ZGram - 10/19/2002 - "Ruppert: The Unseen Conflict"
irimland@zundelsite.org
irimland@zundelsite.org
Sat, 19 Oct 2002 18:57:01 -0700
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny
10/19/2002
Good Morning from the Zundelsite.
This morning I watched Michael Ruppert's fabled Portland/Oregon
presentation. It is a tape worth its price. Certain things might
jar you ideologically, but all in all, the tape will leave you
thoughtful. It can be purchased from the Ruppert website,
www.copvcia.com
Here is today's analysis of where the world is heading:
[START]
The Unseen Conflict
By Michael C. Ruppert
mruppert@copvcia.com
10-19-2
War Plans, Backroom Deals, Leverage and Strategy -- Securing What's
Left of the Planet's Oil Is and Has Always Been the Bottom Line
The Opening Salvos of a New and Bloody War are PR, Economic and Political
=A9 COPYRIGHT 2002, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness
Publications <http://www.fromthewilderness.com>
fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved.
May Be Recopied, Posted on the Internet or Distributed for non-profit only.
(FTW) -- What started out as a blitzkrieg, the Bush agenda for the
invasion of Iraq is now producing a world picture that can only be
described with one word -- confusing. It is becoming apparent that
outraged world opinion, guided by shrewd public relations efforts of
foreign governments (including Iraq), has thrown a curve ball to the
Bush military plan for a pre-election invasion and occupation .
But one curve ball is not a strikeout. The continuing military build
up, more frequent air strikes, and the risky covert deployment of
combat troops in supposedly neutral regions shows the degree of
Washington's commitment to war. These troops are going to be used.
Russia, France and China are only stalling for time, hoping to cut
the best backroom deals possible. They're perhaps also hoping that
the American Empire will make a fatal mistake or a delay will break
Bush's political, popular, and economic support.
Wall Street's 500-plus point rally on the two days of shameless
congressional votes authorizing the use of force last week clearly
signaled what world leaders have known for some time, and what the
American public is seriously beginning to grasp -- the whole thing is
about Iraqi oil.
The Associated Press ran a story yesterday indicating that the U.S.
had been overwhelmed by global opposition to the invasion of a
country second only to Saudi Arabia for its known oil reserves. Iraq
is capable of quick production increases even if Saddam tries to
destroy his oil fields, as former CIA director James Woolsey recently
acknowledged. The story's lead sentence read, "Facing strong
opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down
from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must authorize military
force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with weapons inspectors,
diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday."
However, a Reuters story released hours later clearly indicated that
the U.S. was playing hardball behind the scenes. "Iraq's main
opposition group says a post-Saddam government would review existing
oilfield development deals with French and Russian companies and
could favour U.S. firms instead.
"Sharif Ali Bin Al Hussein, spokesman for the main Iraqi opposition
group the Iraqi National Congress (INC), told Reuters in an interview
that his group would open the oil sector to all companies, including
the U.S. majors.
"'We would have to review all contracts which have been signed by
this regime to make sure it is in the interest of the Iraqi people
and not just for Saddam Hussein,' Hussein said."
Nobody is asking who controls the INC. It's a given.
The stakes are incredibly high for Russia. Major press organizations
are now acknowledging what FTW has been saying for months. The Bush
objective is to drive the price of oil down and simultaneously drive
a stake through OPEC, forestalling a further and perhaps catastrophic
crash in the U.S. economy. News analyses from Pravda to Fox News have
foreseen that a successful U.S. invasion will result in crude oil
prices of between $12 and $16 per barrel. Oil currently consts $30
per barrel.
That would destroy Russia's economic recovery as it sells hand over
fist its own diminishing reserves -- oil that is more expensive to
produce and of a lesser quality than Mideast crude, while prices are
at $30. Iraq owes Russia $7 billion in debt from the Soviet era.
And on Aug. 19, Russia and Iraq signed a $40 billion infrastructure
development deal, which, as reported in the Tehran Times, saw a team
of Russian engineers on their way to what may soon be targets of U.S.
bombing raids.
Both Russia and France have development interests in major Iraqi oil
fields. The Reuters story reported, "Although [France's] TotalFinaElf
has no contract, it has been earmarked by Saddam's government to
develop the Majnoon and Bin Umar fields with reserves totaling 26
billion barrels. [Russia's] Lukoil has signed a contract for the 15
billion-barrel West Qurna field."
The back room deals and implied threats are getting hot and heavy. On
Sept. 5, the Asia Times reported that Russia was considering an
expensive trans-Siberian pipeline to service China. This would
compete with post-9-11 pipeline deals that have been negotiated to
send Caspian and Central Asian oil through Afghanistan for the
Chinese market under U.S. control.
As FTW noted last month, the World Bank has opened offices in Kabul
to facilitate the financing of the U.S.-backed projects. Russia's
move may not be much of a threat because Russian oil is inferior to
Caspian oil. Also, Russia has long passed its peak of production,
which means that as time passes it will be increasingly expensive to
produce. The message is clear, however, and a coalition of nations
opposed to U.S. Imperial behavior could pull it off.
In the meantime Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis firm, reported that
the U.S. is quietly offering a quid pro quo to Russia in the form of
a trade off. If Russia will sanction the U.S. invasion, the U.S. will
allow Russia a free hand in Georgia to deal with Chechen and Islamic
rebels and presumably a piece of the profits from the new
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project that just broke ground. It seems
like a very little quid for a lot of pro quo.
And in Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal made a
second about face on Monday and once again categorically withdrew any
Saudi support for the U.S. war. The timing was possibly influenced by
a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) report released today that was
exceptionally critical of the Bush Administration for not cracking
down on Saudi Arabia's extensive financial ties to al Qaeda. The CFR
investigation, directed by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, CEO of American
International Group (AIG), was chartered by the CFR to be an
intelligence analysis of terrorist financing. Greenberg, a staunch
Israeli supporter, is well qualified for this task. In 1996 Bill
Clinton floated his name to replace John Deutch as the director of
central intelligence.
Greenberg and AIG have been connected by FTW in previous
investigations to suspected money laundering through the Arkansas
Development Financial Authority and to the drug trade. AIG's San
=46rancisco legal office recently employed the wife of convicted
Medellin Cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder.
The CFR criticism of Bush is significant for many reasons. First, it
signals that the CFR is anxious to pursue an agenda that will likely
result in the demise of the Saudi kingdom and the division of that
country, with the U.S. simultaneously occupying both Iraq and the oil
producing regions of Saudi Arabia. FTW predicted this scenario last
month. The significance of a move that would give the U.S. military
control of 36 percent of the world's oil is not lost on the rest of
the world and it suggests the presence of a much deeper reality.
So flimsy are the Bush Administration's frequently changing
justifications for war that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jay
Bookman wrote a Sept. 29 editorial called "Pax Americana," in which
he openly called the U.S. an empire.
"The official story on Iraq has never made sense," Bookman wrote.
"The connection that the Bush administration has tried to draw
between Iraq and al-Qaida has always seemed contrived and artificial.
In fact, it was hard to believe that smart people in the Bush
administration would start a major war based on such flimsy evidence."
He continued to make the point that the administration had no Iraqi
exit strategy because it didn't intend to leave. Period. His premise
seemed to be, 'Hey, let's stop kidding ourselves. We are an empire
and we should go out and act like it.'
But perhaps the most critical element of the post-9-11 landscape,
which is made clear by the CFR report, is a sense of urgency held by
major financial players. As FTW has been saying for a year now, the
only way both the urgency and the frenzy and the near desperation of
these moves to carve up the world's oil can be explained is with one
simple concept: the world is starting to run out of oil.
Coming cataclysmic global oil and natural gas shortages are about to
become very real, certainly within the next two years, to everyone on
the planet. Those countries that have access to what oil remains will
survive and dominate and those that do not will atrophy and
disintegrate. This is a deadly game of musical chairs. It is the kind
of unspoken crisis that would compel the U.S. Congress to worship
Caligula's horse, forget the Constitution and international law, and
sell out completely.
Many have almost worshipped the progressive, seemingly unassailable
credentials and leadership of Sen. John Kerry from Massachusetts, who
is a possible 2004 Democratic nominee for the White House. However,
many have charged him with being a privileged member of an elite
ruling class. He was educated at Yale and belonged to the secretive
Skull and Bones Society, of which both Bush presidents are members.
What one believes about Kerry's background is not significant. What
is significant is that he voted for the use of force resolution last
week without even a whimper. That vote was noticed and so were many
others.
These are strange times.
Yesterday's announcement by the State Department that North Korea has
a nuclear weapons program is troubling for two reasons. First, it
raises all of the obvious questions about whether, if the U.S. isn't
really concerned about oil, it will now drop all Iraqi plans and go
invade Korea instead. They seem to be closer to building a bomb than
Iraq is. But secondly and perhaps most importantly is the fact that,
as reported by Stratfor, Pyongyang told the Bush Administration about
the nuclear program two weeks ago. Why didn't we hear about it then?
Stratfor suggests that reason is a pending summit between the U.S.
and China where one country might be traded for another. But instead
it is likely the announcements earlier this year that the two Korea's
might unite scares the White House infinitely more. What, then, would
be the need for massive U.S. troop deployments in the former South
Korea, right next to China? And isn't it also strange that a number
of pipeline plans involving both U.S. and Russian companies that
might go around China and make oil marketable to Japan and South
Korea seem to pass through North Korea?
Go figure.
We are already being prepared for the Bush Administration's fallback
position if it cannot get the war it wants, when it wants it.
Yesterday, CIA director George Tenet sounded the clarion call in the
last public hearing of the Joint House-Senate Intelligence Committee
examining the 9-11 attacks. "Al Qaeda has reconstituted itselfIt is
capable of multi-theater operations." Tenet made no bones about the
fact that another major attack -- one that will be very convenient
for the White House -- is on the way.
The Oct. 12 bombing of a nightclub in Bali that killed many
Australians has not seemed to impact widespread anti-war sentiment
among the people down under. That might well be an omen for the
outcome of the next terrorist attack in the U.S.
We now know that Bush et al knew enough about the last one to prevent
it but did not. It has already been shown that CIA-linked members of
the Pakistani intelligence service helped to fund it; that five of
the hijackers received flight training at U.S. military
installations; that no fighters were scrambled in time to do
anything; and that President Bush lied when he said he had no idea
that planes could be used as weapons. We know that it is a state
secret as to whether the intelligence agencies told Bush what we now
know that they knew.
I hope that this government fully understands how numerous,
well-informed, now-seasoned and capable citizens will be watching an
attack this time, and how quickly the worldwide networks that have
formed in the last year will expose the first scintilla of untruth in
the government's actions. I hope this government understands that the
"sleeping giant" of the American people is beginning to stir and
unite with peoples all around the world who are already awake.
But, as my dear friend Catherine Austin Fitts loves to say, "Those
who win in a rigged game get stupid." And that is perhaps the most
frightening thing of all.
[END]
(Source: =1Fhttp://www.rense.com/general30/unseen.htm)