the upcoming election. If this effort succeeds it will have disastrous results for democracy and for Christians alike.

ICC is especially concerned that the inclusion of Islamic fundamentalist parties in the government threatens to undermine this country's democratic process and commitment to human rights, especially religious freedom. It is extremely disconcerting that the current ruling party's senior joint secretary-general recently proclaimed at a Jamaat meeting that, “We are members of the same family.”

If the BNP is truly in bed with Islamic fundamentalists, it is no wonder that Islamic militants have been so successful in carrying out terrorist attacks in recent months. Within the past year more than 30 have died and 150 have been wounded in terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists, including two Christian health workers who were hacked to death on July 29, 2005.

The Apocalyptic Teaching of Islam
The totalitarian temptation remains powerfully in place. Muslims across the world are drawn by the apocalyptic teachings of Islam with its slogan “Islam is the solution.” That was the case from Iran in 1979 to Algeria in 1992 to Turkey in 2002, to the Paris riots in 2005 to the actions of the Hezbollah and Hamas in recent weeks.

Conclusion
The world stands today at the precipice dividing the eras of the post-Cold War which we have know since 1989–one of expanding democracy and free markets–and a new world order which is unknown and certainly a much less prosperous and friendly place. The Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance through joining together a global cabal of nations for the control of the world’s energy infrastructure, finance, media and transportation assets present a real and current danger to the West. The cost of defending a policy of Energy Interdependence as a cornerstone of foreign policy is huge in terms of potential loss of lives and impact on our economy. The West and particularly America cannot maintain our economy by assuming that the developing world along with the “recycle” of oil wealth will continue to provide a market for debt and our energy resources without extracting the huge price of our security, freedom and liberty. Spreading democracy requires us to take responsibility for our financing and energy needs. A program leading to Energy Independence is both feasible and desirable. The risk is failing to act now to make the world a safer and environmentally sustainable place for our children to grow up. See: Give Me Energy Security And I Will Give You A Foreign Policy.

- DAVID J. JONSSON

David J. Jonsson is the author of Clash of Ideologies –The Making of the Christian and Islamic Worlds, Xulon Press 2005. His new book: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad: The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance (Salem Communications (May 30, 2006). He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics. He worked for major corporations in the United States and Japan and with multilateral agencies that brought him to more that fifteen countries with significant or majority populations who are Muslim. These exposures provided insight into the basic tenants of Islam as a political, economic and religious system. He became proficient in Islamic law (Shariah) through contract negotiation and personal encounter. Jonsson may be reached at: djonsson2000@yahoo.co.uk

End of Cheap Oil!

by Puru Saxena
Editor, Money Matters
June 06, 2006

The human race depends on energy, period. Our planet consumes around 84 million barrels of oil daily whilst supply is around 84.5 million barrels per day. Global demand has increased by roughly 2% per annum over the past 50 years. Most of the recent growth in oil demand has come from, you guessed it, China . At the beginning of 2000, China used to consume 4 million barrels per day and now it consumes 6.5 million barrels each day! In other words, China ’s demand has appreciated by 62.5% over the past 6 years! Despite this exceptional growth, the average Chinese still consumes only 1.82 barrels of oil in a year. Just for the record, the average American consumes 25 barrels in a year!

Across the Himalayas, India (home to 1.1 billion people) consumes 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. Accordingly, India ’s per-capita consumption comes in at a miniscule 0.83 barrels! On the other hand, per-capita oil consumption in a more advanced Asian country such as South Korea comes in at 17 barrels. Figure 1 shows that despite an enormous discrepancy in per-capita consumption levels, India is already a bigger consumer of oil.

Figure 1: India more thirsty than South Korea !

Source: www.yardeni.com

Over in North America, Mexico ’s per-capita consumption is 7.3 barrels a year. Now, let’s assume that due to economic development in a few years time, the average Indian starts consuming half the amount of oil as the average Mexican – highly likely in my opinion. When that happens, India will require 11 million barrels of oil on a daily basis! So, whenever somebody tells you that oil is in a “bubble” and ready to crash, ask them where this additional oil will come from? As far as I’m aware, not a single gigantic oil-field has been discovered anywhere in the world for the past 35 years, this, despite all the technological breakthroughs and marvels! To make matters worse, the following oil provinces are past their peak production and in decline – Alaska , Siberia , US , Kuwait , North Sea , Indonesia , Mexico and China .

Let me put it succinctly, our world faces a dire energy crisis based on supply and demand. Over the coming years, I expect the price of crude oil to ignite! How high will it go? Frankly, $200 per barrel wouldn’t surprise me. Over the past 9 months, the price of crude oil has consolidated and gone nowhere, thereby frustrating the bulls. Figure 2 shows that it may be getting ready for the next advance in its bull-market. Note that the RSI and MACD indicators at the top and bottom of the chart are now turning up as defined by the red arrows. Previously, whenever these indicators turned up, the price of crude rallied. Soon, the US will face its “Hurricane Season” and if last year’s track-record is any guide, oil may easily reach $100 per barrel on supply disruptions.

Figure 2: Crude oil ready to ignite?

Source: www.stockcharts.com

Moreover, I also anticipate natural gas, uranium, ethanol as well as other alternative energy prices to rise in the future. In summary, energy should form a core position of your investment portfolio as this is the only protection we have from the energy shortages and the huge price increases we will witness as a result of expensive oil.

Our firm has invested a large chunk of our managed accounts to the energy complex. As far as possible, we’ve bought the underlying commodities rather than owning stocks of energy-producing companies. Finally, we’ve also invested in stuff like sugar, corn and wheat, which will be in great demand for the production of ethanol and bio-diesel.

© 2006 Puru Saxena

Puru Saxena Ltd.
Suite 1208, Citibank Tower
3 Garden Road, Central, Hong Kong
Phone: (852) 3589 6789 Fax: (852) 3585 5665 Email l Website

Rocks, Rock Oil and Peak Oil

by Byron King

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ALMOST 2,000 YEARS AGO, a Stone Age tribe made camp under a sandstone overhang in a place south of Pittsburgh now called Meadowcroft Rock Shelter, in Washington County. Theirs was a world still in glacial throes, with the edge of a mile-thick sheet of ice not far to the north. On the edge of a frozen ice desert that covered half the continent, these ancients sought protection from the bitter elements. Today, visitors to Meadowcroft can enter an open excavation and view evidence of tools and campfires made by these wandering souls so long ago.

Not quite a century and a half ago, in 1859, a man of the Iron Age named Edwin Drake made his own mark upon human history by driving down one of the world’s first commercial oil wells on the banks of Oil Creek, in Venango County south of Titusville. Although the Drake Oil Well produced only 25 barrels of “rock oil” on its first day of production, and that from the grand depth of 69 feet, it ushered in the Age of Petroleum. Out of Drake’s well arose most of what makes up our life as we know it now.

Of course, without oil in this world something else would be here in its place. Ours might not resemble the Pleistocene existence of Meadowcroft, but neither would it be anything remotely like what we know today. Absent abundant quantities of oil cycling through the arteries of world commerce, our motorized, mechanized, industrialized world would not be here, and neither would we, I venture to guess.

The oil wells of the world produce something over 84 million barrels of petroleum every day, or about 1,000 barrels per second, and every drop is consumed in an energy-hungry world. People move about using oil, by means of train, plane, or automobile. People wear oil, in the form of synthetic fibers. People eat oil, in the form of tractor fuel, fertilizer, transport, processing, refrigeration or preservation, and cooking.

Modern medicine is premised on the use of large amounts of petroleum-based feedstock, and other forms of disposable plastic. Much, if not most, of modern commerce is based on the extensive use of oil-based plastic and chemicals, and oil-fueled transport of goods over vast distances. And since the time of Edwin Drake, oil has been relatively cheap, which is pretty much why things evolved as they did.

This is also why it is crucial that you understand the concept of “Peak Oil,” which is a shorthand way of expressing the geological concept that mankind has reached a "peak" in its ability to produce this depleting resource from the crust of the Earth. The world’s total level of production of about 84 million barrels of conventional oil per day will not last much longer. It is on the cusp of decline.

Peak Oil is not some sort of Internet conspiracy theory. Peak Oil is as much a geological fact as is anything that occurs on a geological scale. Oil production has peaked in almost every major oil-producing nation or region on the planet, starting with the United States in 1970. U.S. oil production peaked in that year along the lines predicted in 1949 by a brilliant and eccentric geologist named M. King Hubbert.

Hubbert noted the rather obvious point that you cannot produce what you have not discovered. So Hubbert graphed U.S. oil discoveries from the 1860s onward and predicted a peak for U.S. production in 1970, a peak that occurred on schedule, although it was only apparent in hindsight.

Even the massive oil discovery at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 1968 barely changed the shape of the decline in the production curve that Hubbert’s theory set forth. Since 1970, U.S. oil imports have done nothing but increase, year over year, from places with surplus oil production. This is all about to change.

Ominously, during the past four decades, oil discoveries worldwide have slowed to a snail’s pace while demand for and production from earlier discoveries have soared. Similar to what occurred in America in 1970, oil production in other regions of the world has also encountered peaks.

Oil production in places as diverse as Indonesia and Mexico, Iran and the North Sea has topped out, rolled over, and is now in a state of irreversible decline. That is, oil producers in these regions have begun to encounter dramatic decreases in the volumes of oil they can find and lift from the ground, let alone sell into the world’s markets.

The list of nations in the Peak Oil Club might surprise you. Kuwait announced a peak in daily oil production in November 2005. There are good estimates that Russian oil production is peaking and will commence a decline, if not a collapse, within 3-5 years. Even Saudi Arabia is struggling to maintain its current rates of oil production.

Add to the geological nature of the decline in oil production the fact that there is a worldwide shortage of onshore and offshore drilling rigs and necessary production equipment such as tubular goods, drill bits, pumps, and valves.

And there is a severe shortage of skilled manpower in the petroleum industry, the result of the worldwide contraction of the production industry during the “cheap oil” days of the 1980s and 1990s. The bottom line is that world oil production is maxed out and will commence an irreversible long-term decline over the next few years.

With major regions of the oil-producing world entering or already in a state of irreversible decline, there is no "swing" capacity to accommodate increased oil demand. But demand for crude oil and refined product still follows its historic and increasing trend lines, particularly with the rapid economic growth in Asia in China and India. Thus, it is left to a rising price to, as the saying goes, “clear the market” for oil.

As U.S. motorists confront the long-term reality of paying $3 and more for a gallon of gasoline (and I believe that it will be much more, barring some worldwide economic collapse), they are directly experiencing an unpleasant economic and energy future in the form of Peak Oil. Hubbert predicted it many years ago, and that future is now.

The world will produce less and less conventional oil over time, and the nicest way to put it is that people will have to figure out some other way to do things besides burning oil the old-fashioned way.

Peak Oil will force people to view the world differently, to a degree almost unimaginable to those who scarcely understand the concept just now.

Mankind will reduce oil consumption because the oil will simply not be there. Being “green” and “environmentally friendly” will have next to nothing to do with it. Being “rich” might not help much either, although it probably will not hurt.

We live with the ghost of Edwin Drake, who died in 1880. Drake’s remains are interred in Titusville beneath an imposing granite memorial, and under the shadow of a handsome bronze sculpture of a muscular man pounding and dressing a drill bit with a massive hammer. It is all very neoclassical, noble, and impressive. Drake's monument reads in part:

“Col. Edwin L. Drake...Founder of the Petroleum Industry, the Friend of Man.

“Called by Circumstances to the Solution of a Great Mining Problem...He laid the Foundations of an Industry that has Enriched the State, Benefited Mankind, Stimulated the Mechanical Arts...and has Attained Worldwide Proportions.

“His highest Ambition was the Successful Accomplishment of his Task. His Noble Victory the Conquest of the Rock, Bequeathing to Posterity the Fruits of his Labor and of his Industry.”

“The Conquest of the Rock,” it claims on the tomb, with hubris similar to that of fabled Ozymandias. How fitting that Drake’s grave at Titusville is not far from the Stone Age ruins of Meadowcroft, only about 125 miles or so as the crow flies across southwest Pennsylvania.

In one ancient hollow, beneath a ledge of sandstone, people eked out their existence, burnt their charcoal, and lived whatever life they could make for themselves in the shadow of an ice sheet. In another, more modern locale, Drake conquered the rock -- for a while, perhaps -- and brought unimaginable change to the trajectory of mankind’s existence.

But in both places, Meadowcroft and Titusville, the lesson appears to be that mankind never truly conquers the rock.

Peak Oil is nature’s way of rebalancing the equation. And Peak Oil is today as much a challenge to the modern world as the Pleistocene ice sheets were to the people of Meadowcroft. Peak Oil will control your destiny. You should start learning about it, thinking about it, and planning for it.

Until we meet again…

Byron W. King

Byron W. King is a practicing attorney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with real clients and real law books on his shelves. After graduating from Harvard University more years ago than he cares to discuss, Byron worked as a geologist in the exploration and production division of a major international oil company. He has followed developments in the oil and gas industry for almost three decades. However, in the process of seeking more excitement than a man can safely obtain from flaring over-pressurized gas whipping out of a 21,000-foot well, Byron also served for many years in both the active and reserve components of the United States Navy.
While in the sea service, Byron logged more flight time in tactical jet aircraft than George W. Bush, as well as 127 more carrier landings than the recently-re-elected commander in chief. Among other assignments, Byron has served as a field historian with the Navy.

Byron looks at current events, economics, and politics through the lens of history. He brings to the table a unique perspective that incorporates many millions of years of the Earth’s geologic history, and blends its significance into the more recent, man-made kind of tale.

Planning Policy Strategy and Energy, Part III

by Byron King

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In Parts I and II of this article, I discussed the concepts of planning, policy, and strategy and connected them with the phenomenon of Peak Oil. My goal was and is to promote thinking about what can be called a true "energy strategy." (As opposed to the "What, me worry?" strategy that presently dominates public policy.)

In outlining my arguments, I borrowed extensively from the political, policy, and strategic ideas of Karl von Clausewitz, set out in his historical study of policy and strategy, On War, published in 1832.

Clausewitz was certainly not writing about oil, in that his book was published 27 years before Col. Edwin Drake inaugurated the Age of Oil at Titusville, Pa. Instead, Clausewitz was reviewing the Napoleonic Wars through the lens of policy and strategy.

But I believe that the ideas Clausewitz developed have much broader scope than just in the martial arena, and particular applicability to the Peak Oil world and what will follow.

More Policy, Strategy, and Energy

At the end of Part II, I was discussing the national-level U.S. warfighting policy and strategy during World War II. I described the policy and strategic context of some of the major decisions of World War II, such as the timing of the D-day invasion of France and the Navy and Marine Corps invasion and capture of Iwo Jima.

These major battle events did not happen in isolation, but were part of a strategic plan. Strategic events never happen in isolation, and that is a point well worth remembering.

In Part II of this article, I referred to the famous statement of Japan's Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, who in 1940 told the Japanese Premier Fumimaro Konoe, "If I am told to fight the Americans, I shall run wild for the first six months. I can promise to give them hell. But I have utterly no confidence for the second or third year."

Yamamoto truly understood the policy and strategy implications of resource-poor Japan waging a major war against the United States, with its vast resources.

This was no idle comment by Yamamoto. The commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy was consistent in his beliefs, and in 1941 stated, "Anyone who has seen the auto factories of Detroit and the oil fields of Texas knows that Japan lacks the national power for a naval race with America."

(Note: I wonder if there are any modern equivalents of Adm. Yamamoto in other countries making the same observations today and coming to a different conclusion?)

But there was a curious logic of politics and policymaking at work within the highest levels of Japan's government in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was Japan's lack of resources, its self-perception of a "lack of national power" that prompted its leadership to mobilize the military and strike out in wars of expansion and conquest.

But for now, enough discussion of warfighting in World War II and the industrial planning that supported it in the United States. And we will discuss Japan further in this article, but with reference to postwar progress, not dwelling on the failed the Japanese war effort. (But I will return to these themes in future articles.)

For now, I am deliberately going to overstate what I believe to be the case with respect to U.S. energy policy and strategy. I am going to overstate the case just to be sure I am not understating it.

More on the "Free Market" as a Strategy

What is the basic fallback principle to which Americans tend to revert when confronted with hard questions of industrial policy? It is that "free markets" are generally better at organizing economic activity for wealth and profit and promoting general progress than are government plans? The idea of "government planning" is anathema to most Americans.

It brings to mind visions of the five-year plans of the Soviet Union, or the political discomfort of allowing the government to pick winners and losers, as in modern Japan. This strikes most Americans as just plain wrong. It is far better, goes the thinking, to allow people the freedom to take risks, and one hopes to come up with better ideas, if not better mousetraps.

The idea of a free market in goods and services is, in fact, such an icon of American economic belief that federal, state, and even local governments will go to the most extreme lengths to establish and enforce policies that ensure that so-called "freedom" reigns in the marketplace.

Localities across the land will, for example, license and regulate the humble hot dog peddler, so as to preserve the "free market" in taxpaying restaurants. Oh, wait a minute. That is not such a free market after all, is it?

Still, if the market for goods and services is not free, for example due to the rise of "trust-like" behavior on the part of businesses, then, by golly, the government will regulate it some more. That way, if the market is not "free," it will at least be "fair."

So as things currently stand in the United States, the government regulates the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the medicines we ingest, the content of the paint on the walls, the thickness of the sidewalk beneath our feet, and...you get the picture. All caricature aside, the American free market is hardly "free."

Despite this apparent dichotomy of freedom through regulation, some people still ask questions along the lines of, "Why isn't it enough to leave energy prices to market forces?" And that is a fair question. Let's take it at face value.

There is a lot of evidence that the so-called free market in energy, particularly for oil and oil products, has worked well for many decades, bringing cheap energy to many people. So why is it necessary for the government, or anyone else, to "plan" for the energy future? Does the free market not work anymore?

And if the free market in energy supplies does not work, then what is the answer? After all, there is a great deal of evidence that the long lines for gasoline in the United States in 1974 were caused by government regulation of the product distribution channels, not because of the Arab oil embargo.

And even the recent spot shortages of fuel in some places in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were not really failures of the free market so much as they were related to the natural-social phenomenon of mass evacuations from coastal areas that occurred at the urging of government officials.

As things worked out recently, spiking gasoline prices served as one of the clearest of market signals that there was money to be made. So high prices for gas drew supplies of fuel product back into the otherwise barren marketplace. This is Economics 101-type stuff.

Industrial Policy on a National Scale

But look at the issue from the other direction. "Turn the map around," as the Marines like to say. Look at your situation, and think about your plan, through the eyes and mind of your opponent. And consider the possibility that, from time to time, things change to the point that the old ways really no longer work, nor do the old constructs apply.

The great scholar of management Peter Drucker noted that some industries and some kinds of economic activity are clearly national in scale, and are thus the inherent province of national policy. The oil industry in general is clearly one of these types of economic activities.

For well over a century, the oil industry has been heavily scripted, regulated, and taxed, from the most remote field drilling prospect to the point where the gasoline pump nozzle enters the gas tank of the automobile at the humble point of purchase.

Moving back up the chain from the gasoline pump, the fact is that America purchases immense amounts of oil from abroad. And at the far distant end of that long chain of commerce, the United States has a global-scale military commitment to, as the saying goes, "ensure access" to these foreign oil supplies.

I am not trying to tell you something you do not already know, but instead point out the reality that the so-called free market in oil is not really free, or anything close to free. No big government, no cheap oil.

Ask yourself this question: "How much does a barrel of oil really cost?" Look beyond just the posted price on the New York Mercantile Exchange. To come up with an approximation of the true price for oil, you have to add in all of the external costs, such as the U.S. foreign military commitment that "ensures access" to the stuff. Then divide by the number of barrels produced.

Depending upon whose numbers you want to believe, the additional cost of the "security" component of a barrel of oil landed in the United States ranges from $20 per barrel to over $60 per barrel. So the true cost of oil to the U.S. economy may be close to twice the posted price.

(And the rest of the oil-using world, which does not directly pay the costs of the U.S. military commitment to "ensure access" otherwise picked up by the taxpayers of America, thanks us every day, as I am sure you, dear readers, have noticed. But I digress.)

Furthermore, an energy industry facing Peak Oil is even more so one of these types of industries of which Drucker wrote. In Part I of this article, I discussed the rather pessimistic views of James Kunstler about the U.S. energy future. And I discussed the somewhat more optimistic views of Peter Tertzakian.

No matter to which of these alternative futures you might subscribe, they both forecast that supplies of conventional crude oil will begin to tighten and then begin an irreversible decline down the Hubbert curve. In the end, things in the oil industry will become even more heavily scripted, regulated, and taxed.

The U.S. military commitment to "ensure access" to oil supplies will become even larger and more dispersed and more costly. And that is if everything holds together and follows current trends, and does not just blow up and spin out of control.

The core of the problem in all of this is that there is little or no strategic rationality to what is going on, certainly not in the United States. To the extent that there is any high-level planning in the U.S. energy arena, it is inadequate if it does not just plain stink. From an economic standpoint, Americans are using oil products not priced according to their true costs. Cheap gas and cheap money are simply incompatible over the long run. And maybe even over the short run, considering where we are now.

Tax Policy Is Energy Policy

Study after study in many different nations and economies has shown, for example, that the best way to avoid having to scramble for new supply sources of oil is to control the growth of demand, if not outright to reduce absolute demand.

In other words, it is not about "imports from the Middle East," as referenced in the president's State of the Union speech. It is all about aggregate demand for a depleting product. So is it possible to reduce aggregate demand? The short answer is yes -- and I do not mean by using a totalitarian or authoritarian approach.

Consider Japan, a postwar industrial powerhouse, and now a respected parliamentary democracy that today uses less oil than it did in 1974. That is, after 32 years of economic growth (OK, including a severe recession in the late 1980s and 1990s), Japan is using less oil now than before, in an absolute sense.

So the case of Japan demonstrates that reducing absolute oil demand is possible over time. How does Japan do it? The short answer is with high fuel taxes and an emphasis at many levels on producing energy-efficient devices, particularly fuel-efficient cars (products that Japan then exports and sells in America, among other places).

Higher taxes on fuel at the gas pump in America would begin to do some of the trick of arresting growth in oil usage. But so far, politics in the United States have ruled out higher gasoline taxes even during the "cheap oil" days of the 1980s and 1990s.

I have heard intelligent people, including not a few politicians who are in a position to know better, describe it along the lines of "cheap gas is an American birthright." (To which I have a two-word response: "Peak Oil.")

So lacking a long-term approach to conserving a depleting asset, the default energy policy of the United States seems to be that the nation will buy and import a lot of oil from other nations, rather than pay high gas taxes.

This low-tax, high-demand situation in America sharply contrasts the energy situation in most other advanced economies on the world, particularly Europe and Japan (see above), where fuel taxes are hefty to say the least.

With low fuel taxes in the United States and high fuel taxes in Europe and Japan, it follows that the average fuel efficiency in the U.S. automobile fleet is somewhat less than half that of the automobile fleet in Europe. And the U.S. fuel-efficiency average is far less than half the average fuel efficiency of the Japanese automobile fleet.

This particular statistic concerning the comparative national average for fuel efficiency matters a lot when a nation uses as much gasoline every day as does America. Current U.S. daily gasoline demand is around 9.2 million barrels per day (it varies seasonally).

If the U.S. automobile fleet were just as efficient as the European fleet (a very big "if," but work with me on this), that usage number would be about 4.6 million barrels of gasoline per day.

But still, it is possible that increased fuel-efficiency alone could "save" half of the gasoline used in the United States every day. And consider that it takes two barrels of oil, on average, to refine into one barrel of gasoline.

So "saving" 4.6 million barrels of gasoline per day is the equivalent of daily reducing crude oil usage by 9.2 million barrels, in a world that produces and consumes about 84 million barrels of oil per day. So what you might want to label as "excessive" U.S. gasoline demand alone, based simply on considerations of low mileage, accounts for as much as 11% of the total daily world oil demand, or an amount equal to the anticipated daily oil demand of China in 2010 (U.S. Department of Energy estimate).

The economic and policy arguments do not stop there, however. Low automotive fuel efficiency in America directly leads to higher levels of oil imports, higher demand, higher posted prices, and far more U.S. dollars sent overseas to pay for oil.

In the aggregate, then, the United States is spending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas, and in essence "decapitalizing" itself, so that many millions of drivers can sit in their cars and idle in traffic jams every day. Can you really say that this is the "free market" at work? What would Clausewitz say? I think he would call it bad policy and abysmal energy strategy.

This abysmal oil situation is so bad that it must be a reflection of an inherent flaw in the political and policymaking process. The current situation is so self-destructive to the nation over the long term, and such obviously bad policy, that it could not otherwise occur if the nation were, let's say, at war.

(Oh, wait a minute. We are at war. Last I heard, it was going to be a "long war," according to the Quadrennial Defense Review.) Think about it. Any general who proposed a warfighting strategy equivalent to the current so-called "energy strategy" to political leaders would lose his stars and be ushered off to retirement in the Old Soldiers' Home.

Yet the policymakers in America move ahead as if by instinct, like moths to a flame, in an attempt to perpetuate a lost past receding before our eyes. (Well, OK, I admit that you have to understand how to view depletion at a global level. This is not for amateurs.)

And people in general wonder why they are less and less in control of their energy destiny, and bellyache that the nation is more and more at the mercy of the whims of other people in faroff places. The answer is as close as the driveway of the large house in the leafy suburb, many miles from the homeowner's place of employment, which is a state of affairs due in large measure part to a legacy of low fuel prices, if not low fuel taxes.

Score this latter point for Jim Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency, who has been one of the most vocal and articulate commentators on the subject: One of Kunstler's key litmus tests for whether or not any politician "gets it" on Peak Oil is if the honcho supports reconstructing some semblance of an intercity passenger rail system in the United States. It would be great industrial policy, and we are going to need it. This would probably be a winning issue for the presidential election in 2008, if anyone were listening.

The foregoing is merely one out of innumerable examples of long-term energy folly in the United States. But it illustrates that point that you have to think back "up the chain" to the bad policy and even worse state of politics. It highlights the point that the politics of energy in the United States tend to be ill informed to the point of being ignorant and self-destructive. The energy policy that flows from such bad politics is disjointed.

And how can any sort of "winning" energy strategy (let alone a survival energy strategy in a world that may already be at Peak Oil) emerge from this kind of mess? Recall what I said in Parts I and II of this discussion, referring back to Clausewitz: "While a failure of tactics or operations can doom the entire chain, a failure of policy and strategy will doom the entire chain."

The New Strategic Realities of Energy

"Strategic Realities"? Sounds like a business school case, but that is not my focus. This discussion is more a mixture of graduate work in geology, plus a tour at an advanced war college. (Hint -- like the one located at Newport, R.I.) The economics of energy have been fundamentally altered by the geological reality of Peak Oil, coupled with world demographic trends toward more people using more oil.

These key factors change the economics of energy, and hence impact the politics of energy at the very highest levels, and at the level of national policy. In this respect, America is late to the game -- or should I say to "the great game."

There has been up till now a stubborn refusal in the United States to face the facts of the Peak Oil reality. At some point, mere negligence becomes gross negligence becomes willful misconduct.

With rare exceptions like Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland (a conservative Republican, by the way), "power" is failing to speak truth to the people. It is left, then, for people somehow to speak truth to power, not unlike Adm. Yamamoto to Premier Konoe in 1940.

This is why I believe that it is important to discuss energy in terms of developing a true "energy policy and strategy" approach to an oncoming future characterized by declining supplies of crude oil, dramatically higher costs for the stuff, and immensely more political friction both home and abroad. Nothing is going to get easier. And crafting the outlines of a continuously evolving national energy strategy is not a simple matter.

A sound energy strategy will have to be adaptable to the dynamics of constant change in a competitive world. One thing for certain is that there is no one-shot, cookbook "energy strategy" that if only you follow the recipe will forever maintain some happy status quo.

Look around the world and you will see many nations that consider their energy resources, and associated production and distribution systems strategic assets, to a scale not even comprehensible to most Americans.

These overseas resources and related systems are considered, by their owners, to require management through a deliberate planning process sharply focused on national energy security and long-range, sustainable access to energy resources.

This does not necessarily mean that some government entity owns every oil well and every refinery, although in some countries, that is the case. But it does mean that the policymakers within the respective governments have decided to concern their national policy apparatuses at a strategic level with the sources and uses of energy and to focus on aspects that are deemed to be critical, particularly in the arena of sustainability.

Sweden, for example, has a national plan to become oil independent within 20 years, mostly by eliminating demand for petroleum in its industries and society. The Swedes fully intend to remain a developed nation and to provide a high-level quality of life to the population. But they will do it without relying on other people's oil. Good for them. This is Swedish national policy, and the voters are coming onboard in ways that leave U.S. policy in the dust. Wow!

The list of other nations with what can only be termed "strategic plans" for their energy resources includes places that are important to the world of energy production and full of very intelligent people, despite any caricatures or stereotypes you may carry with you.

From Russia to Venezuela, from China to Iran, these are nations that have energy plans and policies and strategies for the 21st century. Some nations and plans may be better than others, but at least they have plans.

In America, there is a rather foolish tendency to belittle some of these other nations and their energy policies, if not to fear them. (Although, in the end, America winds up reacting to them.)

This is partly due to a poverty of imagination in the collective minds of U.S. leadership, such as when one member of Congress called the Swedes and their energy goals "quaint" and "not relevant" to the U.S. situation. I wonder if another high-ranking member of the U.S. government thinks that the Swedes are fortifying their "personal virtue" by striving to become oil independent within 20 years.

Oil independence is "not relevant"? Aggressive energy conservation measures are merely "personal virtue"? Famous last words, I suppose. This kind of thinking is pre-Peak Oil and all but endorses a national policy-by-default to foreclose any sense of adaptability to changes in the world of energy.

At the lofty levels of policymaking and strategy formulation, certainly concerning the future of energy supply for the United States and its allies in the world, there is no such thing as finality. The goal has to be to create a continuous process of policy-strategy formulation in the arena of energy that influences events such that things proceed to favor the interests of one party or another, and preferably favors our "side," if any side is going to prevail.

Couple the current U.S. poverty of imagination in the arena of strategy with the evident raw suspicion and belligerent opposition on the part of U.S. leadership when some foreign nations adopt policies that are confrontational to U.S. entities and interests.

Sometimes, the United States acts surprised when other nations act in their own self-interest, when for one reason or another it is America that has made itself vulnerable to the whims and caprices of others. So what is the answer going forward? Change policy? Remake national energy strategy? Or do we really think that we can, as the saying goes, just "bomb them all back to the Stone Age?" Has that ever worked before?

For now, suffice to say that there are people in high places in other nations engaged in deliberate energy planning and formulating energy policy and strategy in their own ways. They are moving their pieces about on the chessboards of the world. And despite whatever sense of motion you may see within the U.S. leadership cadre, my opinion is that U.S. energy policy and strategy is unfocused and inferior to that of certain other nations.

Speaking of moving chess pieces about on the chessboards of the world, remember that the word "checkmate" is derived from the Farsi language of Persia, today known as Iran. In Farsi, the expression "shah mat" translates to "the king is defeated." How is that for a fundamental "strategic" concept?

Until next time,

Byron W. King

Byron W. King is a practicing attorney in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with real clients and real law books on his shelves. After graduating from Harvard University more years ago than he cares to discuss, Byron worked as a geologist in the exploration and production division of a major international oil company. He has followed developments in the oil and gas industry for almost three decades. However, in the process of seeking more excitement than a man can safely obtain from flaring over-pressurized gas whipping out of a 21,000-foot well, Byron also served for many years in both the active and reserve components of the United States Navy.
While in the sea service, Byron logged more flight time in tactical jet aircraft than George W. Bush, as well as 127 more carrier landings than the recently-re-elected commander in chief. Among other assignments, Byron has served as a field historian with the Navy.
Byron looks at current events, economics, and politics through the lens of history. He brings to the table a unique perspective that incorporates many millions of years of the Earth’s geologic history, and blends its significance into the more recent, man-made kind of tale.