In article <bviudd$2lbj$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>, Mark Graffis says...

>From The Wilderness Publications

IN YOUR FACE
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/013004_in_your_face.html

- Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, 9/11 and Peak Oil "On
the Table"
- July '04 Supreme Court Ruling on Secrecy, Task Force Documents Obtained
through FOIA Suit on Collision Course as Cheney "Duck Hunts" with Scalia
- The Reason Why Activists of All Stripes are Ineffective

by
Michael C. Ruppert

"The Cheney report is very guarded about the amount of foreign oil that will
be required. The only clue provided by the [public] report is a chart of net
US oil consumption and production over time. According to this illustration,
domestic oil field production will decline from about 8.5 million barrels
per day (mbd) in 2002 to 7.0 mbd in 2020, while consumption will jump from
19.5 mbd to 25.5 mbd. That suggests imports or other sources of petroleum.
will have to rise from 11 mbd to 18.5 mbd. Most of the recommendations of
the NEP [National Energy Policy, May 2001] are aimed at procuring this 7.5
mbd increment, equivalent to the total oil consumed by China and India .
 -- Professor Michael Klare
"Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil"
Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2004

The White House Stonewall goes on, as the Bush administration continues to
deny the non-partisan General Accounting Office's request for information on
who the White House Energy Task Force met with while formulating national
energy policy. For the first time in history, the GAO has sued the executive
branch for access to the records. It has been 42 days since the GAO filed
their suit against the Bush administration and 333 days since the White
House first received the G A O request. Why is the White House going to such
lengths? What are they trying to hide?
Truthout, www.truthout.org
"White House Stonewall"
April 5, 2002
"The Supreme Court said Monday it will settle a fight over whether Vice
President Dick Cheney must disclose details about secret contacts with
energy industry officials as the Bush administration drafted its energy
policy.
"The Supreme Court will hear the case sometime in the spring, with a ruling
expected by July."
-- The Associated Press, Dec. 15, 2003
"Bush and Blair have been making plans for the day when oil production
peaks, by seeking to secure the reserves of other nations."
-- George Monbiot
"Bottom of the Barrel"
The Guardian, December 2, 2003
" China and India are building superhighways and automobile factories.
Energy demand is expected to rise by about 50 per cent over the next 20
years, with about 40 per cent of that demand to be supplied by petroleum.
"Oil supplies are finite and will soon be controlled by a handful of
nations; the invasion of Iraq and control of its supplies will do little to
change that. One can only hope that an informed electorate and its
principled representatives will realize that the facts do matter, and that
nature - not military might - will soon dictate the ultimate availability of
petroleum."
 -- Alfred Cavallo
Oil: The illusion of plenty
Bulletin of the A tomic Scientists, Jan-Feb 2004
The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its
global domination.
 The plan ["Rebuilding America's Defenses", Project for a New American
Century - 2000] shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of
the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power.
 The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US
and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies.
As demand is increasing, so supply is decreasing, continually since the
1960s.
-- Michael Meacher MP, UK Environment Minister 1997-2003
"The War on Terrorism is Bogus"
The Guardian, September 6, 2003
"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may
find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues,
except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct
external threat."
-- Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Grand Chessboard, p211 (1997)
(Brought to world attention after 9/11 by FTW on Nov. 7, 2001 )

January 29, 2004 1700 PST ( FTW ) - Nothing can change the facts.
When, in May 2001, the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch
filed suit to see the records of Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy
Development Group (NEPDG), it was the first to protest the unheard of
secrecy at the energy task force. As the White House stonewalled, the
Government Accounting Office (GAO) filed suit the following February.
Congress had, after all, funded the project. Non-governmental officials had
played major roles in its deliberations and, under the Constitution, the GAO
had an obligation to see how the money was spent and what was produced.
White House refusals prompted media speculation about deals with Enron and
big oil companies; a divvying of spoils, a rape of the environment. Judicial
Watch was later joined in its suit by the Sierra Club. A scandal for
everyone!
It's a sure bet that of all the plaintiffs; from Congressman Henry Waxman
(D - CA) and Comptroller General David Walker who fought for the GAO; to
Judicial Watch's Larry Klayman, who had previously fought Bill Clinton; to
the environmentalists, none had a clue as to what they were really asking
for or why Dick Cheney fought them so ruthlessly.
The fight was just beginning.
As reported in the congressional newspaper The Hill on February 19, 2003,
the GAO dropped its suit after the administration made threats of heavy cuts
to its budget. The offer GAO couldn't refuse was delivered by Alaska 's
Republican Senator Ted Stevens where a lot of new drilling was expected to
take place. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club stood firm. Both had the
money to see their suits through.
The controversy boiled throughout 2001-2002. It was a crisis which - absent
the war on terror - might have been one of the biggest constitutional crises
of all time. It might still be.
Enron seems like a pleasant diversion now. All these battles started before
the first plane hit the Twin Towers . That's one reason why everyone was so
shocked at the blatantly illegal secrecy and the manner in which the
administration fought. This was long before The Patriot Act, Homeland
Security, Patriot Act II, and all the scandalous lies that have since been
revealed. One of the administration's bets was that, in the wake of 9/11,
the NEPDG records would be forgotten.
They lost that one.
Hints as to what was discussed in the secret task force - empanelled
immediately after Bush took office in January 2001 - are now on the table.
They strongly suggest that inside the NEPDG records lay the deepest, darkest
secrets of 9-11. The motive; the apocalyptic truth that would compel such
carnage and hairpin the course of human history; the thing that no one ever
wanted to know; the thing that makes it utterly believable that the US
government could have deliberately facilitated the attacks of September
11th, stands on the brink of full disclosure.
The likelihood that those truths might soon be revealed is serious enough
that two weeks ago Dick Cheney found it convenient to go duck hunting with
Justice Antonin Scalia who will hear arguments in the case this spring.
Nature laughs as pundits spin and concerned peoples around the world
frantically and frenetically expend futile, disorganized energies against
the juggernaut of tyranny and madness: elect a Democrat (any Democrat);
impeach Bush; write a check to support an activist group; place an ad; stage
a protest march; vote; don't vote; file a suit; file another suit; demand
that the major media tell the truth, as long as it's the truth you want to
hear; blame political ideology; blame a religion; blame a race; blame
Capitalism; blame Communism; fight each other to release your frustrations
and fears. That will make it better. Do anything but accept the obvious
reality that for the US government to have facilitated and orchestrated the
attacks of 9/11, something really, really bad must be going on.
There are so many inconsistencies, proven lies, conflicts of interest, and
contradictions in the Bush administration's accounts of 9/11 that the sheer
multitude of them - in a rational world - would have brought the government
to a halt long ago. But this is not a rational world.
It is full of people - on both sides - who are not behaving rationally.
A SEVEN-PAGE GLIMPSE UNDER THE DOOR
Last July, after appealing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for
NEPDG documents, Judicial Watch won a small victory with the release of
seven pages of NEPDG documents.
They included:
.  A detailed map of all Iraqi oil fields (11% of world supply);
.  A two-page specific list of all nations with development contracts for
Iraqi oil and gas projects and the companies involved;
.  A detailed map of all Saudi Arabian oil fields (25% of world supply);
.  A list of all major oil and gas development projects in Saudi A rabia ;
.  A detailed map of all the oil fields in the United Arab Emirates (8% of
world supply);
.  A list of all oil and gas development projects in the U A E;
The documents may be viewed online at:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/071703.c_.shtml .
In their austerity, the documents scream of what NEPDG was debating. If 7.5
mbd of new oil production was to be secured from any place there was only
one place to get it - the Persian Gulf . All told, including Qatar (firmly
under US control and the home of headquarters for US Central Command) and
Iran, the Gulf is home to 60% of all the recoverable oil on the planet. Not
only would these oil fields have to be controlled, billions of dollars in
new investment would be required to boost production to meet US needs,
simultaneously denying that same production to the rest of the world where
demand is also soaring.
Klare wrote:

According to the Department of Energy, Saudi Arabia 's net petroleum output
must grow by 133% over the next 25 years, from 10.2 mbd in 2001 to 23.8 mbd
in 2025, in order to meet anticipated world requirements at the end of that
period. Expanding Saudi capacity by 13.6 mbd, which is the equivalent of
total current production by the United States and Mexico, will cost hundreds
of billions of dollars. The Cheney report calls for exactly that. However,
any effort by Washington to apply pressure on Riyadh is likely to meet
significant resistance from the royal family.
Not to mention from Muslim fundamentalists and ordinary Saudi citizens who
oppose the corrupt and teetering regime.
Sixty per cent of all the recoverable oil on the planet is in an area no
larger than the state of Indiana
Herein lays the motive behind the US 's eagerness to quietly and wrongly
implicate the Saudi government in 9/11. A closer look at the maps obtained
by Judicial Watch explains why. When placed side by side the maps reveal
that 60% of the world's recoverable oil is in a "golden" triangle running

>from Mosul in northern Iraq, to the Straits of Hormuz, to an oil field in

Saudi Arabia 75 miles in from the coast, just west of Qatar, then back up to
Mosul. Sixty per cent of all the recoverable oil on the planet is an in area
no larger than the state of Indiana .
Is it surprising then that the overwhelming majority of US military
deployment since 9/11 is in this region? How easy would it be for the US
military, already surrounding it, to occupy this area in the event that the
Saudi monarchy became unstable?
The list of countries and companies already invested in new development
projects in the region reads like the perfect answer to the question: "OK,
who do we have to deal with to get this done? Who will come with us if we
offer them a piece and who will refuse, no matter what, because they can't
afford to have their share reduced?" Look at the documents and answer that
question and you have perfectly separated the investor nations into two
camps; those who supported the Iraqi invasion and those who opposed it.
The simple fact, as described in the opening quote from Michael Klare, is
that to secure imports equivalent to the amounts consumed by China and India
means taking that oil away from China and India, or some other mix of
countries. The question is, from whom?
Other global battles for the oil that remains have already begun, albeit
quietly for the time being. This year China will pass Japan as the world's
second largest oil importer. A January 3 article by James Brooke in the New
York Times titled Japan and China Battle for Russia's Oil and Gas, described
the fierce high-stakes contest underway. Russia is going to build only one
pipeline east from its Siberian fields. It is either going to terminate in
the middle of China, or on Russia 's Pacific coast where it can supply
Japan, Korea and the Philippines. Brooke wrote, "With the choice Russia
faces, the political and economic dynamics of Northeast Asia stand to be
profoundly shaped for years to come."
No kidding.
Russia has 60 billion barrels (Gb) of proven reserves, a 690-day supply for
planet earth and there are no more significant quantities of oil to be
discovered anywhere inside or outside of Russia . World oil discovery peaked
in the 1960s and has been declining ever since. The human race now uses four
barrels of oil for every barrel found and the gap is widening each year.
What remains to be discovered is gong to be of a lesser quality, much more
expensive to obtain, and more expensive to refine.
WEST AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA, SOUTHEAST ASIA
The public NEPDG report also addresses (in oblique fashion) areas of the
world which have increasingly become inflamed since 9/11: West Africa, South
America, and Southeast Asia . For more than two years FTW has paid close
attention to a shift in US and NATO military presence West Africa,
Venezuela, Colombia, the Philippines and Indonesia . (Please see:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.html#oil )
Of particular interest here are the facts that on May 1 2003, through the
CIA 's Voice of America, NATO commander James Jones announced that NATO was
shifting its focus to West Africa; new US naval bases are being negotiated
in the tiny West African island nations of Sao Tome and Principe (Klare);
and that the US gave six naval warships to Nigeria last summer (Reuters,
CNN). Isn't it convenient that a US-friendly coup toppled the Sao Tome
government last July? (source: CNN)
As detailed by Klare, the importance of these regions is that while they
contain far smaller reserves than the Gulf, they can be brought online (and
drained) quickly to meet current demand without destabilizing the US (world)
economy. The tens and perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars needed to
invest in infrastructure to increase production in the Gulf will come only
when oil prices have soared enough to provide that capital. Don't expect
Wall Street to drain their reserves. They aren't going to pay for it. You
are.
Make no mistake, the oil companies and Wall Street are banking on severe oil
price spikes to fund this short-lived development and, almost as
importantly, to reduce consumption on an ad hoc basis as people find they
can't afford five or six-dollar gasoline and businesses shut down. The world
uses a billion barrels of oil every eleven and one half days and the rate of
consumption is growing. There is, at best, 500-600 billion barrels in the
Gulf, which can only be pumped if the investment is made over the next ten
years and begun immediately.
Do the math.
The vaunted "proven reserve" numbers touted by economists have been shown to
be as questionable as Enron's bookkeeping. FTW documented in April of 2002
that the US Geological Survey admits that it estimates reserves as a
function of demand . On January 9th 2004 Royal Dutch Shell announced that it
had overstated its proven reserves by 20 per cent. The markets reacted
accordingly.
When will the price spikes come? Within six months to a year of the 2004
election. Not - if George W. Bush can prevent it - before then.
FTW has spent 27 months exploring and educating people about all the nuances
involved in a world that is running out of hydrocarbon energy. We have
looked at its effects on transportation, electricity, economic growth and
contraction, political power, civilization and - perhaps most importantly -
food production. The coming showdown over the NEPDG records is probably the
single most important battle that can be fought to learn the truth of 9/11
and the one overriding mandate that is now driving human history.
I am not optimistic about the outcome.
WHY ACTIVISTS FAIL
There are two reasons why activist efforts to halt the inertia of the Empire
have failed and will continue to fail: human nature, and human nature.
Activists all over the political spectrum are flailing about in the
post-9/11 world, spinning wheels, and throwing out idea after idea without a
unifying principle or a clearly stated goal. As has happened so many times
before with the victims of a dozen other instances of government
criminality, the new victims - like the New Jersey widows of 9/11 who are
known for their persistence in challenging government lies - make mistakes
that have been made before, put their faith in strategies that have been
tried before, and discount the wisdom and experience of those who have
suffered before. Human nature says that it is wrong to criticize victims.
Yet the new ones make a habit of ignoring the old ones, only to be replaced
and forgotten when the next, inevitably greater, crime takes place.
Each time a new tragedy strikes, whether it be 9/11, TWA 800 (a Navy
shootdown), CIA involvement in drug trafficking, Iran-Contra, Waco, The
Savings and Loan Scandal, the Enron shareholders, the Gander crash, or any
of a dozen other events in recent history, a new crop of people is instantly
and brutally transformed from people who once trusted the system into people
who have been betrayed by it. Psychologically and emotionally raped, they
rage. They vow to fight. The need to make the system that failed them work
as they were "taught" becomes a new imperative for their sanity and
emotional stability. They must believe that they can make people listen to
them, that they can "fix" it.
When, therefore, others who have been brutalized before them present
themselves with valuable experience and try to explain the lay of the land,
the new victims are faced with the awful responsibility of acknowledging
that they themselves had not listened or responded when their predecessors
cried out for help. They had been just as quick to say "I'm too busy" or
"That's a bunch of b.s. It couldn't be that way." Yet it is. The new victims
had once been as deaf as the rest of the world now appears to them. Still
they clutch at straws and cling to the illusion that "this time it will be
different". For their own sanity they must ignore the reality of the people
who came before them, when to listen and learn might provide a unifying, if
terrifying, focus that might ensure success. All it takes is courage and a
good map .
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR
But there is a deeper part of human nature which covers the planet in a
sickly, light-sweet-crude blanket of denial. It is best exemplified from the
closing lines of Sidney Pollack's 1975 Three Days of the Condor, perhaps the
best spy movie ever made. As FTW has shown in recent stories - using
declassified CIA documents - the CIA was well aware of Peak Oil in the mid
1970s. Three Days of the Condor took that awful truth and said then, what
few in the post-9/11 world have had the courage to say. I can guarantee you
that it is the overriding rationale in Dick Cheney's mind, in the mind of
every senior member of the Bush administration, and in the mind of whomever
it is that will be chosen as the 2004 Democratic Party nominee. Getting rid
of Bush will not address the underlying causative factors of energy and
money and any solution that does not address those issues will prove futile.
Turner (Robert Redford): "Do we have plans to invade the Middle East ?"
Higgins (Cliff Robertson): " Are you crazy?"
Turner: " Am I?"
Higgins: "Look, Turner."
Turner: "Do we have plans?"
Higgins: "No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What
if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize
a rigime? That's what we're paid to do."
Turner: "Go on. So Atwood just took the game too seriously. He was really
going to do it, wasn't he?"
Higgins: "It was a renegade operation. Atwood knew 54-12 would never
authorize it. There was no way, not with the heat on the Company."
Turner: "What if there hadn't been any heat? Supposing I hadn't stumbled on
a plan? Say nobody had?"
Higgins: "Different ball game. The fact is there was nothing wrong with the
plan. Oh, the plan was alright. The plan would have worked."
Turner: "Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a
lie is the same thing as telling the truth?"
Higgins: "No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In 10 or 15
years - food, Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now what do you think the
people are gonna want us to do then?
Turner : " Ask them."
Higgins: "Not now - then. Ask them when they're running out. Ask them when
there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask them when their engines
stop. Ask them when people who've never known hunger start going hungry. Do
you want to know something? They won't want us to ask them. They'll just
want us to get it for them."
What do you want?