Clinging to the Nuclear Option
A Reckless Denial of Reality
By RUDI H. NUSSBAUM | CounterPunch | May 30, 2011
The national organization Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), committed to protecting public health, demands the de-commissioning of all currently operating nuclear plants in the US and urges members of Congress to refuse to subsidize the construction of new ones with loan guarantees and liability insurance. Why? Here is the scientific/common sense justification for such an uncompromising position:
1. After the accident at the Three Mile Island (TMI) plant, the official Columbia U. study found no increased health effects among the surrounding population, consistent with the officially accepted exposure levels as estimated by the TMI plant operators and applying the internationally accepted radiation risk factors, derived from the long-term follow-up of the externally exposed A-bomb survivors. Contradicting these findings, a subsequent study by Wing et al found statistically significant excess cancers. These cancers have affected the lives of real persons. Yet, Wing’s results were angrily dismissed by the radiation establishment and government health agencies because risk assessments, based on “current radiological science,” precluded that the officially accepted, very low levels of population exposures (doses) released from the TMI reactor could induce the observed excess cancers. The possibility that combining flawed dose estimates with flawed risk models could predict flawed numbers of cancers that might be off by several orders of magnitude (factors of ten), was never considered by the Columbia U. investigators.
Following a tradition illustrated nearly 400 years ago by Gallileo’s fate, accepted beliefs and supporting theoretical models, combined with vested interests, trumped observation. Questioning assumptions in adopted radiobiological models and radiation risk assessments would be equivalent to heresy.
2. All over the former Soviet Union increased incidence of cancers and a multiplicity of other serious health detriment, associated with varying levels of environmental radioactivity from the Chernobyl disaster, have been documented by clinical reports and public health statistics. Until recently, the majority of those studies, however, could only be published in Russian scientific/medical journals and these were arrogantly ignored by the Western radiation health establishment. Instead, the nuclear technology promoting United Nation’s (UN) agency: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (the World Health Organization (WHO) is not permitted to conduct independent studies on radiation health) published report after report with estimated numbers of Chernobyl radiation victims that are orders of magnitude smaller than those observed and documented in the recently published compendium of the Russian data in English (Yablokov et al., Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences, 2009, usefully summarized by the German equivalent of PSR). The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) (and the WHO) had accepted IAEA assertions of very low numbers of radiation victims, purportedly based on the world’s most reliable current radiobiological and radiation risk models. Thus, mainstream radiation health scientists proclaim that the variously documented large numbers of radiation-associated health effects after the Chernobyl catastrophe in the former Soviet Union “cannot be caused” by radiation, rather they must be the result of psychosomatic traumas.
Similarly, in far away Western European countries for which UNSCEAR had estimated very low fallout doses after the Chernobyl explosion, a multitude of excess health effects have been reported in refereed medical/scientific journals, such as neo-natal mortality, Down’s syndrome or lowering of child IQ. However, mainstream radiation regulating and protection agencies, quoting the IAEA/WHO reports, deny any causal relationship between Chernobyl fallout and most of those observations. Vested political and financial interests, cherished theoretical models, mixed with intolerable arrogance, again trump reality.
3. Several years ago, the German government commissioned a team of prestigious government-employed health scientists to design a state-of-the-art study of children <5 years who lived in the proximity of any of the 16 German normally operating nuclear power reactors. Presumably, the study was meant to assuage with maximum credibility the continuing citizens’ concerns about observed childhood leukemia clusters around some of these reactors. Therefore, to my knowledge, it is the only government-sponsored radiation study ever that was designed with full input from and oversight by an independent scientific commission, including several members who had publicly supported the citizens’ concerns. Contrary to their expectations, the government scientists found irrefutable evidence that for <5 year old children there exists an association between residence within 10 km of any of these reactors and a more than doubling of risk for contracting leukemia or other cancers. This amazing finding caused quite a stir in the German media (and remains underreported and unacknowledged in the US), but it has never been credibly refuted. Some defensive (“ecologic”) studies with negative outcomes around power reactors in France and England claim to have cast doubt on the German results, but critical analysis of their data shows them to lack the necessary statistical power (i.e. sensitivity to detect an effect) to invalidate the German findings. Desperate for an “out,” the government researchers, the health agencies involved and the German government then declared these excess cases of early childhood leukemia and cancers in the proximity of nuclear plants to be “inexplicable” at this time. They claim that according to “currently accepted radiobiological models” the initiation of these excess malignancies would require levels of radioactive emissions to be three orders of magnitude larger (1,000 times) than what the reactor operators claimed to have been released. However, (1) officially accepted radiation risk factors do not take into account the extreme radio-sensitivity of the developing fetus and of very young children (R.H. Nussbaum and I. Fairlie).
Also, (2) the officially assumed levels of radioactive emissions ignored, e.g., large releases of radioactive Noble Gases (e.g. Krypton) and of Tritium (radioactive hydrogen). Both of these radioisotopes can easily enter the human body via the food chain. Equally important is the fact (3) that the traditional measure of radiation exposure, the concept of dose (absorbed energy averaged over a unit mass of exposed human tissue), which is a fundamental macroscopic concept in current radiation risk estimates, is clearly inadequate to describe a variety of known injurious microscopic cellular/molecular mechanisms that can be triggered, in particular, by internally lodged radioactivity.
Those who deny or deceptively play down the catastrophic threats to public health from all phases of the nuclear power cycle, from mining to the lack of any proven solution to permanent and safe disposal of very long-term deadly spent nuclear fuel, recklessly ignore the medical/scientific lessons we should have learned from current and previous nuclear accidents. The international radiation health science establishments, such as IAEA or ICRP, many of whose members are solidly enmeshed with nuclear arms and nuclear energy production, have for decades deliberately ignored observed detriment from radioactive emissions. Their estimates of the public health impact from environmental radioactivity are based on partially outdated and flawed theoretical models that had been developed decades ago to quantify the effects of exposures to external radiation, such as those suffered by the Japanese A-bomb survivors. In agencies that are mandated to protect public health a mindset that denies reality is intolerable.
In addition to unacceptable long lasting effects on public health, even if operating normally (see section 3), nuclear energy technology can only be financed by taxpayers worldwide because private capital considers it too risky and refuses to underwrite it. The nuclear power industry holds citizens hostage to protect its profits. The industry’s safety claims and its new marketing gimmick of modular design reactors are largely deceptive, since it has nothing to offer in terms of safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel rods.
It is particularly tragic that the current Japanese population is again a study cohort for the devastating effects of a very different mix of environmental radioactive contamination.
Rudi H. Nussbaum is a Professor emeritus of Physics and Environmental Sciences at Portland State University.
It’s the Military, Stupid!
NYT Blames America’s Debt Crisis on Social Security and Medicare
Dave Lindorff – This Can’t Be Happening – May 29, 2011
It was kind of disappointing–even shocking–to read Gretchen Morgenson’s latest New York Times article reporting on a new “study” by Peterson Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Joseph Gagnon, warning about the nation’s growing debt crisis.
The Peterson Institute, founded by Wall Street tycoon Peter Peterson, has long been gunning for the Social Security and Medicare systems, which he, and the rest of the Wall Street gang, see as unfairly competing with Wall Street for the assets of the public, and as destructive of the “free market.”
Peterson’s basic schtick is that the two critical support systems for the elderly and infirm are going to bankrupt the country as they pay out benefits that exceed what retirees paid into the system, and that the solution is to cut back on those benefits, increase the taxes collected, or better, to privatize both systems.
Given Peterson’s and his institute’s long-standing agenda to gut Social Security and Medicare, it’s not surprising that Gagnon, as a fellow there, would say the solution to the nation’s growing debt is to either raise taxes or cut those two hugely successful, critically important and broadly popular social programs.
Morgenson is too smart not to know better, and yet not once in her article did she look outside of Gagnon’s narrow definition of the problem at the real cause of the national debt: the country’s outlandish military budget and a decade of unfunded wars, which have been piling up debt at a rate of some $150 billion a year (and that’s just the principal!).
Real cause of the deficit: the Pentagon, not “Entitlements”
After all, the country has been piling up this debt for several decades, and especially over the last decade, but during all this time, Social Security and Medicare have been paying out their benefits from current dedicated payroll taxes and by drawing on the trust funds that had built up because of the years that more was being collected than paid out in benefits.
Get the point? Nobody, including Gagnon, Morgenson or the Social Security and Medicare-hating members of Congress like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), will acknowledge the fact that not one dime of the huge US deficit has been caused by a benefit check paid by Social Security (and the only parts of Medicare that are funded by general tax revenues are doctors bills and the prescription drug benefit–Medicare Part D–a lousy measure promoted by President George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress which bars the government from negotiating discounts from the pharmaceutical companies–a problem easily fixed by improved legislation).
It’s the wars, stupid!
If the US would just cut its military spending down to size, instead of spending as much as the rest of the world combined on war or preparing for war–say by 75%–it would free up more than $450 billion a year that could go towards funding things like improved education, research into alternative energy, improving health care access, and paying down the deficit, too. Toss in cuts in the outsized $40+ billion annual secret intelligence budget, in the nation’s obsolete and dangerous nuclear weapons program and other ancillary military-related expenditures, and we’re talking about saving half a trillion dollars a year!
Morgenson should be ashamed at carrying water for the likes of Peterson and Gagnon.
Bahraini women recount abuse, torture
Press TV – May 30, 2011
Bahraini female doctors have detailed the humiliations and beatings they suffered after being arrested on suspicion of supporting anti-government protests.
Recently freed from prison but in fear of being rearrested, the doctors said they were released only after they agreed to sign every confession papers they were given after days of brutal torture and being subjected to verbal abuse, AFP reported.
They were also forced to sign many pledges, including not to take part in any protests and not to talk to the media. […]
“I advise you that we will get you to say whatever we want, either by you saying it willingly, or we will beat you like a donkey and torture you until you say it,” AFP quoted a female doctor as saying, citing her interrogator.
Another female doctor, who spent over 20 days in detention, said she was severely beaten by her interrogators after she refused to sign a confession paper reading that doctors themselves killed two anti-government protesters while trying to “expand (their) wounds in order to make them look bad,” for cameras.
Manama officials claim that the two protesters had arrived at the hospital suffering only minor injuries.
“I couldn’t tell on which side of my head the slaps would land,” said the doctor adding that she was made to stand blindfolded in the interrogation room, where she claimed she was repeatedly called a “wh**e.”
Another doctor said she was forced to testify against some male doctors accusing them of mobilizing medics to join anti-regime protests. … Full article
Bias at the BBC
InFocus | May 29, 2011
This program is about the claims, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the BBC is biased to Israelis. The edition of InFocus provides some examples as proof and raises the question whether the bias is an internal agenda or an external pressure. However, the BBC management dismisses the claim and says the network has always followed professionalism. Experts on this program say otherwise.
Another Zionist Attack on Academic Freedom
By Daniel McGowan / Dissident Voice / May 28th, 2011
This is an attempt, admittedly futile, to remove some of the slime thrown at me in a letter addressed to President Gearan and circulated to over 250 people on October 3, 2009. It was written by Jim McKinster and five other faculty members and allegedly signed by 32 people in all. I heard about it by happenstance soon after it was circulated, but neither the President nor any of the six who circulated it was willing to provide me with a copy. That is a typical cowardly response employed by those who use this smear method to accuse, try, and censure someone who dares to speak truth to power. (I finally got a copy last week, hence the 20-month delay in my response.)
Their letter and with a copy of the op-ed I wrote in the Finger Lakes Times are attached.
Allow me to refute the lies and innuendos that these “colleagues” have levied against me, behind my back. Since each of you received the detractors’ letter, I am sending you this rebuttal.
1. The purpose of my op-ed was to define Holocaust denial. That should be clear from the byline “What do deniers really mean?” It was submitted in response to the media frenzy and demonization of President Ahmadinejad who addressed the UN General Assembly and whose picture was shown above my guest appearance piece. Instead of acknowledging this, my faculty detractors feigned outrage that it appeared on the eve of Yom Kippur. I had nothing to do with the timing of the article and make no apology for when it appeared vis-à-vis a Jewish holiday.
2. More egregiously these faculty detractors claimed to know my “personal beliefs” and claimed that I mis-used my title of professor emeritus at Hobart and William Smith Colleges to lend them credence. That is simply a lie. Nowhere are my personal beliefs stated. Moreover my op-ed included an exceptionally long disclaimer showing The Colleges neither condone nor condemn what I had written.
3. The faculty detractors claim that “Holocaust denial carries absolutely no weight among academic scholars in any field whatsoever.” That is simply not true. There are a number of scholars who write about the typical Holocaust narrative and are willing to fight the slime hurled at them by ardent Zionists and by others who feel it their duty to protect the narrative which serves as the sword and shield of apartheid Israel. (BTW, our former provost and former William Smith Dean both demanded that I not use the word “apartheid” in connection with Israel; granted the term was used in the Israeli press and later by President Carter, but it was not “suitable discourse” on our campus where we routinely claim to support free speech and diversity of opinion.)
4. The faculty detractors write that “denying undisputed facts of the holocaust (sic) is not a way to show support for the Palestinians.” First, the three tenets of Holocaust revisionism are clearly not “undisputed. To the contrary, they are hotly and passionately disputed; people’s lives are ruined when they even question these “facts.” In fourteen countries you can get jail time for disputing “facts” surrounding the Holocaust.
Second, disputing “facts” is what science and historical analysis is all about. We academics have no problem discussing and disputing whether or not Jesus Christ is truly the son of God, or if President Obama’s birth certificate is real, or if President Roosevelt knew a Japanese attack on Hawaii was imminent, but we are not allowed to discuss or dispute the six-million figure.
Third, what gives these detractors the credentials to pontificate on what supports or hurts Palestinians? Some of them have been responsible for feting at Hobart and William Smith Colleges anti-Palestinian demagogues including Wiesel and even Netanyahu. They helped give Madeleine Albright our highest humanitarian award, which is a disgrace in light of her statement that the death of over 500,000 Iraqi children was “worth it.” Was I the only one to protest that award?
I have team-taught a senior course on the Palestinians. I have published books and articles on the Palestinian Naqba and the massacre of Arab civilians by Jewish terrorists at Deir Yassin. I have built the only United States memorial to their dispossession and ethnic cleansing. I don’t need, nor accept, biased comments on how to support Palestinians.
5. Calling Holocaust historical revisionism “Holocaust denial” is unnecessarily pejorative. It might be fine for Fox News, but it is not conducive to academic discourse. To call Holocaust revisionism “thinly veiled anti-Semitism” is simply untrue and it demeans scholars and others, including Jews, who question the Holocaust doctrine as we are fed it in hundreds of films, books, articles, and commentaries. Terms like Holocaust Industry, Holocaust Fatigue, Holocaust professional, Holocaust wannabes, and Holocaust High Priest were not coined by “deniers” or anti-Semites; they were coined by Jews. (The High Priest quip is an obvious reference to Wiesel; it was made by Tova Reich in her book My Holocaust. Tova’s husband, Walter Reich, was the former director of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington.)
In 1946 the US government told us that over 20 million people were murdered by Hitler. Now that figure is said to be 11 million; it is literally carved in stone at the US Holocaust Memorial. For years we were told that over 4 million were killed at Auschwitz, but by the early 1990s that figure was reduced to 1.5 million. Wiesel tells us that people were thrown alive onto pyres; he claims to have seen it with his own eyes; today Yad Vashem trained guides at Auschwitz say that is not true. These are examples of historical revisionism and they are not inherently anti-Semitic.
6. It is most interesting to see academic colleagues say, “(a)s we all know … the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ was introduced to make genocide sound more palatable.” That means they either deny that Palestinians have been (and continue to be) ethnically cleansed or they agree that Israel is performing genocide of the Palestinian people.
7. While the faculty detractors found my speech to be “abhorrent,” they seemed unable to find fault with a single fact I presented. So they resorted to name-calling and labeled the piece “hate speech” and “unsupported vitriol” and smeared my name to hundreds of people. I am surprised that Abe Foxman or the Mossad did not come calling.
8. The detractors genuinely were concerned about the op-ed’s impact on our Jewish students, staff, and faculty. But maybe it is time for all members of the community to see the Holocaust for what it really was and not the unquestionable, unimpeachable, doctrine that makes Jewish suffering superior to that of other people. Maybe it is time to recognize that Zionism as a political movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine began long before the Holocaust and that Zionist discrimination, dehumanization, and dispossession of the Palestinian people should not be excused by it. Maybe it is time to see that since over half the population (within the borders controlled by Israel) is not Jewish, the dream of creating a Jewish state has failed. Walling in the non-Jews or putting them in Bantustans or driving them into Jordan will not make it a purely Jewish state. The nationalist allegiance to “blood and soil” has been a failure and that should be the real lesson of the Holocaust.
9. To say that my op-ed “does not meet our expectation of minimally rational and minimally humane discourse’ is nonsense. The piece is well written, well substantiated, and quite humane.
10. But the faculty detractors are quite right about one thing; they were deeply disturbed and saddened to see a Hobart and William Smith title attached to it. Diversity and perspectives outside the mainstream are to be encouraged, but not if they question Jewish power, Israel, or Holocaust doctrine. Apparently that is beyond the pale.
11. The demand to President Gearan to remove my title of Professor Emeritus is both classic and stupid. Consider how little it would accomplish. I would be supposedly ashamed and I would have to buy a walking pass at the gym that would cost me $40 a year. Would it save HWS from being associated with my writings? Of course not; I would simply use the title of “Former Professor Emeritus at Hobart and William Smith Colleges” with no disclaimer.
But what it would really do is to cast me into the briar bush with Norm Finkelstein, Marc Ellis, Paul Eisen, Henry Herskovitz, Gilad Atzmon, Rich Siegel, and Hedy Epstein (a Holocaust survivor), all friends of mine and all anti-Zionists. Professors Ost, Linton, and Mertens apparently saw this and I credit (or blame) them for my still having the emeritus title.
Lest I seem irreverent or unscathed by this widely-circulated smear letter from my detractors, allow me to admit that I have been hurt by it. Many faculty and other HWS folks now shun me as a persona non grata largely because they only read the slime and never a rebuttal. Of course until now there could be no rebuttal because the smear letter was withheld from me. (Even the Provost’s request to send me a copy was refused.)
My former student and long-time friend, David Deming, who is now the Chair of the HWS Board does not answer my letters. President Gearan does not answer them either. Board member, Roy Dexheimer, disparages me and wonders if I fell “off my meds.” Another Board member, Stuart Pilch, took it a step further and made a threatening phone call to my home and a promise “to hunt me down.”
But the biggest disappointment is with those faculty detractors who never came to discuss or complain about what I had written, but instead chose to spin their own interpretation, which was full of lies and half truths, and then disseminate their smear as widely as possible. Should any of you be one of the signatories, my door is open for further discussion. And if you know the names of the other signatories, I would appreciate your sharing that information with me.
~
Daniel McGowan is a Professor Emeritus at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Because of admonishment by the administration, it is hereby stated that the above remarks are solely those of the author. Hobart and William Smith Colleges neither condone nor condemn these opinions. Furthermore, the author has been instructed to use his personal email address of mcgowandaniel@yahoo.com and not his college email at mcgowan@hws.edu for those wishing to contact him with comments or criticisms.
Is Fukushima now ten Chernobyls into the sea?
By Harvey Wasserman | May 26, 2011
New readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl.
“When it comes to the oceans, says Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceonographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, “the impact of Fukushima exceeds Chernobyl.”
The news comes amidst a tsunami of devastating revelations about the Fukushima disaster and the crumbling future of atomic power, along with a critical Senate funding vote today:
Fukushima’s owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, has confirmed that fuel at Unit One melted BEFORE the arrival of the March 11 tsunami.
This critical revelation confirms that the early stages of that melt-down were set in motion by the earthquake that sent tremors into Japan from a relatively far distance out to sea.
Virtually all of Japan’s 55 reactors sit on or near earthquake faults. A 2007 earthquake forced seven reactors to shut at Kashiwazaki. Japan has ordered shut at least two more at Hamaoka because of their seismic vulnerability.
Numerous reactors in the United States sit on or near major earthquake faults. Two each at Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, California, are within three miles of major fault lines. So is Indian Point, less than 40 miles from Manhattan. Millions of people live within 50 miles of both San Onofre and Indian Point.
On January 31, 1986, the Perry reactor, 35 miles east of Cleveland on Lake Erie, was damaged by an earthquake rated between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter Scale—orders of magnitude weaker than the one that struck Fukushima, and that could hit the sites in California, New York and elsewhere around the globe.
TEPCO has confirmed that at least three of the Fukushima reactors—Units One, Two and Three—have suffered at least partial fuel melts. In at least one case, the fuel has melted through part of the inner containment system, with molten radioactive metal melting through to the reactor floor. A wide range of sources confirm the likelihood that fission may still be proceeding in at least one Fukushima core. The danger level is disputed. But it clearly requires still more commitment to some kind of cooling regime that will send vast quantities of water into ocean.
At least one spent fuel pool—in Unit Four—may have been entirely exposed to air and caught fire. Reactor fuel cladding is made with a zirconium alloy that ignites when uncovered, emitting very large quantities of radiation. The high level radioactive waste pool in Unit Four may no longer be burning, though it may still be general. Some Fukushima fuel pools (like many in the United States) are perched high in the air, meaning that their vulnerability remains a serious concern. But a new report by Robert Alvarez indicates the problem in the US may be more serious that generally believed.
Unit Four is tilting and may be sinking, with potentially devastating consequences. At least three explosions at the site have weakened critical structures there. Massive leakages may have softened the earth and undermined some of the buildings’ foundations. Further explosions or aftershocks—or a fresh earthquake—could bring on structural collapses with catastrophic fallout.
TEPCO has now confirmed that there are numerous holes in the containment covering Unit Two, and at least one at Unit One. The global nuclear industry has long argued that containments are virtually impenetrable. The domes at Fukushima are of very similar design and strength as many in the US.
The health impacts on workers at Fukushima are certain to be devastating.
After Chernobyl, the Soviet government sent more than 800,000 draftees through the seething wreckage. Many stayed a matter of 90 seconds or less, running in to perform a menial task and then running out as quickly as possible.
Despite their brief exposure, these “liquidators” have suffered an epidemic of health effects, with an escalating death toll. Angry and embittered, they played a significant role in bringing down the Soviet Union that doomed them.
At Fukushima, a core of several hundred workers essentially sacrificed themselves in the early stages of the disaster. They courageously entered highly contaminated areas to perform tasks that almost certainly prevented an even worse catastrophe.
David Brenner, the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, said of the workers: “Those are pretty brave people. There are going to be some martyrs among them’.”
“I don’t know of any other way to say it, but this is like suicide fighters in a war,” said University of Tokyo radiology professor Keiichi Nakaga.
Unfortunately, the toll among Fukushima’s workers is certain to escalate. As few as two in five being sent into the Fukushima complex are being monitored for radiation exposure. According the Mainichi Shimbun, just 1,400 workers at Fukushima had been given thorough checkups, with just 40 getting their results confirmed.
Even at that, Japanese officials have raised the allowable dosages for nuclear workers from 100 millisieverts to 250, five times what’s allowed for US workers, and 125 times what reactor workers typically receive in a year.
Some 88% of Japan’s reactor work force are part-timers, sparsely trained and often paid extra money to race into highly radioactive areas and then run out.
But Nobuaki Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, May 16 confirmed some 4,956 cases of internal exposure to radiation among workers at reactors around the country. Of those, 4,766 were originally from Fukushima and had moved to other sites, but had re-visited the prefecture after the 3/11 disaster.
Some of the stricken workers believe they were contaminated when they returned home for their families, even though they may have stayed only briefly.
Workers at Fukushima itself report spotty testing and dangerous facilities, including a leaky earthquake-resistant building where they took their breaks. “We had our meals there, so I think radioactive substances came into our bodies,” says one male worker. “We just drink beer and wash them down.”
A “dead zone” around Fukushima similar to the one surrounding Chernobyl is likely in the making. According to a report published in the Japan Times, levels of contamination in areas around Fukushima are at least comparable to some around Chernobyl.
But people outside the official evacuation zone are also vulnerable. Radiation detected in Tokyo, nearly 200 miles away, at one point prompted the Japanese government to recommend mothers not use tap water to mix formula for their infants.
Nonetheless children have been observed attending schools while bulldozers were removing the radioactive soil from their playgrounds outside. Amidst global protests, the Japanese government has weakened the limits of allowable radiation exposures to children.
In the midst of the disaster, the owners of the Indian Point reactors have announced their refusal to upgrade fire protection systems. New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman says more than 70% of the plant remains unprotected, which he says is a “reckless” practice. Schneiderman accuses federal regulators of being too cozy with the plant’s owners. Schneiderman and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo want the two IP reactors shut.
Over the weekend only four of Germany’s seventeen reactors were operating, but the country suffered no apparent energy shortages. Prime Minister Angela Merkel has ordered seven older reactors shut, and the rest to be closed by 2011. But six of the newer ten closed for various technical reasons.
More than 20,000 Swiss citizens rallied todemand an end to plans to build new reactors there. The Swiss government has now confirmed it will not build new reactors, another major blow to the industry, this time resulting in the cancellation of plans for at least three projects.
Japan is standing by its decision to build no more reactors, while China has put some 28 proposed projects on hold. China’s reaction to Fukushima will be crucial to the future of nuclear power, as it is by far the largest potential market for new reactors. Though prevailing winds head the other way, Fukushima is relatively close to China, and some fallout has been detected there.
The Obama Administration has still produced no comprehensive monitoring of radioactive fallout coming to the United States and has provided no guidance as to how American citizens can protect themselves, except to say not to worry. Polls now show more Americans opposing new reactors than favoring them, and grassroots opposition is fierce.
But the industry is pushing ahead with demands for $36 billion in loan guarantees for new reactors, with a preliminary vote expected soon in a House Appropriations Subcommittee. Nuclear opponents are asked to call the White House and Congress steadily through the 2012 budget process.
Also, today (May 26) may see a vote in a Senate committee on a CEDA plan that would provide still more money for new nukes. Safe energy advocates are urged to call their Senators asap.
The International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations, has announced it sees no health effects at Fukushima. The pronouncement comes as no surprise from an agency whose mandate is focused on promoting atomic energy.
The IAEA has consistently low-balled death toll estimates at Chernobyl and regularly ignores industry critics. The pronouncement comes as the agency begins a long-term study of Fukushima’s health effects. Meanwhile, a French watchdog agency has urged that 70,000 more people be evacuated from the Fukushima area. Coming from France, among the world’s pro-nuclear nations, the warning is a grim reminded of how deadly the contamination surrounding Fukushima must be.
But for all the focus on land-based contamination, the continuing flood of radioactive materials into the ocean at Fukushima could have the most problematic long-term impacts. Long-term studies of radiological impacts on the seas are few and far between. Though some heavy isotopes may drop to the sea bottom, others could travel long distances through their lengthy half-lives. Some also worry that those contaminants that do fall to the bottom could be washed back on land by future tsunamis.
Tokyo Electric has now admitted that on May 10-11, at least 250 tons of radioactive liquid leaked into the sea from a pit near the intake at Unit 3, whose fuel was spiked with plutonium. According to the Japanese government, the leak contained about 100 times the annual allowable contamination.
About 500 tons leaked from Unit 2 from April 1 to April 6. Other leaks have been steady and virtually impossible to trace. “After Chernobyl, fallout was measured,” says Buesseler, “from as far afield as the north Pacific Ocean.”
A quarter-century later the international community is still trying to install a massive, hugely expensive containment structure to suppress further radiation releases in the wake of Chernobyl’s explosion.
Such a containment would be extremely difficult to sustain at seaside Fukushima, which is still vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. To be of any real use, all six reactors and all seven spent fuel pools would have to be covered.
But avenues to the sea would also have to be contained. Fukushima is much closer to the ocean than Chernobyl, so more intense contamination might be expected. But the high radiation levels being measured indicate Fukushima’s most important impacts may be on marine life.
The US has ceased measuring contamination in Pacific seafood. But for centuries to come, at least some radioactive materials dumped into the sea at Fukushima will find their way into the creatures of the sea and the humans that depend on them.
Fact-checking Netanyahu’s Speech
IMEU | May 25, 2011
NETANYAHU: “You don’t need to export democracy to Israel. We’ve already got it.”
REALITY: For more than 43 years, Israel has militarily occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, a population now numbering 4.36 million people. Except for a few thousand Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, this population has no voice in Israeli national policy despite being subjected to long-term Israeli occupation. As well, 1.2 million Palestinians are citizens of Israel and subject to more than 30 laws which discriminate against them solely based on their ethnicity, rendering them second or third-class citizens in their own homeland.
NETANYAHU: “Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.”
REALITY: Along with the more than 30 discriminatory laws mentioned above, more than one-third of the Palestinian citizens of Israel are internally displaced persons, uprooted from their homes by Israeli forces in 1948 and to this day not permitted to return. Furthermore, in Israel, government resources are disproportionately directed to Jews and not to Arabs, one factor in causing the Palestinians of Israel to suffer the lowest living standards in Israeli society by all socio-economic indicators. Most non-Jewish children attend schools that are “separate and unequal” in comparison to those attended by Jewish Israeli children. Many towns in Israel with a majority Palestinian population lack basic services and receive significantly less government funding than do majority-Jewish towns.
NETANYAHU: “A nuclear armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”
REALITY: Despite maintaining an official position of “nuclear ambiguity,” Israel is widely-recognized as possessing nuclear weapons – as many as 400 – thus being the first, and only, regime to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.
NETANYAHU: “In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.”
REALITY: The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and numerous other international bodies and governments recognize the Gaza Strip, West Bank (which Netanyahu refers to as Judea and Samaria) and East Jerusalem as territories occupied by Israel. Israel’s own Supreme Court has also judged the West Bank to be under “belligerent occupation” by Israel. While the Jewish people are not occupiers, the State of Israel certainly is.
NETANYAHU: “We’ve helped the Palestinian economic growth by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable.”
REALITY: While some checkpoints and roadblocks have been removed, in 2010 the United Nations documented 505 Israeli-imposed “closure obstacles” remaining in the West Bank, as well as “extremely limited” Palestinian access to East Jerusalem, other West Bank areas on the western side of the Separation Wall, and to the fertile agricultural lands of the Jordan Valley, thereby severely impeding Palestinian freedom of movement in the occupied
West Bank. Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip remains under a severe Israeli-imposed blockade, causing one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, with more than half of the population living with food insecurity, and an inability to construct some 40,000 necessary housing units.
NETANYAHU: “In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli prime ministers to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six-Day War.”
REALITY: As leaked documents show, during peace talks Palestinian negotiators have consistently offered concessions beyond the international consensus. Meanwhile, Israeli negotiators, at Camp David for example, demanded sovereignty or long-term control over 20% of the West Bank, and all of Jerusalem except a few distant Palestinian suburbs. During his speech, Netanyahu also claimed to be willing to make “a far-reaching compromise,” while at the same time claiming occupied East Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and most illegal settlements for Israel, rejecting the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, and demanding a demilitarized Palestinian state. Such proposals by Israeli leaders are quite the opposite of “generous” or “far-reaching.”
NETANYAHU: “They continue to educate their children to hate.”
REALITY: An investigation into Palestinian school textbooks by George Washington University Professor Nathan Brown found this often-propagated claim to be inaccurate, stating, “Indeed, the textbooks often take on the same kind of awkwardness adults often assume when addressing subjects they would prefer to avoid…In short, far from inciting schoolchildren, the books generally treat sensitive political questions as tangential.”
NETANYAHU: “[T]he Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel.”
REALITY: All refugees have an internationally recognized right to return to areas from which they have fled or were forced, to receive compensation for damages, and to either regain their properties or receive compensation and support for voluntary resettlement. This right derives from a number of legal sources, including customary international law, international humanitarian law (governing rights of civilians during war), and human rights law. In the specific case of the Palestinians, the right to return was affirmed by the United Nations Resolution 194 of 1948.
NETANYAHU: “Throughout the millennial history of the Jewish capital, the only time that Jews, Christians and Muslims could worship freely, could have unfettered access to their holy sites, has been during Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.”
REALITY: Since 1993, Palestinians living in the West Bank – both Christian and Muslim – have been forbidden by Israel to enter East Jerusalem (also in the West Bank) without a permit. Since 2007, they have also had to negotiate passage through Israel’s Separation Wall and accompanying checkpoints. The United Nations reports that access to East Jerusalem – and its holy sites, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Haram al-Sharif – remains “highly restricted” by Israel. The U.S. State Department has noted that the Israeli government does not recognize non-Jewish holy sites and as a result, “many Muslim and Christian sites are neglected, inaccessible, or threatened by property developers and municipalities.” The report also remarked that “government discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism continued,” and Israel has “severely restricted the access of most Muslims from the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem to the Haram al-Sharif.”
NETANYAHU: “In recent years, Israel withdrew from South Lebanon and from Gaza.”
REALITY: While Israel unilaterally removed its illegal settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the area remains occupied by Israel, as acknowledged by the United Nations, theUnited States, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others. As the occupying power, it is responsible for the welfare of civilians it is occupying. Instead, residents of the Gaza Strip have been suffering for years under a harsh, Israeli-imposed blockade, as well as catastrophic Israeli invasions in 2006 and 2009.
The BBC’s New Censors
By AFSHIN RATTANSI | CounterPunch | May 26, 2011
Now, the BBC is even trying to stop the politicisation of British youth!
The BBC has released a statement proclaiming that late night music shows were not the place for political controversy – young people might be listening. It came after the deliberate censorship of a rapper “Mic Righteous” who had dared to utter the words “Free Palestine” in his set. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign called the edit an “extraordinary act of censorship”, asking why the BBC did not ban the song “Free Nelson Mandela”, back in 1984. On the artist’s Facebook page, there is talk of how just the phrase “Gaza Strip” was censored by the BBC.
As the bodies were buried after more U.S. and British-backed Israeli fire on Palestinians commemorating the stealing of their land, one didn’t expect much from the British broadcaster that banned charity appeals to help the casualties of Gaza. The BBC explicitly objected to alms begged for by the likes of ActionAid, the British Red Cross, CAFOD, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Oxfam and Save the Children.
BBC News presenters are usually slavish in their support for U.S. policy, explicitly or in the way they frame questions. Just the posture of the BBC’s Andrew Marr betrayed how unprofessional was his exchange with President Obama when gifted an exclusive interview. Mar asked “In your speech on the Middle East you took the, to many people, surprising step of talking about the 1967 borders. Is that where America now stands?” Obama replied on the lines that Palestinians needed a place to stay and later continued to pour scorn on Fatah’s alliance with Hamas.
It ended with Marr saying “Well talking has been very enjoyable, Mr President. Thank you so much.” It was no wonder that this speaking truth to power session ended with President Obama replying “Thank you so much. I enjoyed it.”
How lame Evan Davis, a BBC Today program presenter, was when he quizzed U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder. He asked just one question about Londoner, Shaker Aamer, who is being held hostage in Guantanamo. Holder replied that it was being looked into and Davis didn’t have time for a follow up on the kidnapped UK Muslim who has spent many of his more than nine years in solitary.
The Muslim community in the UK have long given up on the Corporation for fair news. As for those conscious of the “ethnic cleansing” and continued violence against Palestinians, the BBC is an enemy organization.
It wasn’t always so. When I worked for Today, the BBC’s estimable Middle East Correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, hadn’t been mauled and censured by his bosses for daring to say that Zionism had an “innate instinct to push out the frontier” or that Israel was “in defiance of everyone’s interpretation of international law except its own.” At Today, back in 2003, there was urgency about revealing the lies that got Britain into the Iraq War. Vindication has come thanks to the UK’s Major General Michael Laurie who has finally written to the British Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq to explain that Tony Blair’s Press Secretary, Alastair Campbell has been lying to the Inquiry.
Campbell – now a frequent guest on BBC shows – denied to the Inquiry that the genesis of the UK’s WMD 2002 dossier was about persuading Britons to war. But now we know from the horses’ mouth that the UK intelligence services were corralled into providing a case for war: ‘I and those involved in its production saw it as exactly that, and that was the direction we were given,’ Laurie writes. How a Chilcot Inquiry filled with establishment figures will eventually adjudicate is anyone’s guess. Campbell has already tried to rebut things by writing to Sir John Chilcot, saying “I do not know and have never met Major General Laurie, and was not aware of any involvement he might have had in the September 2002 dossier on Iraq’s WMD.”
What is interesting now are the actions of the very same BBC personnel who were so keen to rubbish Andrew Gilligan and his source, David Kelly, the late government scientist. They are clamouring for credit. Gilligan was fired from the BBC for his story. Rod Liddle, the editor who recruited Gilligan (and myself) had been fired for an article he wrote that expressed doubts about a right-wing march in London. There followed a great interim period with veteran BBC journalist, now retired, Bill Rogers. Then Kevin Marsh was hired. He didn’t last long and was moved sideways to become ‘professor of journalism’ and was subsequently found to be editing Gilligan’s Wikipedia entry to try and damage his reputation and also the reputation of former editor, Rod Liddle. These shenanigans are illustrative of the how some managers at the BBC are more interested in seeking plaudits than stories – and this on a programme that is one of the main forums for British cabinet ministers (and U.S. Attorney Generals) to be held to account to millions of people. I was on the desk on Marsh’s first shift and while I expressed disbelief about the latest arrests of law-abiding Muslims, his first reaction was to believe guardians of the war on terror. It was the London “Ricin Plot” – something that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell would cite at the UN to build the case for war on Iraq. No ricin was, in fact, ever found.
There are many around the world that still have a soft spot for the BBC and the idea that journalism in Britain has been protected from the worst excesses of U.S.-style ‘big money’ hackery. What was surprising about coverage from the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, though, was that U.S. reporters were the ones to gauge the mood of young revolutionaries far better than their BBC counterparts. It seemed that those from cable operations like Fox and CNN were far more in tune with assessing who was right and who was wrong, even though the revolutionaries were against U.S.-puppet regimes. American networks are more even-handed in covering the on-going uprisings albeit that they never cover the brutality of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Many BBC correspondents look either lazy or neo-colonial. In contrast, American colleagues abroad report with a refreshing insouciance.
When peace protestors who sought to break the siege of Gaza were killed by Israel’s forces, the BBC was quick to support Zionism with the use of embedded reporters on their ‘Panorama’ programme. Regulatory authority over the BBC is different to all other broadcasters in the UK. The BBC Trust launched its own inquiry into Panorama and found, overall, the programme was both accurate and impartial. It did find that there should have been more detail on what the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called summary executions.
Journalists in the UK, these days, are much more likely to be tuning in to Rupert Murdoch’s Sky news operation than the BBC, making the Corporation seem more and more of an expensive irrelevance when it comes to news. They are also tuning in, like U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to the new satellite channels like Al Jazeera English, Russia Today and, who knows, Press TV. There was a small gathering of such journalists at the London Frontline members’ club, the other day, for an annual members’ party. This year, it was under the shadow of those who had flown in for a memorial to two photojournalists killed in Libya. The club is perhaps most famous around the world for hosting press conferences by Julian Assange, still subject to curfew because of publishing the work of whistle-blowers on his Wikileaks site. Upstairs, the BBC was conducting a seminar for independent producers about the kind of programming it wanted for its news operation. A BBC Worldwide press release, this month, reveals their latest commission – a partnership with the chemicals giant, DuPont:
“DuPont announced its sponsorship of a new BBC series..The television program will examine the future of business by looking at companies around the world that are making the greatest progress in their sectors and influencing the way people will live in the future.”
“We turned the cameras on everyday heroes,” said DuPont Chair and CEO Ellen Kullman.
“The first story..highlights the collaboration between local Tennessee farmers, Genera Energy and DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol (DDCE) to produce cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass, corn cobs, stalks and other forms of sustainable biomass. Farmer Brad Black, whose farm has been in his family since 1820, said, “This land is as important to me as one of my kids.”
The BBC, a multinational infamous for the dioxins of Delaware not to mention the napalm of Vietnam and the commissioning of a new generation of journalists, all in holistic embrace.
But criticism of the BBC in the newspapers here is usually in the free market context of questioning the morality of a tax on TV sets – not conflicts of interest. Meanwhile, the British Sunday Times splashes a story about one of the channels for which I make programmes. In the article, Iranian-funded Press TV is called “The Enemy Within” and the channel – broadcast in the UK via the Sky platform – is under attack for casting doubt that everyone in Britain was so enamoured of the Royal Wedding. The channel has been under attack from the broadcast regulator, OFCOM, for calling the massacre aboard the Mavi Marmara ‘a massacre’. OFCOM said that the content of a show “could be interpreted as being highly critical of the actions of the Israeli government and its military forces.” Well, golly gee.
In fairness, OFCOM did reject complaints against Peter Kosminsky’s drama about Palestine, “The Promise.” Much to the chagrin of British Zionists, OFCOM concluded its report with the startling observation that “just because some individual Jewish and Israeli characters were portrayed in a negative light does not mean the programme was, or was intended to be, antisemitic.”
It will be up to the BBC Trust’s new chairman, Lord Patten to make an urgent review of the Corporation’s policies on ethics in the light of the vindication about Iraq and continuing conflicts of interest amongst its staff that look set to endanger the lives of the BBC’s correspondents, around the world.
~
Afshin Rattansi, author of “The Dream of the Decade”, is an independent TV producer and commentator and can be reached on afshinrattansi@hotmail.com.
Campaign to vilify Gaza flotilla underway in Europe
David Cronin – The Electronic Intifada – 25 May 2011
A campaign of vilification against the flotilla that will soon try to break Israel’s siege of Gaza appears to be gathering momentum in Europe.
Over the past few weeks newspapers in the Netherlands have published articles alleging that some Dutch organizers of the flotilla are “terror supporters.” The main focus of these smears was Rob Groenhuijzen, chairman of the Netherlands Gaza Foundation, who was imprisoned for radical activities more than thirty years ago.
In the annals of political violence, Groenhuijzen — convicted of being a threat to the Dutch state — probably merits no more than a footnote. Red Youth, the left-wing group to which he was linked in the 1970s, carried out several bombings but never killed anyone. The renewed interest in his past, Groenhuijzen argues, is a sign of desperation on the part of Israeli diplomats and the network of lobbyists who wish to prevent the flotilla from setting sail.
“They don’t have the political or legal means [to stop the flotilla] and that’s why they try to criminalize the flotilla’s participants,” he told me.
Unfortunately, the government in The Hague has proven receptive to the anti-flotilla campaign. A Dutch office of the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (known by the acronym IHH) was recently placed on a national list of banned organizations.
Uri Rosenthal, the Netherlands’ foreign minister, gave a circuitous explanation for the ban in an interview with The Jerusalem Post (“Dutch government places IHH on terror list,” 1 May 2011). He hinted that the assets of IHH Netherlands were being frozen because it had transferred money to IHH representatives in Germany, who were suspected of funding Hamas.
The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) is the most influential Zionist lobby group in the Netherlands. A member of the CIDI’s staff told The Electronic Intifada that “We are not campaigning [against the flotilla] as such. It’s just that we don’t agree with the idea of a flotilla. We don’t think it is in any way conducive to solving the problem. We have pretty much the same stance as the one the [Dutch] government has taken.”
The IHH has announced that it will be sending a ship filled with medicines, construction materials and other essential goods to Gaza on 31 May. That date will be exactly one year after Israeli troops boarded the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged ship, in international waters, killing nine peace activists.
Although the 2010 attack was condemned by top-level representatives of the European Union, supporters of Israel wasted no time trying to convince the EU that the IHH should be outlawed. On 4 June last year, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) issued a statement calling for the IHH to be placed on the Union’s list of terrorist organizations (“European Jewish Congress wants Turkish Islamist group IHH banned in Europe,” World Jewish Congress, 4 June 2010).
The case made by the EJC rested entirely on the conclusions of a 2006 paper by the Danish Institute for International Studies, which accused the IHH of having contacts with al-Qaeda (“The Role of Islamic Charities in International Terrorist Recruitment and Financing,” Danish Institute for International Studies, 2006 [PDF]).
The arguments made to justify labeling the IHH as “terrorist” in that paper included the group’s involvement in “large and raucous protest rallies” ahead of the war against Iraq in 2003. “Even after the initial US invasion of Iraq, the IHH has continued to bitterly oppose the presence of Western troops in Mesopotamia,” that report noted, implying there was something unreasonable about abhorring wars of aggression.
Although the EU has not (yet) bowed to the Israel lobby’s pressure by banning the IHH, it has effectively called for the flotilla not to go ahead. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said in May this year “I do not consider a flotilla to be the right response to the humanitarian situation in Gaza” (“Catherine Ashton EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs …”).
Dror Feiler, a spokesman for the Swedish Ship to Gaza, explained that “When Baroness Ashton says the flotilla is not a proper act, I would ask her what is a proper act? The blockade of Gaza is considered collective punishment.”
“Collective punishment is forbidden according to international law,” Feiler added. “When you see such acts go on for four years, you cannot as an international citizen be silent. It is our duty to act. Ashton is trying to continue with passivity, probably because of Israeli pressure. The EU’s politicians seem to be letting themselves be intimidated. They seem to be letting Israel dictate how to act.”
Ashton’s comments followed those of Ran Curiel, Israel’s ambassador in Brussels, who described the flotilla as “clearly a political provocation since there’s no need for a flotilla to aid Gaza” (“Israel’s EU Ambassador: Flotilla ‘Political Provocation’,” Israel National News.com 11 May 2011). Curiel added that “You can pass whatever you want to Gaza through normal channels.”
His assurance was dishonest. The UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has documented how a piecemeal easing of the blockade over the past twelve months has not halted the deterioration of health services in Gaza. “The persistent restrictions on the importation of medical supplies and equipment, and on the movement of health staff between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, hinder the provision of quality health services,” UNRWA says in its newly published annual report (“The Annual Report of the Department of Health 2010,” 2011 [PDF]).
“Supplies of electricity, fuel and other consumables for the maintenance of the basic health infrastructure have not significantly improved since the adjustment of the blockade. Hospital treatment is increasingly curtailed because of the inability of hospitals to run procedures when they have limited access to electricity supplies, spare parts and equipment,” UNRWA adds in the report. … Full article
‘Peak Oil’, the best way to implicitly sell the necessity of war
“Within a few years, the Middle East will be in control of all of human civilization”
David McGowan | March 13, 2004 | Center for an Informed America
On February 29, 2004, I received the following e-mail message from Michael Ruppert of From the Wilderness:
I challenge you to an open, public debate on the subject of Peak Oil; any time, any place after March 13th 2004. I challenge you to bring scientific material, production data and academic references and citations for your conclusions like I have. I suggest a mutually acceptable panel of judges and I will put up $1,000 towards a purse to go to the winner of that debate. I expect you to do the same. And you made a dishonest and borderline libelous statement when you suggested that I am somehow pleased that these wars of aggression have taken place to secure oil. My message all along has been, “Not in my name!”
Put your money where your mouth is. But first I suggest you do some homework. Ad hominem attacks using the word “bullshit”, unsupported by scientific data are a sign of intellectual weakness (at best). I will throw more than 500 footnoted citations at you from unimpeachable sources. Be prepared to eat them or rebut them with something more than you have offered.
Wow! How does high noon sound?
Before I get started here, Mike, I need to ask you just one quick question: are you sure it was only a “borderline libelous statement”? Because I was really going for something more unambiguously libelous. I’ll see if I can do better on this outing. Let me know how I do.
Several readers have written to me, incidentally, with a variation of the following question: “How can you say that Peak Oil is being promoted to sell war when all of the websites promoting the notion of Peak Oil are stridently anti-war?”
But of course they are. That, you see, is precisely the point. What I was trying to say is that the notion of ‘Peak Oil’ is being specifically marketed to the anti-war crowd — because, as we all know, the pro-war crowd doesn’t need to be fed any additional justifications for going to war; any of the old lies will do just fine. And I never said that the necessity of war was being overtly sold. What I said, if I remember correctly, is that it is being sold with a wink and a nudge.
The point that I was trying to make is that it would be difficult to imagine a better way to implicitly sell the necessity of war, even while appearing to stake out a position against war, than through the promotion of the concept of ‘Peak Oil.’ After September 11, 2001, someone famously said that if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist, the US would have had to invent him. I think the same could be said for ‘Peak Oil.’
I also need to mention here that those who are selling ‘Peak Oil’ hysteria aren’t offering much in the way of alternatives, or solutions. Ruppert, for example, has stated flatly that “there is no effective replacement for what hydrocarbon energy provides today.”
(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html)
The message is quite clear: “we’re running out of oil soon; there is no alternative; we’re all screwed.” And this isn’t, mind you, just an energy problem; as Ruppert has correctly noted, “Almost every current human endeavor from transportation, to manufacturing, to plastics, and especially food production is inextricably intertwined with oil and natural gas supplies.” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html)
If we run out of oil, in other words, our entire way of life will come crashing down. One of Ruppert’s “unimpeachable sources,” Colin Campbell, describes an apocalyptic future, just around the corner, that will be characterized by “war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens.” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html)
My question is: if Ruppert is not selling the necessity of war, then exactly what is the message that he is sending to readers with such doomsday forecasts? At the end of a recent posting, Ruppert quotes dialogue from the 1975 Sidney Pollack film, Three Days of the Condor: (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/013004_in_your_face.html)
Higgins: …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.
The message there seems pretty clear: once the people understand what is at stake, they will support whatever is deemed necessary to secure the world’s oil supplies. And what is it that Ruppert is accomplishing with his persistent ‘Peak Oil’ postings? He is helping his readers to understand what is allegedly at stake.
Elsewhere on his site, Ruppert warns that “Different regions of the world peak in oil production at different times … the OPEC nations of the Middle East peak last. Within a few years, they — or whoever controls them — will be in effective control of the world economy, and, in essence, of human civilization as a whole.” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html)
Within a few years, the Middle East will be in control of all of human civilization?! Try as I might, I can’t imagine any claim that would more effectively rally support for a U.S. takeover of the Middle East. The effect of such outlandish claims is to cast the present war as a war of necessity. Indeed, a BBC report posted on Ruppert’s site explicitly endorses that notion: “It’s not greed that’s driving big oil companies – it’s survival.” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/040403_oil_war_bbc.html)
On the very day that Ruppert’s challenge arrived, I received another e-mail, from someone I previously identified – erroneously, it would appear – as a “prominent critic” of Michael Ruppert. In further correspondence, the writer, Jeff Strahl, explained that he is (a) not a critic of Ruppert in general, but rather a critic only of Ruppert’s stance on certain aspects of the 9-11 story, and (b) not all that prominent. This is what Mr. Strahl had to say:
I’m a participant in a relatively new website, http://911research.wtc7.net, which has done lots of work regarding the WTC and Pentagon side of the 9/11 events, especially the physical evidence which reveals the official story as a complete hoax. Under “talks” you’ll find a slide show I’ve done (and will do again) in public on the Pentagon aspects. This is all simply to let you know I’m far from an apologist for the status quo. Nor am I an apologist for Mike Ruppert, with whom in fact I got into a donnybrook of a fight on public email lists over his denial of the relevancy of physical evidence and the fact that an article full of disinformation about the WTC collapse, written 9/13/01, was still on his website, unedited or corrected, two years later. He finally gave in and printed a (sort of) retraction.
That said, I have to take issue with your stance re Peak Oil, something you say you wish were true, but deny, not on the basis of any information, but on the basis that you seem to think it’s too good to be true, and that it’s all info presented by Ruppert, which you thus suspect since you suspect Ruppert. Matter of fact, Peak Oil was predicted by an oil geologist, King Hubbert, way back in the mid ’60s, before Ruppert was even in college. It’s been pursued since then by lots of people in the science know-how, including Dale Allen Pfeiffer, Richard Heinberg, Colin Campbell and Kenneth Deffeyes. The information is quite clear, global oil production has either peaked in the last couple of years or will do so in the next couple, as Hubbert predicted decades ago (He predicted Peak Oil in the US as happening in the early ’70s, was laughed at, but his prediction came true right on schedule). The science here is quite hard, facts are available from lots of sources. Perhaps Hubbert was part of a long-planned disinfo campaign that was planned way back in the ’60s, and all the others are part of that plot. I find it hard to believe that, and I am quite a skeptic.
As for the relevancy of physical evidence, it would appear that that is another bone that I have to pick with Mr. Ruppert. But I will save that for another time. For now, the issue is ‘Peak Oil’ (which, as you can see, I am continuing to enclose in quotation marks, which is, as regular readers know, how I identify things that don’t actually exist).
For the record, I never said that Michael Ruppert was the only one presenting information about ‘Peak Oil.’ I said that he was the most prominent of those promoting the idea. I also never implied that Ruppert came up with the idea on his own. I am aware that the theory has a history. The issue here, however, is the sudden prominence that ‘Peak Oil’ has attained.
Lastly, let me say that, unlike you, Jeff, I am enough of a skeptic to believe that an ambitious, well-orchestrated disinformation campaign, possibly spanning generations, should never arbitrarily be ruled out. I am also enough of a skeptic to suspect that when a topic I have covered generates the volume of e-mail that my ‘Peak Oil’ musings have generated, then I must have managed to step into a pretty big pile of shit. What I did not realize, until I decided to take Mr. Ruppert’s advice and “do some homework,” was that it was a much bigger pile than I could have imagined.
I read through some, but certainly not all, of the alleged evidence that Ruppert has brought to the table concerning ‘Peak Oil.’ Since I have no interest in financially supporting his cause, I am not a paid subscriber and can therefore not access the ‘members only’ postings. But I doubt that I am missing much. The postings that I did read tended to be extremely redundant and, therefore, a little on the boring side.
Ruppert’s arguments range from the vaguely compelling to the downright bizarre. One argument that pops up repeatedly is exemplified by this Ruppert-penned line: “One of the biggest signs of the reality of Peak Oil over the last two decades has been a continual pattern of merger-acquisition-downsizing throughout the industry.”
Really? And is that pattern somehow unique to the petroleum industry? Or is it a pattern that has been followed by just about every major industry? Is the consolidation of the supermarket industry a sign of the reality of Peak Groceries? And with consolidation of the media industry, should we be concerned about Peak News? Or should we, perhaps, recognize that a pattern of monopoly control – characterized by mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing – represents nothing more than business as usual throughout the corporate world?
Another telling sign of ‘Peak Oil,’ according to Ruppert and Co., is sudden price hikes on gas and oil. Of course, that would be a somewhat more compelling argument if the oil cartels did not have a decades-long history of constantly feigning shortages to foist sudden price increases on consumers (usually just before peak travel periods). Contrary to the argument that appears on Ruppert’s site, it is not need that is driving the oil industry, it is greed.
In what is undoubtedly the most bizarre posting that Ruppert offers in support of his theory, he ponders whether dialogue from an obscure 1965 television series indicates that the CIA knew as far back as the 1960s about the coming onset of ‘Peak Oil.’ (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/042003_secret_agent_man.html) Even if that little factoid came from a more, uhmm, credible source, what would the significance be? Hasn’t the conventional wisdom been, for many decades, that oil is a ‘fossil fuel,’ and therefore a finite, non-renewable resource? Since when has it been an intelligence community secret that a finite resource will someday run out?
A few readers raised that very issue in questioning my recent ‘Peak Oil’ rants. “Even if we are not now in the era of Peak Oil,” the argument generally goes, “then surely we will be soon. After all, it is inevitable.” And conventional wisdom dictates that it is, indeed, inevitable. But if this website has one overriding purpose, it is to question conventional wisdom whenever possible.
There is no shortage of authoritatively stated figures on the From the Wilderness website: billions of barrels of oil discovered to date; billions of barrels of oil produced to date; billions of barrels of oil in known reserves; billions of barrels of oil consumed annually. Yadda, yadda, yadda. My favorite figure is the one labeled, in one posting, “Yet-to-Find.” That figure, 150 billion barrels (a relative pittance), is supposed to represent the precise volume of conventional oil in all the unknown number of oil fields of unknown size that haven’t been discovered yet. Ruppert himself has written, with a cocksure swagger, that “there are no more significant quantities of oil to be discovered anywhere …” (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/013004_in_your_face.html) A rather bold statement, to say the least, considering that it would seem to be impossible for a mere mortal to know such a thing.
Ruppert’s figures certainly paint a scary picture: rapid oil consumption + diminishing oil reserves + no new discoveries = no more oil. And sooner, rather than later. But is the ‘Peak Oil’ argument really valid? It seems logical — a non-renewable resource consumed with a vengeance obviously can’t last for long. The only flaw in the argument, I suppose, would be if oil wasn’t really a ‘fossil fuel,’ and if it wasn’t really a non-renewable resource.
“Conventional wisdom says the world’s supply of oil is finite, and that it was deposited in horizontal reservoirs near the surface in a process that took millions of years.” So said the Wall Street Journal in April 1999 (Christopher Cooper “Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning,” Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1999). It therefore logically follows that conventional wisdom also says that oil will reach a production peak, and then ultimately run out.
(http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm)
As I said a few paragraphs ago, the purpose of this website is to question conventional wisdom — by acquainting readers with stories that the media overlook, and with viewpoints that are not allowed in the mainstream. It was my understanding that From the Wilderness, and other ‘alternative’ websites, had a similar goal.
But is ‘Peak Oil’ really some suppressed, taboo topic? If it is, then why, as I sit here typing this, with today’s (March 7, 2004) edition of the Los Angeles Times atop my desk, are the words “Running Out of Oil — and Time” staring me in the face from the front page of the widely read Sunday Opinion section? The lengthy piece, penned by Paul Roberts, is replete with dire warnings of the coming crisis. Save for the fact that the words ‘Peak Oil’ are not routinely capitalized, it could easily pass for a From the Wilderness posting.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-roberts7mar07,1,107339.story)
The Times also informed readers that Roberts has a new book due out in May, entitled The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World. Scary stuff. Beating Robert’s book to the stores will be Colin Campbell’s The Coming Oil Crisis, due in April. Both titles will have to compete for shelf space with titles such as Richard Heinberg’s The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, published April of last year; David Goodstein’s Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, which just hit the shelves last month; and Kenneth Deffeyes’ Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, published October 2001. The field is getting a bit crowded, but sales over at Amazon.com remain strong for most of the contenders.
The wholesale promotion of ‘Peak Oil’ seems to have taken off immediately after the September 11, 2001 ‘terrorist’ attacks, and it is now really starting to pick up some steam. The BBC covered the big story last April (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/040403_oil_war_bbc.html). CNN covered it in October (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100203_cnn_peak_oil.html). The Guardian covered it in December (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/120303_bottom_barrel.html). Now the Los Angeles Times has joined the chorus.
I guess the cat is pretty much out of the bag on this one. Everyone can cancel their subscriptions to From the Wilderness and pocket the $35 a year, since you can read the very same bullshit for free in the pages of the Los Angeles Times.
Interestingly enough, there is another story about oil that, unlike the ‘Peak Oil’ story, actually has been suppressed. It is a story that very few, if any, of my readers, or of Michael Ruppert’s readers, are likely aware of. But before we get to that story, let’s first briefly review what we all ‘know’ about oil.
As anyone who stayed awake during elementary school science class knows, oil comes from dinosaurs. I remember as a kid (calm down, folks; there will be no Brady Bunch references this week) seeing some kind of ‘public service’ spot explaining how dinosaurs “gave their all” so that we could one day have oil. It seemed a reasonable enough idea at the time — from the perspective of an eight-year-old. But if, as an adult, you really stop to give it some thought, doesn’t the idea seem a little, uhmm … what’s the word I’m looking for here? … oh yeah, I remember now … preposterous?
How could dinosaurs have possibly created the planet’s vast oil fields? Did millions, or even billions, of them die at the very same time and at the very same place? Were there dinosaur Jonestowns on a grand scale occurring at locations all across the planet? And how did they all get buried so quickly? Because if they weren’t buried right away, wouldn’t they have just decomposed and/or been consumed by scavengers? And how much oil can you really squeeze from a pile of parched dinosaur skeletons?
Maybe there was some type of cataclysmic event that caused the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs and also buried them — like the impact of an asteroid or a comet. But even so, you wouldn’t think that all the dinosaurs would have been huddled together waiting to become oil fields. And besides, scientists are now backing away from the mass extinction theory.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-extinction6mar06,1,3634810.story)
The Wall Street Journal article previously cited noted that it “would take a pretty big pile of dead dinosaurs to account for the estimated 660 billion barrels of oil in the [Middle East].” I don’t know what the precise dinosaur-carcass-to-barrel-of-oil conversion rate is, but it does seem like it would take a hell of a lot of dead dinosaurs. Even if we generously allow that a single dinosaur could yield 5 barrels of oil (an absurd notion, but let’s play along for now), more than 130 billion dinosaurs would have had to be simultaneously entombed in just one small region of the world. But were there really hundreds of billions of dinosaurs roaming the earth? If so, then one wonders why there is all this talk now of overpopulation and scarce resources, when all we are currently dealing with is a few billion humans populating the same earth.
And why the Middle East? Was that region some kind of Mecca for dinosaurs? Was it the climate, or the lack of water and vegetation, that drew them there? Of course, the region could have been much different in prehistoric times. Maybe it was like the Great Valley in the Land Before Time movies. Or maybe the dinosaurs had to cross the Middle East to get to the Great Valley, but they never made it, because they got bogged down in the desert and ultimately became (through, I’m guessing here, some alchemical process) cans of 10W-40 motor oil.
Another version of the ‘fossil fuel’ story holds that microscopic animal carcasses and other biological matter gathered on the world’s sea floors, with that organic matter then being covered over with sediment over the course of millions of years. You would think, however, that any biological matter would decompose long before being covered over by sediment. But I guess not. And I guess there were no bottom-feeders in those days to clear the ocean floors of organic debris. Fair enough. But I still don’t understand how those massive piles of biological debris, some consisting of hundreds of billions of tons of matter, could have just suddenly appeared, so that they could then sit, undisturbed, for millions of years as they were covered over with sediment. I can understand how biological detritus could accumulate over time, mixed in with the sediment, but that wouldn’t really create the conditions for the generation of vast reservoirs of crude oil. So I guess I must be missing something here.
The notion that oil is a ‘fossil fuel’ was first proposed by Russian scholar Mikhailo Lomonosov in 1757. Lomonosov’s rudimentary hypothesis, based on the limited base of scientific knowledge that existed at the time, and on his own simple observations, was that “Rock oil originates as tiny bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of increased temperature and pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transform into rock oil.”
Two and a half centuries later, Lomonosov’s theory remains as it was in 1757 — an unproved, and almost entirely speculative, hypothesis. Returning once again to the Wall Street Journal, we find that, “Although the world has been drilling for oil for generations, little is known about the nature of the resource or the underground activities that led to its creation.” A paragraph in the Encyclopedia Britannica concerning the origins of oil ends thusly: “In spite of the great amount of scientific research … there remain many unresolved questions regarding its origins.”
Does that not seem a little odd? We are talking here, after all, about a resource that, by all accounts, plays a crucial role in a vast array of human endeavors (by one published account, petroleum is a raw ingredient in some 70,000 manufactured products, including medicines, synthetic fabrics, fertilizers, paints and varnishes, acrylics, plastics, and cosmetics). By many accounts, the very survival of the human race is entirely dependent on the availability of petroleum. And yet we know almost nothing about this most life-sustaining of the earth’s resources. And even though, by some shrill accounts, the well is about to run dry, no one seems to be overly concerned with understanding the nature and origins of so-called ‘fossil fuels.’ We are, rather, content with continuing to embrace an unproved 18th century theory that, if subjected to any sort of logical analysis, seems ludicrous.
On September 26, 1995, the New York Times ran an article headlined “Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally.” Penned by Malcolm W. Browne, the piece appeared on page C1.
Could it be that many of the world’s oil fields are refilling themselves at nearly the same rate they are being drained by an energy hungry world? A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts … Dr. Jean K. Whelan … infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface. Skeptics of Dr. Whelan’s hypothesis … say her explanation remains to be proved …
Discovered in 1972, an oil reservoir some 6,000 feet beneath Eugene Island 330 [not actually an island, but a patch of sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico] is one of the world’s most productive oil sources … Eugene Island 330 is remarkable for another reason: it’s estimated reserves have declined much less than experts had predicted on the basis of its production rate.“It could be,” Dr. Whelan said, “that at some sites, particularly where there is a lot of faulting in the rock, a reservoir from which oil is being pumped might be a steady-state system — one that is replenished by deeper reserves as fast as oil is pumped out” …
The discovery that oil seepage is continuous and extensive from many ocean vents lying above fault zones has convinced many scientists that oil is making its way up through the faults from much deeper deposits …A recent report from the Department of Energy Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development concluded from the Woods Hole project that “there new data and interpretations strongly suggest that the oil and gas in the Eugene Island field could be treated as a steady-state rather than a fixed resource.”
The report added, “Preliminary analysis also suggest that similar phenomena may be taking place in other producing areas, including the deep-water Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan North Slope” …There is much evidence that deep reserves of hydrocarbon fuels remain to be tapped.
This compelling article raised a number of questions, including: how did all those piles of dinosaur carcasses end up thousands of feet beneath the earth’s surface? How do finite reservoirs of dinosaur goo become “steady-state” resources? And how does the fossil fuel theory explain the continuous, spontaneous venting of gas and oil?
The Eugene Island story was revisited by the media three-and-a-half years later, by the Wall Street Journal (Christopher Cooper “Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning,” Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1999).
(http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm)
Something mysterious is going on at Eugene Island 330.
Production at the oil field, deep in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, was supposed to have declined years ago. And for a while. it behaved like any normal field: Following its 1973 discovery, Eugene Island 330’s output peaked at about 15,000 barrels a day. By 1989, production had slowed to about 4,000 barrels a day.
Then suddenly — some say almost inexplicably — Eugene Island’s fortunes reversed. The field, operated by PennzEnergy Co., is now producing 13,000 barrels a day, and probable reserves have rocketed to more than 400 million barrels from 60 million. Stranger still, scientists studying the field say the crude coming out of the pipe is of a geological age quite different from the oil that gushed 10 years ago.All of which has led some scientists to a radical theory: Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself, perhaps from some continuous source miles below the Earth’s surface. That, they say, raises the tantalizing possibility that oil may not be the limited resource it is assumed to be.
… Jean Whelan, a geochemist and senior researcher from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts … says, “I believe there is a huge system of oil just migrating” deep underground.
… About 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, the underwater landscape surrounding Eugene Island is otherworldly, cut with deep fissures and faults that spontaneously belch gas and oil.
So now we are talking about a huge system of migrating dinosaur goo that is miles beneath the Earth’s surface! Those dinosaurs were rather crafty, weren’t they? Exactly three years later (to the day), the media once again paid a visit to the Gulf of Mexico. This time, it was Newsday that filed the report (Robert Cooke “Oil Field’s Free Refill,” Newsday, April 19, 2002).
(http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/pkt/2002II/msg00071.html)
Deep underwater, and deeper underground, scientists see surprising hints that gas and oil deposits can be replenished, filling up again, sometimes rapidly.
Although it sounds too good to be true, increasing evidence from the Gulf of Mexico suggests that some old oil fields are being refilled by petroleum surging up from deep below, scientists report. That may mean that current estimates of oil and gas abundance are far too low.… chemical oceanographer Mahlon “Chuck” Kennicutt [said] “They are refilling as we speak. But whether this is a worldwide phenomenon, we don’t know” …
Kennicutt, a faculty member at Texas A&M University, said it is now clear that gas and oil are coming into the known reservoirs very rapidly in terms of geologic time. The inflow of new gas, and some oil, has been detectable in as little as three to 10 years. In the past, it was not suspected that oil fields can refill because it was assumed that oil was formed in place, or nearby, rather than far below.
According to marine geologist Harry Roberts, at Louisiana State University … “You have a very leaky fault system that does allow it (petroleum) to migrate in. It’s directly connected to an oil and gas generating system at great depth.”
… “There already appears to be a large body of evidence consistent with … oil and gas generation and migration on very short time scales in many areas globally” [Jean Whelan] wrote in the journal Sea Technology …
Analysis of the ancient oil that seems to be coming up from deep below in the Gulf of Mexico suggests that the flow of new oil “is coming from deeper, hotter [sediment] formations” and is not simply a lateral inflow from the old deposits that surround existing oil fields, [Whelan] said.
Now I’m really starting to get confused. Can someone please walk me through this? What exactly is an “oil and gas generating system”? And how does such a system generate oil “on very short time scales”? Is someone down there right now, even as I type these words, forklifting dinosaur carcasses into some gigantic cauldron to cook up a fresh batch of oil?
Desperate for answers to such perplexing questions, I turned for advice to Mr. Peak Oil himself, Michael Ruppert, and this is what I found: “oil … is the result of climactic conditions that have existed at only one time in the earth’s 4.5 billion year history.” I’m guessing that that “one time” – that one golden window of opportunity to get just the right mix of dinosaur stew – isn’t the present time, so it doesn’t seem quite right, to me at least, that oil is being generated right now.
In June 2003, Geotimes paid a visit to the Gulf of Mexico (“Raining Hydrocarbons in the Gulf”), and the story grew yet more compelling.
(http://www.geotimes.org/june03/NN_gulf.html)
Below the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs … and this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.
“We’re dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now,” Cathles says.
… Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana [including Eugene Island 330], source rocks a dozen kilometers [roughly seven miles] down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas — about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. “That’s 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era,” Cathles say. “And that’s just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there’s a lot of hydrocarbons venting out.”
Dry oil wells spontaneously refilling? Oil generation and migration systems? Massive oil reserves miles beneath the earth’s surface? Spontaneous venting of enormous volumes of gas and oil? (Roberts noted that – and this isn’t really going to please the environmentalists, but I’m just reporting the facts, ma’am – “natural seepage” in areas like the Gulf of Mexico “far exceeds anything that gets spilled” by the oil industry. And those natural emissions have been pumped into our oceans since long before there was an oil industry.)
The all too obvious question here is: how is any of that explained by a theory that holds that oil and gas are ‘fossil fuels’ created in finite quantities through a unique geological process that occurred millions of years ago?
Why do we insist on retaining an antiquated theory that is so obviously contradicted by readily observable phenomena? Is the advancement of the sciences not based on formulating a hypothesis, and then testing that hypothesis? And if the hypothesis fails to account for the available data, is it not customary to either modify that hypothesis or formulate a new hypothesis — rather than, say, clinging to the same discredited hypothesis for 250 years?
In August 2002, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study authored by J.F. Kenney, V.A. Kutchenov, N.A. Bendeliani and V.A. Alekseev. The authors argued, quite compellingly, that oil is not created from organic compounds at the temperatures and pressures found close to the surface of the earth, but rather is created from inorganic compounds at the extreme temperatures and pressures present only near the core of the earth.
(http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm)
As Geotimes noted (“Inorganic Origin of Oil: Much Ado About Nothing?,” Geotimes, November 2002), the journal “published the paper at the request of Academy member Howard Reiss, a chemical physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles. As per the PNAS guidelines for members communicating papers, Reiss obtained reviews of the paper from at least two referees from different institutions (not affiliated with the authors) and shepherded the report through revisions.”
(http://www.geotimes.org/nov02/NN_oil.html)
I mention that because I happened to read something that Michael Ruppert wrote recently that seems pertinent: “In real life, it is called ‘the proof is in the pudding.’ In scientific circles, it is called peer review, and it usually involves having your research published in a peer-reviewed journal. It is an often-frustrating process, but peer-reviewed articles ensure the validity of science.”
(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html)
It would seem then that we can safely conclude that what Kenney, et. al. have presented is valid science, since it definitely was published in a peer-reviewed journal. And what that valid science says, quite clearly, is that petroleum is not by any stretch of the imagination a finite resource, or a ‘fossil fuel,’ but is in fact a resource that is continuously generated by natural processes deep within the planet.
Geotimes also noted that the research paper “examined thermodynamic arguments that say methane is the only organic hydrocarbon to exist within Earth’s crust.” Indeed, utilizing the laws of modern thermodynamics, the authors constructed a mathematical model that proves that oil can not form under the conditions dictated by the ‘fossil fuel’ theory.
I mention that because of something else I read on Ruppert’s site. Listed as #5 of “Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy” is: “Most of the other questions in this list can be tied up into this one question: does the invention defy the Laws of Thermodynamics? If the answer is yes, then something is wrong.”
(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html)
Well then, Mr. Ruppert, I have some very bad news for you, because something definitely is wrong — with your ‘Peak Oil’ theory. Because here we have a published study, subjected to peer review (thus assuring the “validity” of the study), that demonstrates, with mathematical certainty, that it is actually the ‘fossil fuel’ theory that defies the laws of thermodynamics. It appears then that if we follow Ruppert’s Laws, we have to rule out fossil fuels as a viable alternative to petroleum.
Reaction to the publication of the Kenney study was swift. First to weigh in was Nature (Tom Clarke “Fossil Fuels Without the Fossils: Petroleum: Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?,” Nature News Service, August 14, 2002).
Petroleum – the archetypal fossil fuel – couldn’t have formed from the remains of dead animals and plants, claim US and Russian researchers. They argue that petroleum originated from minerals at extreme temperatures and pressures.
Other geochemists say that the work resurrects a scientific debate that is almost a fossil itself, and criticize the team’s conclusions.
The team, led by J.F. Kenney of the Gas Resources Corporation in Houston, Texas, mimicked conditions more than 100 kilometres below the earth’s surface by heating marble, iron oxide and water to around 1500° C and 50,000 times atmospheric pressure.
They produced traces of methane, the main constituent of natural gas, and octane, the hydrocarbon molecule that makes petrol. A mathematical model of the process suggests that, apart from methane, none of the ingredients of petroleum could form at depths less than 100 kilometres.
The geochemist community, and the petroleum industry, were both suitably outraged by the publication of the study. The usual parade of experts was trotted out, of course, but a funny thing happened: as much as they obviously wanted to, those experts were unable to deny the validity of the research. So they resorted to a very unusual tactic: they reluctantly acknowledged that oil can indeed be created from minerals, but they insisted that that inconvenient fact really has nothing to do with the oil that we use.
Showing that oil can also form without a biological origin does not disprove [the ‘fossil fuel’] hypothesis. “It doesn’t discredit anything,” said a geochemist who asked not to be named.
… “No one disputes that hydrocarbons can form this way,” says Mark McCaffrey, a geochemist with Oil Tracers LLC, a petroleum-prospecting consultancy in Dallas, Texas. A tiny percentage of natural oil deposits are known to be non-biological, but this doesn’t mean that petrol isn’t a fossil fuel, he says.
“I don’t know anyone in the petroleum community who really takes this prospect seriously,” says Walter Michaelis, a geochemist at the University of Hamburg in Germany.
So I guess the geochemist community is a petulant lot. They did “concede,” however, that oil “that forms inorganically at the high temperatures and massive pressures close to the Earth’s mantle layer could be forced upwards towards the surface by water, which is denser than oil. It can then be trapped by sedimentary rocks that are impermeable to oil.”
What they were acknowledging, lest anyone misunderstand, is that the oil that we pump out of reservoirs near the surface of the earth, and the oil that is spontaneously and continuously generated deep within the earth, could very well be the same oil. But even so, they insist, that is certainly no reason to abandon, or even question, our perfectly ridiculous ‘fossil fuel’ theory.
Coverage by New Scientist of the ‘controversial’ journal publication largely mirrored the coverage by Nature (Jeff Hecht “You Can Squeeze Oil Out of a Stone,” New Scientist, August 17, 2002).
Oil doesn’t come from dead plants and animals, but from plain old rock, a controversial new study claims.
The heat and pressure a hundred kilometres underground produces hydrocarbons from inorganic carbon and water, says J.F. Kenney, who runs the Gas Resources Corporation, an oil exploration firm in Houston. He and three Russian colleagues believe all our oil is made this way, and untapped supplies are there for the taking.
Petroleum geologists already accept that some oil forms like this. “Nobody ever argued that there are no inorganic sources,” says Mike Lewan of the US Geological Survey. But they take strong issue with Kenney’s claim that petroleum can’t form from organic matter in shallow rocks.
Geotimes chimed in as well, quoting Scott Imbus, an organic geochemist for Chevron Texaco Corp., who explained that the Kenney research is “an excellent and rigorous treatment of the theoretical and experimental aspects for abiotic hydrocarbon formation deep in the Earth. Unfortunately, it has little or nothing to do with the origins of commercial fossil fuel deposits.”
What we have here, quite clearly, is a situation wherein the West’s leading geochemists (read: shills for the petroleum industry) cannot impugn the validity of Kenney’s unassailable mathematical model, and so they have, remarkably enough, adopted the unusual strategy of claiming that there is actually more than one way to produce oil. It can be created under extremely high temperatures and pressures, or it can be created under relatively low temperatures and pressures. It can be created organically, or it can be created inorganically. It can be created deep within the Earth, or it can be created near the surface of the Earth. You can make it with some rocks. Or you can make it in a box. You can make it here or there. You can make it anywhere.
While obviously an absurdly desperate attempt to salvage the ‘fossil fuel’ theory, the arguments being offered by the geochemist community actually serve to further undermine the notion that oil is an irreplaceable ‘fossil fuel.’ For if we are now to believe that petroleum can be created under a wide range of conditions (a temperature range, for example, of 75° C to 1500° C), does that not cast serious doubt on the claim that conditions favored the creation of oil just “one time in the earth’s 4.5 billion year history”?
A more accurate review of Kenney’s work appeared in The Economist (“The Argument Needs Oiling,” The Economist, August 15, 2002).
Millions of years ago, tiny animals and plants died. They settled at the bottom of the oceans. Over time, they were crushed beneath layers of sediment that built up above them and eventually turned into rock. The organic matter, now trapped hundreds of metres below the surface, started to change. Under the action of gentle heat and pressure, and in the absence of air, the biological debris turned into oil and gas. Or so the story goes.
In 1951, however, a group of Soviet scientists led by Nikolai Kudryavtsev claimed that this theory of oil production was fiction. They suggested that hydrocarbons, the principal molecular constituents of oil, are generated deep within the earth from inorganic materials. Few people outside Russia listened. But one who did was J. F. Kenney, an American who today works for the Russian Academy of Sciences and is also chief executive of Gas Resources Corporation in Houston, Texas. He says it is nonsense to believe that oil derives from “squashed fish and putrefied cabbages.” This is a brave claim to make when the overwhelming majority of petroleum geologists subscribe to the biological theory of origin. But Dr Kenney has evidence to support his argument.
In this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he claims to establish that it is energetically impossible for alkanes, one of the main types of hydrocarbon molecule in crude oil, to evolve from biological precursors at the depths where reservoirs have typically been found and plundered. He has developed a mathematical model incorporating quantum mechanics, statistics and thermodynamics which predicts the behaviour of a hydrocarbon system. The complex mixture of straight-chain and branched alkane molecules found in crude oil could, according to his calculations, have come into existence only at extremely high temperatures and pressures—far higher than those found in the earth’s crust, where the orthodox theory claims they are formed.
To back up this idea, he has shown that a cocktail of alkanes (methane, hexane, octane and so on) similar to that in natural oil is produced when a mixture of calcium carbonate, water and iron oxide is heated to 1,500° C and crushed with the weight of 50,000 atmospheres. This experiment reproduces the conditions in the earth’s upper mantle, 100 km below the surface, and so suggests that oil could be produced there from completely inorganic sources.
Kenney’s theories, when discussed at all, are universally described as “new,” “radical,” and “controversial.” In truth, however, Kenney’s ideas are not new, nor original, nor radical. Though no one other than Kenney himself seems to want to talk about it, the arguments that he presented in the PNAS study are really just the tip of a very large iceberg of suppressed scientific research.
This story really begins in 1946, just after the close of World War II, which had illustrated quite effectively that oil was integral to waging modern, mechanized warfare. Stalin, recognizing the importance of oil, and recognizing also that the Soviet Union would have to be self sufficient, launched a massive scientific undertaking that has been compared, in its scale, to the Manhattan Project. The goal of the Soviet project was to study every aspect of petroleum, including how it is created, how reserves are generated, and how to best pursue petroleum exploration and extraction.
The challenge was taken up by a wide range of scientific disciplines, with hundreds of the top professionals in their fields contributing to the body of scientific research. By 1951, what has been called the Modern Russian-Ukrainian Theory of Deep, Abiotic Petroleum Origins was born. A healthy amount of scientific debate followed for the next couple of decades, during which time the theory, initially formulated by geologists, based on observational data, was validated through the rigorous quantitative work of chemists, physicists and thermodynamicists. For the last couple of decades, the theory has been accepted as established fact by virtually the entire scientific community of the (former) Soviet Union. It is backed up by literally thousands of published studies in prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journals.
For over fifty years, Russian and Ukrainian scientists have added to this body of research and refined the Russian-Ukrainian theories. And for over fifty years, not a word of it has been published in the English language (except for a fairly recent, bastardized version published by astronomer Thomas Gold, who somehow forgot to credit the hundreds of scientists whose research he stole and then misrepresented).
This is not, by the way, just a theoretical model that the Russians and Ukrainians have established; the theories were put to practical use, resulting in the transformation of the Soviet Union – once regarded as having limited prospects, at best, for successful petroleum exploration – into a world-class petroleum producing, and exporting, nation.
J.F. Kenney spent some 15 years studying under some of the Russian and Ukrainian scientists who were key contributors to the modern petroleum theory. When Kenney speaks about petroleum origins, he is not speaking as some renegade scientist with a radical new theory; he is speaking to give voice to an entire community of scientists whose work has never been acknowledged in the West. Kenney writes passionately about that neglected body of research:
The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not new or recent. This theory was first enunciated by Professor Nikolai Kudryavtsev in 1951, almost a half century ago, (Kudryavtsev 1951) and has undergone extensive development, refinement, and application since its introduction. There have been more than four thousand articles published in the Soviet scientific journals, and many books, dealing with the modern theory. This writer is presently co-authoring a book upon the subject of the development and applications of the modern theory of petroleum for which the bibliography requires more than thirty pages.
The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not the work of any one single man — nor of a few men. The modern theory was developed by hundreds of scientists in the (now former) U.S.S.R., including many of the finest geologists, geochemists, geophysicists, and thermodynamicists of that country. There have now been more than two generations of geologists, geophysicists, chemists, and other scientists in the U.S.S.R. who have worked upon and contributed to the development of the modern theory. (Kropotkin 1956; Anisimov, Vasilyev et al. 1959; Kudryavtsev 1959; Porfir’yev 1959; Kudryavtsev 1963; Raznitsyn 1963; Krayushkin 1965; Markevich 1966; Dolenko 1968; Dolenko 1971; Linetskii 1974; Letnikov, Karpov et al. 1977; Porfir’yev and Klochko 1981; Krayushkin 1984)
The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not untested or speculative. On the contrary, the modern theory was severely challenged by many traditionally-minded geologists at the time of its introduction; and during the first decade thenafter, the modern theory was thoroughly examined, extensively reviewed, powerfully debated, and rigorously tested. Every year following 1951, there were important scientific conferences organized in the U.S.S.R. to debate and evaluate the modern theory, its development, and its predictions. The All-Union conferences in petroleum and petroleum geology in the years 1952-1964/5 dealt particularly with this subject. (During the period when the modern theory was being subjected to extensive critical challenge and testing, a number of the men pointed out that there had never been any similar critical review or testing of the traditional hypothesis that petroleum might somehow have evolved spontaneously from biological detritus.)
The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not a vague, qualitative hypothesis, but stands as a rigorous analytic theory within the mainstream of the modern physical sciences. In this respect, the modern theory differs fundamentally not only from the previous hypothesis of a biological origin of petroleum but also from all traditional geological hypotheses. Since the nineteenth century, knowledgeable physicists, chemists, thermodynamicists, and chemical engineers have regarded with grave reservations (if not outright disdain) the suggestion that highly reduced hydrocarbon molecules of high free enthalpy (the constituents of crude oil) might somehow evolve spontaneously from highly oxidized biogenic molecules of low free enthalpy. Beginning in 1964, Soviet scientists carried out extensive theoretical statistical thermodynamic analysis which established explicitly that the hypothesis of evolution of hydrocarbon molecules (except methane) from biogenic ones in the temperature and pressure regime of the Earth’s near-surface crust was glaringly in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. They also determined that the evolution of reduced hydrocarbon molecules requires pressures of magnitudes encountered at depths equal to such of the mantle of the Earth. During the second phase of its development, the modern theory of petroleum was entirely recast from a qualitative argument based upon a synthesis of many qualitative facts into a quantitative argument based upon the analytical arguments of quantum statistical mechanics and thermodynamic stability theory. (Chekaliuk 1967; Boiko 1968; Chekaliuk 1971; Chekaliuk and Kenney 1991; Kenney 1995) With the transformation of the modern theory from a synthetic geology theory arguing by persuasion into an analytical physical theory arguing by compulsion, petroleum geology entered the mainstream of modern science.
The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not controversial nor presently a matter of academic debate. The period of debate about this extensive body of knowledge has been over for approximately two decades (Simakov 1986). The modern theory is presently applied extensively throughout the former U.S.S.R. as the guiding perspective for petroleum exploration and development projects. There are presently more than 80 oil and gas fields in the Caspian district alone which were explored and developed by applying the perspective of the modern theory and which produce from the crystalline basement rock.
(Krayushkin, Chebanenko et al. 1994) Similarly, such exploration in the western Siberia cratonic-rift sedimentary basin has developed 90 petroleum fields of which 80 produce either partly or entirely from the crystalline basement. The exploration and discoveries of the 11 major and 1 giant fields on the northern flank of the Dneiper-Donets basin have already been noted. There are presently deep drilling exploration projects under way in Azerbaijan, Tatarstan, and Asian Siberia directed to testing potential oil and gas reservoirs in the crystalline basement.
(http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm)
It appears that, unbeknownst to Westerners, there have actually been, for quite some time now, two competing theories concerning the origins of petroleum. One theory claims that oil is an organic ‘fossil fuel’ deposited in finite quantities near the planet’s surface. The other theory claims that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth’s magma. One theory is backed by a massive body of research representing fifty years of intense scientific inquiry. The other theory is an unproven relic of the eighteenth century. One theory anticipates deep oil reserves, refillable oil fields, migratory oil systems, deep sources of generation, and the spontaneous venting of gas and oil. The other theory has a difficult time explaining any such documented phenomena.
So which theory have we in the West, in our infinite wisdom, chosen to embrace? Why, the fundamentally absurd ‘Fossil Fuel’ theory, of course — the same theory that the ‘Peak Oil’ doomsday warnings are based on.
I am sorry to report here, by the way, that in doing my homework, I never did come across any of that “hard science” documenting ‘Peak Oil’ that Mr. Strahl referred to. All the ‘Peak Oil’ literature that I found, on Ruppert’s site and elsewhere, took for granted that petroleum is a non-renewable ‘fossil fuel.’ That theory is never questioned, nor is any effort made to validate it. It is simply taken to be an established scientific fact, which it quite obviously is not.
So what do Ruppert and his resident experts have to say about all of this? Dale Allen Pfeiffer, identified as the “FTW Contributing Editor for Energy,” has written: “There is some speculation that oil is abiotic in origin — generally asserting that oil is formed from magma instead of an organic origin. These ideas are really groundless.”
(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/04_04_02_oil_recession.html)
Here is a question that I have for both Mr. Ruppert and Mr. Pfeiffer: Do you consider it honest, responsible journalism to dismiss a fifty year body of multi-disciplinary scientific research, conducted by hundreds of the world’s most gifted scientists, as “some speculation”?
Another of FTW’s prognosticators, Colin Campbell, is described by Ruppert as “perhaps the world’s foremost expert on oil.” He was asked by Ruppert, in an interview, “what would you say to the people who insist that oil is created from magma …?” Before we get to Campbell’s answer, we should first take note of the tone of Ruppert’s question. It is not really meant as a question at all, but rather as a statement, as in “there is really nothing you can say that will satisfy these nutcases who insist on bringing up these loony theories.”
(http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102302_campbell.html)
Campbell’s response to the question was an interesting one: “No one in the industry gives the slightest credence to these theories.” Why, one wonders, did Mr. Campbell choose to answer the question on behalf of the petroleum industry? And does it come as a surprise to anyone that the petroleum industry doesn’t want to acknowledge abiotic theories of petroleum origins? Should we have instead expected something along these lines?:
“Hey, everybody … uhhh … you know how we always talked about oil being a fossil fuel? And … uhmm … you know how the entire profit structure of our little industry here is built upon the presumption that oil is a non-renewable, and therefore very valuable, resource*? And remember all those times we talked about shortages so that we could gouge you at the pumps? Well … guess what, America? You’ve been Punk’d!”
For the sake of accuracy, I think we need to modify Mr. Campbell’s response, because it should probably read: no one in the petroleum industry will publicly admit giving any credence to abiotic theories. But is there really any doubt that those who own and control the oil industry are well aware of the true origins of oil? How could they not be?
Surely there must be a reason why there appears to be so little interest in understanding the nature and origins of such a valuable, and allegedly vanishing, resource. And that reason can only be that the answers are already known. The objective, of course, is to ensure that the rest of us don’t find those answers. Why else would we be encouraged, for decades, to cling tenaciously to a scientific theory that can’t begin to explain the available scientific evidence? And why else would a half-century of research never see the light of day in Western scientific and academic circles?
Maintaining the myth of scarcity, you see, is all important. Without it, the house of cards comes tumbling down. And yet, even while striving to preserve that myth, the petroleum industry will continue to provide the oil and gas needed to maintain a modern industrial infrastructure, long past the time when we should have run out of oil. And needless to say, the petroleum industry will also continue to reap the enormous profits that come with the myth of scarcity.
How will that difficult balancing act be performed? That is where, it appears, the ‘limited hangout’ concerning abiotic oil will come into play.
Perhaps the most telling quote to emerge from all of this came from Roger Sassen, identified as the deputy director of Resource Geosciences, a research group out of Texas A&M University: “The potential that inorganic hydrocarbons, especially methane and a few other gasses, might exist at enormous depth in the crust is an idea that could use a little more discussion. However, not from people who take theories to the point of absurdity. This is an idea that needs to be looked into at some point as we start running out of energy. But no one who is objective discusses the issue at this time.”
The key point there (aside from Sassen’s malicious characterization of Kenney) is his assertion that no one is discussing abiotic oil at this time. And why is that? Because, you see, we first have to go through the charade of pretending that the world has just about run out of ‘conventional’ oil reserves, thus justifying massive price hikes, which will further pad the already obscenely high profits of the oil industry. Only then will it be fully acknowledged that there is, you know, that ‘other’ oil.
“We seem to have plum run out of that fossil fuel that y’all liked so much, but if you want us to, we could probably find you some mighty fine inorganic stuff. You probably won’t even notice the difference. The only reason that we didn’t mention it before is that – and may God strike me dead if I’m lying – it is a lot more work for us to get to it. So after we charged you up the wazoo for the ‘last’ of the ‘conventional’ oil, we’re now gonna have to charge you even more for this really ‘special’ oil. And with any luck at all, none of you will catch on that it’s really the same oil.”
And that, dear readers, is how I see this little game playing out. Will you be playing along?
Alleged Obama – Netanyahu Rift
By Stephen Lendman | May 23, 2011
After Obama’s May 18 speech called for establishing a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, world headlines suggested a rift with Netanyahu, misinterpreting what he meant. More on that below.
On May 17, in fact, New York Times writers Mark Landler and Helene Cooper headlined, “As Uprisings Transform Mideast, Obama Aims to Reshape the Peace Debate,” saying:
Ahead of his speech, White House press secretary Jay Carney said he’d offer “some specific new ideas about US policy toward the region.”
Unidentified officials also suggested he might endorse a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. Doing so, however, would represent “less of a policy shift than a signal” that Washington wants Israel to make concessions to restart peace talks – a gesture, whether or not substantive with teeth.
On May 17, after meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah, Obama said:
“Despite the many changes, or perhaps because of the many changes that are taking place in the region, it’s more vital than ever that both Israelis and Palestinians find a way to get back to the table and begin negotiating a process whereby they can create two states that are living side by side in peace and security.”
Moreover, his May 22 AIPAC speech affirmed his unwavering support for a “strong and secure Israel.”
As a result, “I and my administration have made the security of Israel a priority. It’s why we’ve increased cooperation between our militaries to unprecedented levels. It’s why we’re making our most advanced technologies available to our Israeli allies. And it’s why, despite tough fiscal times, we’ve increased foreign military financing to record levels.”
Moreover, current regional events and realities motivated his peace proposal some call radical and unacceptable. In fact, “(t)here was nothing particularly original in (it). This basic framework….has long been the basis for discussions….including (for) previous US administrations (within) the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps….”
It’s for “the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – (to) negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967,” taking into account the “new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two peoples,” no matter his agreeing to all key Israeli demands, excluding what Palestinians most want, assuring no possibility for peace, reconciliation and true Palestinian self-determination.
In fact, Washington and Israel both endorse an Oslo type agreement, a shameless betrayal amounting to another Palestinian Versailles, benefiting Israel, not them, what no legitimate Palestinian leader will accept.
On May 19, Times writer Cooper headlined, “Obama and Netanyahu, Distrustful Allies, Meet,” saying:
Ahead of their meeting, both “men are facing a turning point in a relationship that has never been warm. By all accounts, they do not trust each other.” Obama told aides he doesn’t think Netanyahu will yield enough for peace. “For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has complained that Mr. Obama has pushed Israel too far….”
In fact, under present and past leaders, both countries abhor peace. For example, in the 1980s, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir admitted that Israel’s 1982 Lebanon war was waged because of “a terrible danger….not so much a military one as a political one.”
So a pretext was created for war like Washington’s done repeatedly since WW II, pursuing its permanent war agenda against one country, then others without letup to satisfy its imperial/military-industrial complex appetites.
On May 19, Times writer Ethan Bronner headlined, “Netanyahu Reponds Icily to Obama’s Remarks,” saying:
He responded “testily” to Obama’s endorsing a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, in contrast to Haaretz saying he “granted Netanyahu a major diplomatic victory” by leaving undefined the size or locations of a Palestinian state. It also quoted Netanyahu saying:
“Israel appreciates President Obama’s commitment to peace,” adding that he expects him to refrain from demanding Israel withdraw to “indefensible (1967 borders) which will leave a large population of Israel in Judea and Samaria and outside Israel’s borders.”
He did, in fact, at AIPAC’s annual conference, showing that those calling his position radical are wrong. They misstate unchanged Washington policy, affirming rock-solid support for Israel, agreeing on all core issues.
Moreover, key Israel/Palestinian ones remain to be negotiated, no matter that Washington and Israel spurn diplomacy and concessions over major ones, including the inviolable right of return and Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital. It’s why decades of peace talks were stillborn and remain so, regardless of political rhetoric, urging their resumption.
On May 20, Times writer Steven Myers headlined, “Divisions Are Clear as Obama and Netanyahu Discuss Peace,” saying:
“Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel would not accept a return to the (pre-1967) boundaries….calling them indefensible.” In fact, Obama doesn’t want Israel to relinquish its settlements, home to about 500,000 West Bank and East Jerusalem Jews.
Moreover, on February 18, Washington vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal under international law. The vote was 14 yes, America the sole no, isolating the US and Israel on this long festering issue. The measure had 120 co-sponsors, an overwhelming endorsement for what Obama rejects.
Nonetheless, headlines keep suggesting a growing rift, including from Haaretz writers Natasha Mozgovaya and Barak Ravid’s May 22 article headlined, “Obama to address AIPAC in wake of tense meeting with Netanyahu at White House,” saying:
“Senior officials (from both countries) expressed a sense of great tension and profound mutual insult following the meeting.” At AIPAC, Obama “is expected to try to stave off further deterioration in US-Israeli relations.”
In fact, Netanyahu “left the (White House) more satisfied than he went in” after Obama pledged America’s longstanding rock solid support, leaving Palestinians out of their equation entirely.
~
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Obama Supports Full Israeli Withdrawal? Words vs. Actions
Michael Warschawski – Alternative Information Center – 22 May 2011
President Obama’s announcement in favour of withdrawal to the lines of 1967 was surprising, particularly as it was said mere hours before his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.
Advisors to the American president obviously knew that the announcement would invite a counter-response by the most right-wing prime minister in the history of Israel. “Blunt” was the definition of analysts close to the White House: without diplomatic language, the prime minister responded that he has no intention or ability of returning to the lines of 4 June 1967, for both security and demographic reasons.
Did President Obama wish for confrontation with Netanyahu? Are we at the beginning of a crisis in US-Israeli relations? We are also one year before elections in the United States, and the Democratic party will soon require the traditional donations of the Jewish and pro-Israeli capitalists.
There is no doubt that the differences in approach between the two countries are real, and at conclusion of the meeting with Netanyahu, Obama even warned that “the primary differences of opinion with Israel remain regarding the manner for reaching peace in the Middle East.” No more and no less! While the Americans think that peace requires an Israeli withdrawal to the lines of 4 June 1967, the Israeli prime minister believes that peace in the region will be obtained by an expansion of settlements. Minor differences….and despite this, it paradoxically appears that the declaration of Obama was said for the good of the Israeli state, because after the declarations will come actions, and especially the planned September vote in the United Nations General Assembly.
There is a foundation to believe that the American declarations concerning withdrawal to the 1967 lines come to please the Arab states and the Arab street, to show them that the United States does not stand unconditionally behind Israeli policies; in this sense the White House invited the blunt response of Netanyahu and counted on it. Now, Obama has free reign to torpedo the decision of the United Nations concerning a Palestinian state in the borders of 4 June.
“Words don’t cost money”, and of course Obama and Clinton estimate that Israel will soon require practical assistance from the United States in the international arena. It is not difficult to bet that in this test, the United States and its president will stand by Israel. One does not need to love conspiracy theories to understand that beyond the mutual lack of sympathy between Obama and Netanyahu, there exists coordination between them and a sort of division of labour. One speaks against settlements and the other immediately builds 1,400 new housing units in settlements.
It is possible to speak about a crisis between two allies only and when Washington will impose sanctions on Israel, for example if it will delay military assistance for several months. The end of days? Not necessarily: When in 1991 George Bush the father encountered the refusal of Yitzhak Shamir to announce a freezing of settlements, he froze bank guarantees worth NIS 13 billion dollars that were promised by Congress, and the money remained in the United States until Shamir fell and was replaced by the Rabin government. American pressure is possible, but there is great doubt if Obama will use it. His seemingly far-reaching statements are no more than a cover for the expected American support of Israel in the United Nations General Assembly in September.
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Book Review
Why the War on Conspiracy Theories Is Bad Public Policy
By Kevin Barrett • Unz Review • February 1, 2019
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying “we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”
At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.
But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying. … continue
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