Be very skeptical of economist Michael Lynch’s attempts to debunk this. He is very skilled at providing convincing, but invalid or immaterial arguments against the fact that global oil production will “peak” soon. It is only human nature to pin all hopes on the slightest bit of good news, and dismiss an entire mountain of evidence based on the slightest error.

We invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam for control of Iraqi oil, and nothing else (not “took military action against”, but “invaded”, like a good old fascist empire). As a matter of fact, the Bush administration worked very hard to CONCOCT a non-oil justification for the invasion, and their justifications changed significantly throughout the months leading up to the invasion. Even Paul Wolfowitz said, “The only issue we could agree on was weapons of mass destruction,” in this context. Our invasion of Iraq was largely “justified” by a British intelligence dossier that was plagiarized from a graduate student’s paper that described the Iraq of 1991, not that of 2003. Also, Kim Il-song – head of state of North Korea – has repeatedly FLAT OUT TOLD the U.S. that he has nukes, and has used them to blackmail the U.S. into relieving their famine. North Korea also has a much more powerful military than Iraq had pre-invasion. Now, our military is probably stretched a bit thin to fight North Korea. This is a flagrant example of how mainstream media do not connect the dots.

Why would we invade Iraq for its oil? Because global oil production is peaking, set to decline forever afterward (no later than 2010), and Iraq has the second largest proved reserves of oil on the planet, second only to Saudi Arabia. Iraq’s oil industry has not produced at anywhere near capacity for over 10 years due to UN sanctions and destruction of its oilfields. As of this posting, Saudi Arabia (the biggest supplier for the U.S.) has almost zero spare capacity for oil production. Every region except for the Middle East and the former Soviet Union has already passed its peak. The North Sea passed its peak in 1999. The U.S. passed its peak of oil production in 1970, giving subsequent vulnerability to the oil shocks. There is much less useful oil in the Caspian Sea than previously thought because most of it is tainted with sulfur. Exxon, BP-Amoco, and other majors have already pulled out of the Caspian Sea.

I am not suggesting that the invasion was justified even by peak oil. Oil companies in Russia and western Europe had their sights set on Iraq many months before the invasion, and if Bush was not so… well, “Bush-like”, the U.S. and other industrialized countries might have began talks to cooperate during the downhill phase of the age of oil. BUT, the Bush-et-al neocons decided on a short-term, self-serving solution: overthrow Saddam and occupy Iraq to ramp up production, in order to sustain their own lavish lifestyles. Before the invasion, it was widely predicted that this would only make the peak higher and sooner, and the decline steeper.

Alternative energy sources – including hydrogen – cannot soften the impacts of the downward slope of oil production more than a tiny bit. Hydrogen is only an energy “carrier”, not a primary energy source, meaning that fossil fuels must be used to produce it in any useful amount. It is also produced (separated from nature) at a net energy loss, meaning that it wastes energy that could be used more wisely. Other energy sources such as solar, ethanol, and biomass are grossly inadequate as replacements for various reasons.

When there is an ever-shrinking base of available energy for transportation and other industrial activities(PARTICULARLY MODERN AGRICULTURE, EVENTUALLY), there is far-reaching potential for social crises. Many say that this is the background for the federal government allowing the 9/11 attacks to happen – as a pretext to clamp down on civil liberties, to suppress chaos when fossil fuel energy becomes scarce. The U.S. – with our population, relatively long driving distances, and love affairs with SUVs – will be the hardest hit by the increasing scarcity of oil.

Not only will oil gradually become scarcer, but North America is also leaping off the natural gas “cliff”. This is because the nature of a gas well is to plateau throughout most of its life and then stop on a dime. Since 1994, the natural gas industry has had to run faster and faster (drill more wells) just to keep production flat, and in the last couple years total natural gas production has dropped by 3% to 6%, which is actually pretty rapid. The fact that natural gas is also being used to generate electricity worsens this situation. Attempting to maintain natural gas supplies by drilling for coal-bed methane is now destroying ranchers’ properties.

Why am I rambling so much about energy problems facing us? Because I, and many others, are convinced that this – in addition to some human-nature tendency of governments to seek total control – is the underpinning for the current trampling of civil liberties, which would be very easy to carry out after a traumatic unifying event such as 9/11. Industrial civilization runs mostly on fossil fuels, and there is no replacement for them in quantity or quality. Nuclear fusion is always just beyond our grasp, as it has been for the past 40 years.

If you have a few dozen other questions about energy, a good place to start researching the current energy situation is hubbertpeak.com, and the list of “Other websites: Growing Awareness” down the left side of that page. I also particularly recommend the ASPO Newsletters (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas) at peakoil.net.

G.W. Bush did say at the beginning of his term that “we face a major energy crisis.” He just forgot to mention how far-reaching its implications were, and instead relaxed regulations for his energy industry cronies and derided conservation as a “personal virtue.”

BTW…Guess what the 4th 9/11 target was – the Capitol Building, not the White House. Go to Yahoo, then search the News there for ‘capitol fourth goal’ and see for yourself. If that had succeeded, maybe Bush could have “temporarily” suspended the Constitution and seized dictatorial control. That, if nothing else, IS a chilling parallel to Hitler’s Reichstag fire.

Here is my take. The international community baulked at backing the invaision because the administration failed to see the obvious ecconomic benefits for a few major European contries in the continued existance of a Suddam run Iraq. So we had to step up the pressure and cooked the books on the WMD issue.

Iraq is basicly a monumental slight of hand. The heat was getting pretty high on the corporations and the administration (Is there a difference?) to rein in the CEOs. Look! Over there! WMD!

I would like bring the discussion back to the cival rights issues. But not mine. Mine are still in tact (for the time being). It is the middle eastern young man in the car next to me who is a little short on rights these days. He can be profiled in the intrest of ‘national security’ and locked up with out recourse. The folks that shrug and say ‘that is the price of freedom’ are OK with that because they don’t have to buck up. They don’t fit the profile. How many folks that fit the profile are willing to take that attitude? My guess is not a majority.

This attitude is the lazy mans Nitol. I am safe because anyone who looks like Saddam is under suspision. And W keeps telling me that we’ll get the ‘evil doers’. The majority of Americans are OK with that. I’m not.

The ingrediants, constricted civil rights, racial profiling, good ol’ american apathy, have always been there for fascisim to take hold quietly.

A managed fascisim has always existed through out Americas history. Some group that gets to take the blame for the ills of the time period. Their rights get curtailed so the majority can rest easy, go about their business say ’see it’s not my fault’. But these days the balance is way off. After all anyone can be a terroist. they don’t wear uniforms and soon the government will have to start casting a wider net to allow the corporations to feel safe. And we’ll be scratching our heads at how it got this far.

And if it gets any farther off, how easy for the situation to produce the next Hitler. After all hitler was not born to be who he became. He was just an opportunist without a consence. Like any of those we hear about in positions of power and just had to get that mush more money and power because they can’t resist the opportunity.

Thanks for the kind thoughts about the blog. Congratulations on developing a clear-headed approach to the dangers of terrorism and the need for fear. I no longer care, actually, about the potential for Hussein to have had WMD – what I think is interesting here, however, is they way that the rationale has slid away from the potential for a threat to America (a possible but certainly unprecedented reason to initiate armed conflict) to the fait accompli that will be assigned should a stash of chemical weapons barrels be discovered in a back room somewhere. You point in this regard is correct: if possession of chemical or biological weapons (switched in the public’s mind by this administration with pure “WMDs” i.e. nuclear weapons) was all it took to justify a war, than there are a no doubt a hell of a lot of other countries that we would need to invade. Otherwise, the WMD theory is a ruse, plain and simply. Somebody, after all, needed to be invaded, and somebody else (the rest of the world) needed to be frightened in the wake of 9//11.

Todd: Unfortunately, Ann Coulter is unlikely to stop making sounds. She is exactly the kind of things conservatives in this country believe constitutes the “political freedom” worth invading countries for (the other stated rationale for Iraq).

M.

About terrorism. I ended terrorism in my own life and personal world before it began. I choose not to be afraid. No war against terrorism is required. A person or a people can simply refrain from feeding terrorism the one thing it can’t function without: fear!

The other thing, of course, to stop the threat of future 9/11’s is to cease and desist the behaviors that, to the unelevated human mind, demand retaliation in the name of justice.

Back to my desire to write like you. On thinking a tiny bit more about it, perhaps it’s not necessary. If I could, there’d be no need for you. Keep it up!

Tobey
Seek the best and everything else will take care of itself.