Is the Left Promoting War on Iran?
This analysis, while not current, is as relevant as ever. At this time it should be more evident than ever that the global forces promoting aggression on Iran are driven by Zionist motives, however we still find attempts at redirection, desperate baseless rationales for war are presented in the hope of exonerating Israel and its supporters.
By Bob Finch
Preamble
A number of commentators hold that the primary reason America will attack Iran is to defend the dollar as a global currency. Iran is alleged to be threatening the role of the dollar as the sole currency for oil transactions by setting up an oil bourse on which oil can be bought and sold for euros – just as Saddam Hussein threatened the dollar by selling Iraqi oil for euros. Paradoxically, most of those supporting such an hypothesis are anti-war commentators –both on the left and the (paleo) right wing.
The big political danger of the petro-dollar explanation of the war against Iran is that both left, and right, wing anti-war activists are in effect providing a justification for the war they are supposedly seeking to avert. Although the proponents of the petro-dollar hypothesis are anti-war, and personally do not regard the petro-dollar hypothesis as a justification for an American attack on Iran, it has to be suggested that for many Americans this hypothesis would provide sufficient justification for war. If Americans are told that Iran is devaluing the dollar in their pocket and threatening to bring about the collapse of the American economy they are going to want to know why America hasn’t started bombing iran. In their eyes, such a war would be self-defence, defending their way of life. There is a considerable danger that anti-war critics are going to find their explanation for the likelihood of an American attack on Iran is a self fulfilling prophesy which helps to win popular support for the war.
This article highlights the commentators promoting the petro-dollar hypothesis but does not seek to examine the merits of this hypothesis.
The Economic Origins of the Petro-Dollar/Oil Bourse Thesis
The idea that iran’s proposed oil bourse would pose a threat to the global supremacy of the dollar started primarily as an economic speculation.
William Clarke:
“The Iranians are about to commit an “offense” far greater than Saddam Hussein’s conversion to the euro of Iraq’s oil exports in the fall of 2000. Numerous articles have revealed Pentagon planning for operations against Iran as early as 2005. While the publicly stated reasons will be over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there are unspoken macroeconomic drivers explaining the Real Reasons regarding the 2nd stage of petrodollar warfare – Iran’s upcoming euro-based oil Bourse. In 2005-2006, The Tehran government developed a plan to begin competing with New York’s NYMEX and London’s IPE with respect to international oil trades – using a euro-denominated international oil-trading mechanism. This means that without some form of US intervention, the euro is going to establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project for U.S. global domination, Tehran’s objective constitutes an obvious encroachment on U.S. dollar supremacy in the international oil market.” (William Clark ‘The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target’).
Krassimir Petrov:
“The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate “nuclear” weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire. That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006. Whatever the strategic choice, from a purely economic point of view, should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar.” (Krassimir Petrov ‘The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse’).
Emilie Rutledge:
“This is primarily because of Iran’s reported intention to invoice energy contracts in euros rather than dollars. The contention that this could unseat the dollar’s dominance as the de facto currency for oil transactions may be overstated, but this has not stopped many commentators from linking America’s current political disquiet with Iran to the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse (IOB).” (Emilie Rutledge ‘Iran – a threat to the petrodollar?’).
The Left Wing, Anti-war Commentators who have taken up the Oil Bourse Thesis
The left/anti-war wing of the political spectrum (in both America and Britain) is so dominated by Zionist sympathizers that it will support any fantasy to avoid blaming Israel, the significantly Jewish owned and directed media in America, the Jewish lobby in America, and the Israel firsters in the Bush [Obama] administration, for pushing America into an invasion of Iraq and an attack on Iran. The petro-dollar hypothesis has three main advantages for the Jewish dominated left wing, anti-war movement. Firstly, it reinforces the idea of an American empire thereby implying that the Jewish separatist state in Palestine and the Jewish lobby in America are insignificant agents of American global power. Secondly, it suggests that America’s economic/financial interests are under threat when they are not. Thirdly, it diminishes the role played by Israel, the Jewish dominated American media, the Jewish lobby in America, and the Israel firsters in the Bush [Obama] administration, in pushing America into a war against Iran for the benefit of Israel.
The Jewish dominated left finds it impossible to countenance the idea that Jews have taken control of the American political and economic system and are using America’s colossal military power to boost the regional supremacy of the Jews-only state – at the expense of American interests. For the Jews on the left, the petro-dollar hypothesis is invaluable because it helps to protect Israel from adverse political criticism.
The influence of Jews on the left/ anti-war movement has become so poisonous and corrupting that in order to protect the Jews-only state in Palestine they are willing to promote a thesis which provides the American public with a rationale for an attack on Iran. Although left wing Jews pretend they are opposed to the war against Iran many would secretly applaud such a war because of the benefits it will bring to Israel – even though it will have calamitous consequences on America’s economic and military interests.
Thierry Meyssan:
“Tehran is optimistic about putting in place an oil spot market which doesn’t accept dollars. This is already working at an experimental stage. If no nation has officially announced its participation, many are encouraging participation through private companies acting as intermediaries. Now, the dollar is an overvalued currency whose value is maintained essentially by its role as a petro-currency. Such a spot market, once really up and running, would provoke a collapse of the dollar, comparable to that of 1939, even if its transactions only amounted to a tenth of the world turnover. US power would be undermined by the falling dollar and, in time, Israel would also find itself bankrupt.” (Thierry Meyssan ‘The hidden stakes in the Iran crisis’).
Michael Keefer:
“The coming attack on Iran has nothing whatsoever to do with concerns about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Its primary motive, as oil analyst William Clark has argued, is rather a determination to ensure that the U.S. dollar remains the sole world currency for oil trading.” (Michael Keefer ‘Petrodollars and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: Understanding the Planned Assault on Iran’).
Geov Parrish:
“It preferably wants regime change before Tehran follows through on its threat to convert the currency in which it sells its oil from dollars to euros – a precedent-setting move that could have dire global consequences for the dollar as the international currency of choice, and, hence, ugly long-term consequences for the debt- and trade-deficit-riddled American economy.” (Geov Parrish ‘The next war?’).
Toni Straka:
“A decline of the dollar’s position in oil trading might also open the floodgates in other commodity markets where the dollar is the medium of exchange but where the US has only a minority market share.” (Toni Straka ‘Killing the dollar in Iran’).
The Laboratoire Européen d’Anticipation Politique Europe:
“The Laboratoire Européen d’Anticipation Politique Europe 2020, LEAP/E2020, now estimates to over 80% the probability that the week of March 20-26, 2006 will be the beginning of the most significant political crisis the world has known since the Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, together with an economic and financial crisis of a scope comparable with that of 1929. This last week of March 2006 will be the turning-point of a number of critical developments, resulting in an acceleration of all the factors leading to a major crisis, disregard any American or Israeli military intervention against Iran. In case such an intervention is conducted, the probability of a major crisis to start rises up to 100%, according to LEAP/E2020. The announcement of this crisis results from the analysis of decisions taken by the two key-actors of the main on-going international crisis, i.e. the United States and Iran:
– on the one hand there is the Iranian decision of opening the first oil bourse priced in Euros on March 20th, 2006 in Tehran, available to all oil producers of the region ;
– on the other hand, there is the decision of the American Federal Reserve to stop publishing M3 figures (the most reliable indicator on the amount of dollars circulating in the world) from March 23, 2006 onward1.
These two decisions constitute altogether the indicators, the causes and the consequences of the historical transition in progress between the order created after World War II and the new international equilibrium in gestation since the collapse of the USSR. Their magnitude as much as their simultaneity will catalyse all the tensions, weaknesses and imbalances accumulated since more than a decade throughout the international system.” (The Laboratoire européen d’Anticipation Politique Europe 2020, LEAP/E2020 ‘Iran-USA, beginning of a major world crisis’).
Heather Wokusch:
“In the eyes of the Bush administration, however, Iran’s worst transgression has less to do with nuclear ambitions or anti-Semitism than with the petro-euro oil bourse Tehran is slated to open in March 2006. Iran’s plan to allow oil trading in euros threatens to break the dollar’s monopoly as the global reserve currency, and since the greenback is severely overvalued due to huge trade deficits, the move could be devastating for the US economy.” (Heather Wokusch ‘WWIII or Bust: Implications of a US Attack on Iran’).
While heather wokusch’s sympathies clearly lay on the left and are anti-war she does surprisingly manage to slip an extreme right wing Zionist idea into her article, “It would incite the Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Iran’s, potentially sparking increased global terrorism.”
She even peddles Chomsky’s argument that Turkey will support a Zionist attack on Iran, “Given what’s at stake, few allies, apart from Israel, can be expected to support a US attack on Iran. While Jacques Chirac has blustered about using his nukes defensively, it’s doubtful that France would join an unprovoked assault, and even loyal allies, such as the UK, prefer going through the UN Security Council. Which means the wild card is Turkey. The nation shares a border with Iran, and according to Noam Chomsky, is heavily supported by the domestic Israeli lobby in Washington, permitting 12% of the Israeli air and tank force to be stationed in its territory. Turkey’s crucial role in an attack on Iran explains why there’s been a spurt of high-level US visitors to Ankara lately, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director Porter Goss. In fact, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported in December 2005 that Goss had told the Turkish government it would be “informed of any possible air strikes against Iran a few hours before they happened” and that Turkey had been given a “green light” to attack camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iran “on the day in question.” (Heather Wokusch ‘WWIII or Bust: Implications of a US Attack on Iran’).
The Right Wing, Anti-War Commentators who have taken up the Oil Bourse Thesis
Ron Paul:
“It’s not likely that maintaining dollar supremacy was the only motivating factor for the war against Iraq, nor for agitating against Iran. Though the real reasons for going to war are complex, we now know the reasons given before the war started, like the presence of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s connection to 9/11, were false. The dollar’s importance is obvious, but this does not diminish the influence of the distinct plans laid out years ago by the neo-conservatives to remake the Middle East. Israel’s influence, as well as that of the Christian Zionists, likewise played a role in prosecuting this war.” (Ron Paul ‘The End of Dollar Hegemony’).
Paul Sheldon Foote:
Paul sheldon foote accepts the Iranian oil bourse thesis. He circulated an article highlighting the supposed dangers of an Iranian bourse, “The neo-conservatives (neo-Trotskyites) have been lying about exporting American democracy and values. These are some of the real reasons why these American traitors want to bomb Iran and establish a totalitarian regime for the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists.” (pfoote@fullerton.edu).
The Bush [Obama] Regime’s Disinterest in the Petro-Dollar/Oil Bourse Thesis to Promote a War against Iran
Despite the fact that both left and right wing anti-war commentators believe that the real reason for the war against Iran is the establishment of Iran’s oil bourse nobody in the Bush [Obama] administration or the neo-con media has made any comment about it.
The Right Wing use of the Petro-Dollar/Oil Bourse Thesis to Promote a War against Iran
The petro-dollar hypothesis is a legitimate economic speculation but politically it could be used to provide America with a seemingly legitimate excuse for a war against Iran. This section highlights the commentators seeking to do precisely that.
Jerome R. Corsi:
The first right wing commentator to start using left wing arguments to support the war is Jerome R. Corsi who acknowledges the source of his ideas, “Many administration critics argue today that the real reason for invading Iraq in 2003 was not to remove WMD from Iraq or to establish freedom but to preserve the dollar dominance of the world’s oil market. These same critics argue today that the real reason for the ramp-up of concern over Iran has nothing to do with Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program or with President Ahmadinejad’s threats to destroy Israel but everything to do with oil.” (Jerome R. Corsi ‘Will Iran’s ‘petroeuro’ threat lead to war?’).
Corsi points out that, “Today, about 70 percent of the world’s international foreign currency reserves are held in dollars. If the petroeuro begins to challenge the petrodollar, this percentage could diminish drastically. The United States depends on the dollar foreign-currency reserves in order to sell the Treasury debt that sustains budget deficits. What if foreign-exchange portfolios from oil sales fell to 60 percent being held in dollars – would that cause a crisis in the U.S. economy? Or would it take 55 percent? Most Americans are completely unaware of this threat Iran represents to the U.S. economy.” (Jerome R. Corsi ‘Will Iran’s ‘petroeuro’ threat lead to war?’). He points out the dangers of a challenge to the petro-dollar to America’s poor, “Clearly, any threat to petrodollar holdings could undermine social programs in the U.S., including Medicare and key welfare programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.” (Jerome R. Corsi ‘Will Iran’s ‘petroeuro’ threat lead to war?’). He concludes, “If the Iranians persist in creating a market mechanism to settle world oil transactions in the euro, the United States will attack just to preserve the oil market for the dollar. If Iran does open an oil bourse next month, we should expect the warplanes will soon thereafter begin to fly.” (Jerome R. Corsi ‘Will Iran’s ‘petroeuro’ threat lead to war?’). Corsi is the author of some highly illuminating works such as co-authoring with John O’Neill the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.” and the sizzler, “Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians.”
Critics of the Petrodollars Hypothesis
Paul Craig Roberts:
“Will an Iranian oil bourse hurt the dollar? Not really. The dollar’s value depends on the world’s willingness to hold dollar denominated assets, not on the currency used to pay oil bills. If payments were not made in dollars, there could be a slight negative impact on the dollar from countries reducing their dollar cash balances and from the psychological shock of pricing oil in Euros (or some other currency). However, what really counts is what do the oil producers, for example, do with the currency that they are paid. If they are paid in dollars, but exchange the dollars for Euros or Yen and purchase equities or bonds or real estate in Europe and Japan, it doesn’t help that oil is billed in dollars. Or if they are paid in Euros but exchange the Euros for dollars and purchase US assets, it doesn’t hurt that the oil is billed in Euros.” (Paul Craig Roberts ‘Paul Craig Roberts on the Iranian Oil Bourse’). “The negative impact on the dollar will be far greater from the additional red ink necessary to finance an attack on Iran than from an oil bourse.”
Jeff Blankfort:
Blankfort sent out the following email concerning Michael Keefer’s article ‘Petrodollars and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation’. “I am forwarding this, not because I agree with the writers’ premise, that there will be a US attack on Iran -which I don’t -but because it has become typical of the scholarship, or lack of same, that has come to distinguish what passes for the opposition to US foreign policy. I am also aware that it will be spread by unthinking, well-meaning others as the gospel truth. Apart from the glaring absence of any mention what effect an attack on Iran would have on the situation in Iraq which has a very long border with Iran, Keefer’s noting that “Michel Chossudovsky wrote in May 2005, (about) widespread reports that George W. Bush had “signed off on” an attack on Iran,” is but one example of the lack of scholarship as well as analysis on the writer’s part, a failing he shares with other pundits who have taken that allegation seriously.
First, there were no “widespread reports” of Bush taking this action. It was dropped as an aside by Scott Ritter, in February, 2005, when he was speaking in Seattle, and neither he nor anyone else has been able to substantiate it. Why Ritter, an ex-Marine and now a famous ex-WMD inspector (as well as a strong supporter of Israel, who acknowledges having worked with Israeli intelligence under Barak) would have access to such information, he and no one else, did not seem to trouble those who were sure that the US was going to bomb Iran in 2005 as Ritter had stated (and which he subsequently rationalized when it didn’t happen as did Chussodovsky in the statement below).
It is also curious that when Ritter recently stated and has written that John Bolton’s speech writer told him that he has already written the speech Bolton will make at the UN to justify a forthcoming US attack, that no one, at least publicly, has wondered why this speech writer would not only violate a speech writer’s required anonymity, but why he would tell this to someone who appears, at least publicly, to oppose the US war on Iraq.
What Keefer and the others never write about is critical and its absence from their analysis is inexcusable, namely, that given that a sizable segment of the Iraqi troops being trained in Iraq are loyal to the pro-Iranian SCIRI and Dawa parties, both of which were founded in Iran in 1982, it is logical that their guns would be turned on the US and British soldiers as Mokata Sadr has already promised to do with his Mahdi army should the US attack Iran. Add to this, the ability of Iran to block the Straits of Hormuz. Blocked shipping in the Gulf would be devastating for world oil supplies and for economies. Gas at $8 a gallon is not what the voters want to see.”(Jeff Blankfort” jblankfort@earthlink.net).
Chris Cook:
One of the financial directors involved in setting up the bourse is amused at the prospect that he is about to bring down the global economy, “It is therefore with wry amusement that I have seen a myth being widely propagated on the Internet that the genesis of this “Iran bourse” project is a wish to subvert the US dollar by denominating oil pricing in euros.” (Chris Cook ‘What the Iran ‘nuclear issue’ is really about’).
Mathew Maavak:
The Iranians have not even decided on a marker for the oil to be sold. “The Iranians so far have not indicated whether they have come up with an oil marker – a euro-denominated oil pricing standard – like the dollar denominated West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), Norway Brent crude, and the UAE Dubai crude.” (Mathew Maavak ‘Beware The Ides Of March’).
Ann Berg:
“If you’re waiting for the Iranian oil bourse (IOB) – the proposed euro-based petroleum futures exchange in Tehran – to overthrow the global dollar-based economy, don’t hold your breath. Establishing a futures-trading mechanism to compete with the powerhouses of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) for the oil trade is as probable as U.S. energy independence in our lifetime.” (Ann Berg ‘Is the IOB DOA?: The Iranian oil bourse: theory and reality’).
Deja Vu all over again: climate worries of today also happened in the 20’s and 30’s
We could all learn a little bit from our weather history. We could all step back a bit and look at what previously happened in our climate changes before we make a rush to judgement to try to “fix” a problem that is very likely just another natural variance on the upswing, soon to be followed by a downturn.
There are quite a number of articles on “climate change” in the past, for further reading, try looking at some of these article links submitted by readers of this forum from the New York Times newspaper archives. Just click on the date. Thanks to Tim Blair for compiling the list below from our reader submitted links as well as his own research.
• 1923:
Glaciers have disappeared and land once covered with field ice is bare.
• 1924:
Glaciers are moving from their age-old beds, pouring greater quantities of ice into the sea than recorded history has known. Broad areas of land are sinking to new levels. A number of islands have disappeared.
• 1930:
The Alpine glaciers are in full retreat. Out of 102 glaciers observed by Professor P.L. Mercanton of the University of Lausanne and his associates more than twothirds have been found to be shrinking.
• 1935:
The great glaciers of the West, last remnants of the Ice Age on continental United States, have been retreating from their strongholds in the mountains at double time since last year.
• 1947:
A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, engendering a “serious international problem,” Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist, said today.
There are also many reports of the climate turning colder:
• 1895:
The question is again being discussed whether recent and long-continued observations do not point to the advent of a second glacial period, when the countries now basking in the fostering warmth of a tropical sun will ultimately give way to the perennial frost and snow of the polar regions.
• 1961:
Winters Since ‘40 Found Colder In Studies by Weather Bureau; Data Indicate, a Reversal of a Warming Trend That Began in 1881
• 1961:
After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder.
• 1975:
Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate Is Changing; a Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable
• 1978:
An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
Thus nature, and the NYT, balances itself. The paper really should return to the Grandfather Index of climate judgment:
• 1934:
America is believed by Weather Bureau scientists to be on the verge of a change of climate, with a return to increasing rains and deeper snows and the colder Winters of grandfather’s day.
• 1936:
The recent severely cold weather, following, in the main, many mild Winters, has caused people throughout the country to ask: “Does this portend a return to the reputed cold Winters of ‘granddad’s day’ years ago?”
Yep; all over the US, that’s exactly what people were asking. But listen to folks from the actual Granddad’s Day era and they’ll tell you the real cold was earlier still:
• 1890:
Is our climate changing? … The older inhabitants tell us that the Winters are not as cold now as when they were young …
Also, there are fewer mastodons. Last word to the ominously-named, but perfectly sensible, Mr Scarr:
• 1924:
Some People Always Think the Climate Is Changing, But Mr. Scarr Says There Is Nothing in His Records to Justify the Notion
Big Oil Behind Copenhagen Climate Scam
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
December 7, 2009
The big irony behind top globalists descending on Copenhagen in luxury private jets and stretch limos is not just the fact that their own behavior completely contradicts their self-righteous hyperbole about CO2 emissions, but that their propaganda is vehemently supported by the very same big oil interests they accuse climate skeptics of pandering to.
Probably one of the most flagrant examples of climate cronyism to emerge from the climategate scandal were emails in which CRU scientists, the body that provides much of the foundational global warming data for the UN IPCC, discuss how they conducted meetings with Shell Oil in order to enlist them as a “strategic partner” while getting them to bankroll pro-man made global warming research.
The emails reveal that the CRU was also trying to get money from oil giants British Petroleum and Exxon-Mobil, under its former identity as Esso.
“Now who is the shill for Big Oil again?” asks Anthony Watts. “Next time somebody brings up that ridiculous argument about skeptics, show them this.”
A “Copenhagen Communiqué” put out by leaders of over 500 global corporations in advance of this week’s summit calls for drastic measures on behalf of developed countries to “de-carbonise their economies” – a move that would completely devastate living standards and lead to gargantuan levels of unemployment.
The communiqué also demands that a global carbon tax be implemented via a carbon trading system. Bear in mind that the very people calling for such a system are the same people who will benefit from it to the tune of billions, as we shall explore later.
The statement calls for, “Measures to deliver a robust global greenhouse gas emissions market in order to provide the most effective, efficient and equitable emission reductions. It would be comprised of a growing series of national or regional “cap-and-trade” markets linked together, in which the “caps” are brought down in line with the targets that have been adopted for emission reduction.”
The document also states that CO2 emissions need to be reduced by a staggering 50-85% by 2050, a process that would return humanity to a near stone age level of development.
And who are the radicals calling for such severe measures in the name of fighting the evil life giving gas that humans exhale and plants breathe? Greenpeace? Al Gore?
Namely – James Smith, chairman of UK Shell Oil, Tony Hayward, Group Chief Executive, British Petroleum, along with hundreds of other global corporate giants, many of whom are directly tied in with big oil, and central banks who, far from bankrolling climate change skeptics, are directly invested in the scam of human-induced global warming.
A common charge leveled against global warming skeptics is that they are on the payroll of transnational oil companies, when in fact the opposite is true, oil companies are amongst the biggest promoters of climate change propaganda, emphasized recently by Exxon Mobil’s call for a global carbon tax.
According to Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, the cap and trade nightmare being primed for passage in the Senate doesn’t go far enough – Tillerson wants a direct tax on carbon dioxide emissions, essentially a tax on breathing since we all exhale this life-giving gas.
In a speech earlier this year, Tillerson brazenly called out the cap and trade agenda for what it was, an effort to impose a carbon tax camouflaged only by a slick sales pitch and deceptive rhetoric.
“It is easier and more politically expedient to support a cap-and-trade approach, because the public will never figure out where it is hitting them,” said Tillerson. “They will just know they hurt somewhere in their pocketbook,” he added, pointing out that he disagreed with this convoluted method of introducing a carbon tax, arguing instead that it would be more successful to openly propose a straight carbon tax.
Tillerson firmly expressed Exxon’s support for climate change alarmists in stating, “I firmly believe it is not too late for Congress to consider a carbon tax as the better policy approach for addressing the risks of climate change.”
Exxon’s push for a carbon tax was subsequently restated by its vice president for public affairs Ken Cohen, who told a conference call that he wants a climate policy that creates “certainty and predictability, which is why we advocate a carbon tax.”
Exxon Mobil and their ilk are not concerned about a carbon tax eating into their profits because they know they won’t have to pay it – the tab will be picked up by the ignorant taxpayer at the fuel pump at an inflated cost which if anything will hand the transnational oil cartels an even bigger cut.
Ideologically, Al Gore and Exxon Mobil are on exactly the same page – the only difference between the oil companies and global warming alarmists is the squabble over who will get to sink their teeth into the taxpayer and reap the dividends of the climate change scam.
Whereas parasites like Al Gore and Maurice Strong, the people who own the very carbon trading systems they claim will save the earth from CO2 emissions, want to enrich themselves to the tune of billions under a cap and trade scheme where they take a percentage of each transaction, the oil companies want to bypass this completely by simply imposing a direct CO2 tax. The consequence for the taxpayer under either scenario will be exactly the same, and the profits under both schemes would go towards filling the coffers of the global government that will enforce the whole scam.
Emphasizing again that oil companies are firmly behind the idea of man-made climate change and the introduction of a CO2 tax, in 2007 the Trilateral Commission, one of the three pillars of the new world order in alliance with Bilderberg and the CFR, met in near secrecy to formulate policy on how best they could exploit global warming fearmongering to ratchet up taxes and control over how westerners live their lives.
At the confab, European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberger and chairman of British Petroleum Peter Sutherland, gave a speech to his elitist cohorts in which he issued a “Universal battle cry arose for the world to address “global warming” with a single voice.”
Echoing this sentiment was General Lord Guthrie, director of N.M. Rothschild & Sons, member of the House of Lords and former chief of the Defense Staff in London, who urged the Trilateral power-brokers to “Address the global climate crisis with a single voice, and impose rules that apply worldwide.” Rules that no doubt will benefit the Rothschild family empire due to their personal ownership of a huge chunk of the carbon trading market.
Allegations that skeptics of the man-made explanation behind global warming are somehow doing the bidding of the elite are laughable in the face of the fact that Rothschild operatives and the very chairman of British Petroleum are the ones orchestrating an elitist plan to exploit global warming fears in order to achieve political objectives.
During the 2007 meeting, elitists along with oil industry kingpins called for imposing a $1 dollar per gallon tax at the fuel pump under the justification of fighting pollution and climate change.
Globalists love global warming. Oil industry kingpins, Bilderbergers and Rothschild minions have all put their weight behind it. This is a fraud conceived, nurtured and promulgated by elites, and to castigate individuals for merely questioning the motives behind climate change fearmongering by accusing them of being mouthpieces for the establishment is a complete reversal of the truth.
Claims by climate change alarmists that “deniers” are all funded by oil companies is yet another crudely contrived hoax. In reality, oil companies are the most vocal proponents of man-made climate change and the most aggressive in pushing to tax CO2 emissions.
Climategate Investigator Is Member Of Vehemently Pro-Man Made Global Warming Organization
Paul Joseph Watson
Propaganda Matrix
December 4, 2009
A civil servant who is a member of one of the most vehemently pro man-made global warming advocacy organizations in Europe which also has direct ties to the IPCC has been handed the job of whitewashing the investigation into the University of East Anglia, while absurdly billing himself as impartial and unconnected to climate science.
Meanwhile, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has ludicrously announced that it will conduct its own investigation into the climategate scandal, despite the fact that the suspects involved have intimate ties to the IPCC, with one of the primary scientists accused of manipulating climate data being a lead author of the 1995, 2001, and 2007 IPCC reports.
“The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading body for assessing climate change science,” reports the Daily Mail.
IPCC chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri told the BBC the claims were serious and he wanted them investigated.
“We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it,’ he said.”
“We certainly don’t want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail.”
Having the IPCC investigate climategate would be like Ken Lay heading up the Enron enquiry.
One of the primary climategate suspects, Kevin Trenberth, is a lead IPCC author, having been influential in crafting the 1995, 2001, and 2007 IPCC reports.
Professor Phil Jones, who infamously wrote of the need to “hide the decline” in global warming, is also a primary IPCC contributor, having been in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports.
In addition, another climategate suspect, Michael Mann, was the creator of the debunked “hockey stick” graph, which was “Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher than they are today.”
There is little pretense about the fact that the UN will merely absolve its own scientists of blame, the larger scam is the notion that civil servant Sir (Alastair) Muir Russell, who has been picked to head the investigation into East Anglia University, after an earlier trial balloon to have the inquiry headed by warmist advocate Lord Rees was shot down, is impartial, when he is a member of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, a vehemently pro-man made global warming organization.
“As a measure of how out of touch UEA is, they apparently have little idea that the title “former civil servant” does not inspire much confidence from skeptics, since it has been “civil servants” who have been blocking access to the data and procedures all along,” writes Anthony Watts.
Russell has pitched himself as someone with “no links to either the university or the climate science community,” yet he is firmly a member of the academic establishment, being the former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow.
Russell is the quintessential establishment lackey, having been appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2001.
There’s little doubt that Russell is an establishment insider who has been tasked with whitewashing the whole affair. He is a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an offshoot of the same organization that Lord Rees is a part of. The Royal Society of Edinburgh “provides annual grants totaling over half a million pounds for research” in Scottish universities, a sizeable portion of which goes to research attempting to validify claims about man-made global warming.
The RSE has thrown its weight behind the global warming movement, lending its absolute support for legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 80%, a process that will devastate the global economy and living standards.
This organization has been even more vehement than national governments in its advocacy of the man-made cause of global warming, calling for such drastic CO2 cuts to be made in the short term, not even by the usual target date of 2050.
A February 2009 response to the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill outlines the organization’s staunch advocacy for the hypothesis of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming.
Earlier this year, The Royal Society of Edinburgh elected Professor Peter Smith to become one of its members. Smith just happens to be the Convening Lead Author of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report. He has also been a lead author for numerous other IPCC reports over the past thirteen years.
How can a proud member of an organization that is aggressively pushing measures to cut CO2 in the name of halting alleged man-made global warming, while also having a direct relationship with the UN IPCC, bill himself as being totally impartial and unconnected to climate science?
The climategate scandal has grown wings and taken flight. This is a scandal within a scandal, the notion that the very crooks caught manipulating data can appoint their own allies to “investigate” their wrongdoing and think nothing of it, while claiming that such individuals are impartial and independent, is beyond belief.
The only real investigation of climategate has to occur at the congressional or parliamentary level, preferably both, and it has to be completely open and transparent – not sneakily wrapped up behind closed doors by organizations like the IPCC and members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, both of whom have a massive stake in protecting and upholding the entire climate change fraud.
Who is responsible for the anarchy in Afghanistan?
Afghan Resistance Statement | December 5, 2009
Obama’s new strategy which is the result of the same mentality that wants to continue the occupation of Afghanistan by military means, will add to the anarchy prevailing in the country. In fact, Americans are responsible for the chaotic situation. They handed over power to notorious warlords, venal officials and mafia-linked governors;
But still, they claim that they want a clean government in Kabul while their convoys of logistics are escorted by some murderous militias involved in kidnapping and the extortion of arbitrary taxes. There are hundreds of private unregistered militias in Afghanistan under the guise of security guards who carry heroin in official vehicles. These militias have links with warlords who have a hold over high government positions. They carry out their criminal activities with impunity.
The warlords usurp government and people’s lands and buildings. No one can ask them why. A government land in Shirpur, located to the north-east of the Kabul city is a good example at hand. Once a property of the Ministry of Defense, now it is a posh area usurped by the warlords who have built luxurious houses there. Karzai himself has granted 6000-7000 acres of lands to his favorites. Many drug-smugglers who had been sentenced to prison by court have been released by decrees of the President.
General Khudaidad, Minister of the Narcotic Campaign of the the Kabul Administration has acknowledged in a press conference that US military officers had hands in the drug trafficking. Abdul Jabbar Sabit, former attorney general of the Kabul Administration, says he was not able to lay his hand on some notorious governors involved in drug trafficking and bribery because they were protected by high-ups in the government. Ultimately, Abdul Jabar Sabit was forced to resign. US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, many times has referred to Afghanistan as a Mafia State but she did not disclose that the Mafia State was their own handiwork.
Independent analysts around the world believe that USA wants to keep a corrupt government installed in Kabul because this will provide a justification to maintain American military presence in the country. Similarly, on the one hand, the White House Security Advisor James Jones says there are fewer than 100 Al-qaeda members in Afghanistan and on the other hand, Obama sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. This high gap between words and deeds shows that America has other colonialist objectives in Afghanistan and in the region, ostensibly under the name of the so-called War on Terror. Furthermore, they claim that they want to resolve the Afghan issue through negotiation and reconciliation; but practically, they want the Mujahideen to lay down arms and accept the Constitution conceived and framed by America and want to keep their bases in Afghanistan for a longer period. Thus under the ploy of negotiation, the White House wants to find a pretext to continue their occupation of Afghanistan.
The Afghans, particularly the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, have no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantee if the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan. But the Mujahideen are not ready to allow foreign bases in Afghanistan or trade on the independence of the country. Ironically, after American invasion of Afghanistan, the country has been turned into a battle ground of rival intelligence agencies which are linked with the regime in Kabul and have hidden agendas against surrounding countries.
Bomb blasts in public places are the work of these agencies. The more the foreign troops stay in Afghanistan, the more such gruesome events will take place. At the present time, the Mujahideen are the only force which wants to release the Afghans and the country from being hostage in the cobweb of foreign agencies. With the victory of Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the whole region will take a breath of relief and the current bloodshed will come to an end. But it is the responsibility of all who have free conscience to morally help the Mujahideen to free the region from the vortex of the colonialist machinations.
Himalayan glaciers melting deadline ‘a mistake’
The Himalayas hold the planet’s largest body of ice outside the polar caps
The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.
J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.
He is astonished they “misread 2350 as 2035”. The authors deny the claims.
Leading glaciologists say the report has caused confusion and “a catalogue of errors in Himalayan glaciology”.
The Himalayas hold the planet’s largest body of ice outside the polar caps – an estimated 12,000 cubic kilometres of water.
They feed many of the world’s great rivers – the Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra – on which hundreds of millions of people depend.
‘Catastrophic rate’
In its 2007 report, the Nobel Prize-winning Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said: “Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate.
“Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2035,” the report said.
It suggested three quarters of a billion people who depend on glacier melt for water supplies in Asia could be affected.
But Professor Cogley has found a 1996 document by a leading hydrologist, VM Kotlyakov, that mentions 2350 as the year by which there will be massive and precipitate melting of glaciers.
“The extrapolar glaciation of the Earth will be decaying at rapid, catastrophic rates – its total area will shrink from 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2350,” Mr Kotlyakov’s report said.
Mr Cogley says it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and “misread 2350 as 2035”.
“I do suggest that the glaciological community might consider advising the IPCC about ways to avoid such egregious errors as the 2035 versus 2350 confusion in the future,” says Mr Cogley.
He said the error might also have its origins in a 1999 news report on retreating glaciers in the New Scientist magazine.
The article quoted Syed I Hasnain, the then chairman of the International Commission for Snow and Ice’s (ICSI) Working group on Himalayan glaciology, as saying that most glaciers in the Himalayan region “will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming”.
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Scientists say Himalayan glaciers need more study |
When asked how this “error” could have happened, RK Pachauri, the Indian scientist who heads the IPCC, said: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”
The IPCC relied on three documents to arrive at 2035 as the “outer year” for shrinkage of glaciers.
They are: a 2005 World Wide Fund for Nature report on glaciers; a 1996 Unesco document on hydrology; and a 1999 news report in New Scientist.
Incidentally, none of these documents have been reviewed by peer professionals, which is what the IPCC is mandated to be doing.
Murari Lal, a climate expert who was one of the leading authors of the 2007 IPCC report, denied it had its facts wrong about melting Himalayan glaciers.
But he admitted the report relied on non-peer reviewed – or ‘unpublished’ – documents when assessing the status of the glaciers.
‘Alarmist’
Recently India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh released a study on Himalayan glaciers that suggested that they may be not melting as much due to global warming as it is widely feared.
He accused the IPCC of being “alarmist”.
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India says the rate of retreat in many glaciers has decreased in recent years |
Mr Pachauri dismissed the study as “voodoo science” and said the IPCC was a “sober body” whose work was verified by governments.
But in a joint statement some the world’s leading glaciologists who are also participants to the IPCC have said: “This catalogue of errors in Himalayan glaciology… has caused much confusion that could have been avoided had the norms of scientific publication, including peer review and concentration upon peer-reviewed work, been respected.”
Michael Zemp from the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich also said the IPCC statement on Himalayan glaciers had caused “some major confusion in the media”.
“Under strict consideration of the IPCC rules, it should actually not have been published as it is not based on a sound scientific reference.
“From a present state of knowledge it is not plausible that Himalayan glaciers are disappearing completely within the next few decades. I do not know of any scientific study that does support a complete vanishing of glaciers in the Himalayas within this century.”
Pallava Bagla is science editor for New Delhi Television (NDTV) and author of Destination Moon – India’s quest for Moon, Mars and Beyond.
Dr Kelly WAS murdered and there has to be a new inquest, say six top doctors
By Tim Shipman – Daily Mail – December 5, 2009
Six doctors who believe government scientist David Kelly was murdered have launched a ground-breaking legal action to demand the inquest into his death is reopened.
They are to publish a hard-hitting report which they claim proves the weapons expert did not commit suicide as the Hutton Report decided.
They have also engaged lawyers to write to Attorney General Baroness Scotland and the coroner Nicholas Gardiner calling for a full re-examination of the circumstances of his death.
The doctors are asking for permission to go to the High Court to reopen the inquest on the grounds that it was improperly suspended. If Baroness Scotland rejects that demand, or the court turns them down, their lawyers say they will have grounds to seek judicial review of the decision.
Dr Kelly was found dead at a beauty spot near his Oxfordshire home in 2003, days after he was exposed as the source of a story that Tony Blair’s government ‘sexed-up’ its dossier on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction to justify invading Iraq.
In one final phone conversation, he told a caller he wouldn’t be surprised ‘if my body was found in the woods’.
The inquest into Dr Kelly’s death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as ‘fulfilling the function of an inquest’.
Lord Falconer, a former flatmate of Tony Blair, was also responsible for picking Lord Hutton to run the inquiry.
A police officer stands next to a cordon near Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire where Dr David Kelly’s body was found in July, 2003
But the doctors claim that the original inquest was never formally closed and should now be allowed to hold a proper inquiry.
The six are Michael Powers, a QC and former coroner; trauma surgeon David Halpin; Andrew Rouse, an epidemiologist who established that deaths from cutting the ulnar artery – as claimed in Dr Kelly’s case – are extremely rare; Martin Birnstingl, another surgeon; plus Stephen Frost and Chris Burns-Cox.
Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by severing an ulnar artery in his left wrist after taking an overdose of prescription painkillers but he skated over the controversies about the causes of death.
Lord Hutton concluded Dr David Kelly killed himself
The bulk of his report was dedicated to the political row between Downing Street and the BBC, which revealed the sexing-up of the dossier.
Dr Kelly’s death certificate states that he died of a haemorrhage, but the results of a post mortem examination have never been made public.
Crucially, the doctors say that Lord Hutton had no witnesses on oath and did not have to make a finding, as the coroner does, beyond a reasonable doubt.
The doctors tried to persuade the coroner to reopen his inquest in 2004 but were rejected because they were not judged to be ‘properly interested persons’ with the authority to demand an inquiry.
Now they have hired human rights lawyers Leigh Day & Co to challenge the use of the Coroners Act to close the inquest.
A source close to the doctors said: ‘Lord Falconer is on record saying this is a “useful little law” but it was set up to avoid multiple inquests in cases where there were multiple deaths.
It has been used for victims of train crashes and the Harold Shipman case but Dr Kelly’s was not a multiple death.
‘We argue that that’s an abuse of due process. The lawyers have sent the letters this week.
We have concentrated on the finding on the death certificate that the primary cause of death was a haemorrage. We are spelling out why he could not have died from a cut to the small ulnar artery.’
One of the doctors, who preferred not to be named, added: ‘When the Romans committed suicide they would slit all four arteries in a warm bath, which keeps the blood flowing. The arteries would close up in the open air and you would not lose that much blood.’
A book on the unanswered questions surrounding the case by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker concluded that Dr Kelly may have been murdered by Iraqi exiles – but the finger has also been pointed at MI5 and the CIA.
Dr Kelly’s family have never commented publicly on his death.
The Twin Frauds of Obama
December 4, 2009
Goldman Sachs senior executives are arming themselves with New York gun permits, according to Alice Schroeder on Bloomberg.com. The banksters “are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.”
One can understand why the banksters are worried. The company, now known as Gold Sacks, has a large responsibility for the financial crisis and the fraudulent “securities” that wrecked the world economy and Americans’ pensions. A former Gold Sachs CEO had control of the US Treasury during the Bush regime from which he diverted $750 billion to bail out the banks, thus supplying them with free capital. Gold Sachs made $27,000 million during the first three quarters of 2009 and is paying out massive bonuses, leaving the busted taxpayers with the debt and interest charges.
Little wonder the US can’t afford health care for the uninsured and unemployed. It is far more important to finance multi-million dollar bonuses for investment bankers. I mean, what would we do without capitalism?
Of course, it is not really capitalism. It is an oligarchy or a financial plutocracy.
In a failed state, the government’s priorities are totally separate from those of the people. The US can’t afford health care or a bailout for jobless homeowners, but it can afford a pointless war and multi-million dollar bonuses for banksters who wrecked the economy.
Millions of laid-off workers lost their health insurance subsidies on December 1, the day President Obama announced a $30 billion “surge” in Afghanistan.
The expensive “surge” came 24 hours after the Detroit Free Press published a 127-page supplement of home foreclosures in its metro area. In Michigan 48 per cent of mortgages are on properties that are worth less than the loan, according to a report from First American CoreLogic.
As bad as it is in Michigan, the state ranks seventh in foreclosures, so six states are in even more dire straits.
Why does President Obama think the US can afford a war in Afghanistan when the US economy is falling apart? Massive joblessness. Massive homelessness. Millions of Americans without medical care.
The additional $30 billion for the war comes on top of the $65 billion already appropriated for the year. These appropriations are always fattened with supplementary appropriations. The true cost is well in excess of $100,000,000,000.
Whose going to pay for it? Democratic Representative David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee proposes to raise income taxes on everyone earning more than $30,000. This is called “trickle-up” economics. You tax the little guy and give the money to the armaments companies.
There was a time when Democratic presidents represented the little man, and Republicans represented business. Today both parties represent the moneyed interests. On December 3 at the jobs summit with business leaders, Obama said, “We don’t have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created as a consequence of the crisis.”
In other words, all the public’s money has been spent on the banks and the wars.
Despite Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and the ease with which Obama won the presidential election over McCain/Palin, the Democratic Party has totally collapsed. The Democrats have abandoned every constituency. Democrats have discarded the American people. Democrats, in pursuit of campaign contributions, represent the moneyed interests on Wall Street, the munitions companies, the insurance companies, the agri-businesses that have destroyed independent farmers, despoilers of the environment, unaccountable police, and the builders of detention centers. The exception is Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
The Democrats have become brownshirt Republicans.
The American people, except for the one percent of super-rich, have been abandoned.
Obama had a different message during the presidential campaign. On May 4, 2008, he went to Elkhart, Indiana, to sympathize with the unemployed. On February 9, 2009, just after his inauguration, he returned to Elkhart to say:
“You know, we tend to take the measure of the economic crisis we face in numbers and statistics. But when we say we’ve lost 3.6 million jobs since this recession began – nearly 600,000 in the past month alone; when we say that this area has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in America, with an unemployment rate over 15 percent; when we talk about layoffs at companies like Monaco Coach, Keystone RV, and Pilgrim International – companies that have sustained this community for years – we’re talking about Ed Neufeldt and people like him all across this country.
“We’re talking about folks who’ve lost their livelihood and don’t know what will take its place. Parents who’ve lost their health care and lie awake nights praying the kids don’t get sick. Families who’ve lost the home that was their corner of the American dream. Young people who put that college acceptance letter back in the envelope because they just can’t afford it.
“That’s what those numbers and statistics mean. That is the true measure of this economic crisis. Those are the stories I heard when I came here to Elkhart six months ago and that I have carried with me every day since. I promised you back then that if were elected President, I would do everything I could to help this community recover. And that’s why I’ve come back today – to tell you how I intend to keep that promise.”
What’s the story in Elkhart 9 months after President Obama reaffirms his promise? “Long-term unemployed face dwindling options.”
Lawrie Covey, 58, has been out of work for two years. “I can’t even get a job cleaning rooms at a local motel.” Her son, who was night shift foreman for a local manufacturer and who lost his job after eight years, was splitting the rent. Winter is upon them, and the heating bill is rising. Their transportation is 20 years old and needs a new radiator. Both her and her son’s unemployment benefits have run out. Lawrie Covey has fallen back on her experience growing up on a firm. She is raising chickens and picking wild mushrooms and has a garden. If she makes it through the winter, she hopes to get a couple of baby pigs to raise to see them through the next year.
Lawrie Covey, to whom President Obama made a promise could just as well be an Afghan peasant. She doesn’t count any more than the thousands of Afghans who have been murdered in their sleep by US air strikes on “terrorists.”
She voted for a president who spent all the money on wars based in lies and deceptions and on Gold Sacks, the richest institution in the world.
Obama is loading up the poor with enormous debts that imply hyperinflation in order to make Gold Sacks too heavy to lift and in order to reward the munitions industry for its service to world peace and American hegemony.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, How the Economy was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press / CounterPunch. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
There Is No ‘Consensus’ On Global Warming
By Prof Richard S. Lindzen – Wall Street Journal – 2006-06-26
According to Al Gore’s new film “An Inconvenient Truth,” we’re in for “a planetary emergency”: melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms — unless we change the way we live now.
Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore’s gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush’s obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that “the debate in the scientific community is over.”
That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this “debate” actually is in the first place.
The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists “don’t have any models that give them a high level of confidence” one way or the other and went on to claim — in his defense — that scientists “don’t know… They just don’t know.”
So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the “consensus.” Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore’s preferred global-warming template — namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore’s movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.
They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don’t know why.
The other elements of the global-warming scare scenario are predicated on similar oversights. Malaria, claimed as a byproduct of warming, was once common in Michigan and Siberia and remains common in Siberia — mosquitoes don’t require tropical warmth. Hurricanes, too, vary on multidecadal time scales; sea-surface temperature is likely to be an important factor. This temperature, itself, varies on multidecadal time scales. However, questions concerning the origin of the relevant sea-surface temperatures and the nature of trends in hurricane intensity are being hotly argued within the profession.
Even among those arguing, there is general agreement that we can’t attribute any particular hurricane to global warming. To be sure, there is one exception, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who argues that it must be global warming because he can’t think of anything else. While arguments like these, based on lassitude, are becoming rather common in climate assessments, such claims, given the primitive state of weather and climate science, are hardly compelling.
A general characteristic of Mr. Gore’s approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended — at least not in terms of the actual science.
A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early ’70s, increased again until the ’90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.
There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 ppmv (parts per million by volume) in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatsoever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas — albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected.
Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the infamous “summary for policy makers” reported ambiguously that “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto.
The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument — e.g., we can’t think of an alternative — to support human attribution. But the “summary for policy makers” claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that “In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.”
In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that “The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability.” This was sufficient for CNN’s Michelle Mitchell to presciently declare that the report represented a “unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room.” Well, no.
More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words “global climate change” produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.
Even more recently, the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration’s coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found “clear evidence of human influences on the climate system.” This, for Mr. Easterbrook, meant: “Case closed.” What exactly was this evidence? The models imply that greenhouse warming should impact atmospheric temperatures more than surface temperatures, and yet satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979. The report showed that selective corrections to the atmospheric data could lead to some warming, thus reducing the conflict between observations and models descriptions of what greenhouse warming should look like. That, to me, means the case is still very much open.
So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.
First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists — especially those outside the area of climate dynamics.
Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a “moral” crusade.
Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce — if we’re lucky.
Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.
The question of Terminology in the Zionist propaganda to colonize Palestine
By Salim Nazzal – December 3, 2009
By terminology I mean roughly the semantic or the concepts which are mental representation or abstract ideas produced to explain things. My point is to unearth some of the Zionist terminology used in the Zionist propaganda which has sadly dominated the western media for decades and brainwashed millions in Europe and the USA.
The function of these terminologies is to legitimize the Zionist policy of occupation and to conceal the truth especially for the western opinion.
In Arabic language there is a semantic link between darkness and tyranny and absenting the truth. The word “Dhallam” stands for darkness, the term “Dhulm” means oppression, if Darkness can be explained in the absence of light, and consequently the absence of truth, oppression is a form of concealing the truth. The problem of the Zionist thinking as in all racist ideologies is that it claims to own the absolute truth. Claiming to own the absolute truth is as the Syrian poet Adonis says is the source of all oppression in history.
This question was raised by the Palestinian thinker Azmi Bishra who wrote about the importance of terminology use in the Palestinian struggle against the Judio Zionist invaders stressing the importance to be attentive in this question.
Obviously, Bishara who spent years confronting the Zionist apartheid knows well the tremendous quantity and quality of falsification Jewish Zionist produced to legitimate their conquest of Palestine. For that reason, Bishara demands from those interested in unmasking the brutal face of Zionism to be extremely watchful in this regard.
Ron Wilkinson notes in an article about conflict terminology some examples of how Zionist used terminology with the aim to present a negative picture for Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims. He cites few examples of the Zionist terminology use, such as the Israeli army “enters” a place in Palestine (to refer to the daily Zionist attracts) while Palestinians “Infiltrate” an area (referring to Palestinian resistance).
Yet the history of the Zionist propaganda is earlier than the Zionist invasion. The Zionist experience of bringing Jews to Palestine to commit war crimes has been put on a sacred level and was called Aliyah. Which is considered the fulfillment of the promises of the Jewish god? However the question of portraying everything Zionist on a sacred level needs another time to talk about it.
For the sake of clarity I shall divide the Zionist semantic propaganda use into two periods: the first I call the negation period. The focus in this period was on the terminologies which negate Palestinians from existence. Palestinians are chosen enemies by being in their country.
The most dominant Zionist expressions of that period that Palestine is empty of folk and that Palestinians do not exist. And in cases when they cannot conceal the truth, they describe Palestinians as Bedouins, which means they have no particular attachment to Palestine. The mental association here is that Jews take no body of land, it is either empty or waits for others to develop it, or it is populated by “primitive” people (who do not deserve it!) and who need somebody else (who deserve it!) to help them in developing the country.
Therefore the Zionist policy of collective crimes and displacement was the parallel work of the semantics they use. The Zionist logic can be explained as such, if Zionists believe there are no Palestinians, and since they know that this is groundless, the work to be done is to murder Palestinians and to push them to leave because Zionists have to create facts on the ground which accord with the Zionist semantics and vision.
The question is how to explain Zionist focusing on murdering Palestinian olive trees and Palestinian babies?
Zionists saw both aspects as threatening, Palestinian trees represent the Palestinian past, culture and the continuous existence in Palestine, especially the olive trees which live thousands of years. The seasons of harvesting the olives have always been connected with Palestinian culture, songs and folklore and the oil produced from the olive trees is related to popular medicine traditions. In murdering trees, they think they murder the culture of harvest linked to the harvesting seasons. And to murder Palestinian babies, Zionists think they can murder the future in terms of demography and in terms of the future Palestinian struggle for freedom.
The idea of killing Palestinian children has been one of the aspect of the Zionist thinking since their invasion. Here are two examples, one from 1947, the other is recent.
(At night of 15th of July 1947, a force of the Hagana “A Jewish terror organization” entered an orange field owned by Rashid Abo Laban which lies between Yafaa and Betah tekfa.Inside the house there is a family of 7 all were sleeping, and there were 9 workers at the house. The Hagana shot at them killed 11 including the mother and her three kids at ages 3, 7, 8).
The second is from the war on Gaza 2009 (Mordechi Elyahu,one of the leading rabbinic figures in Israel, urged the army not to refrain from killing enemy children in order to save the lives of Israeli soldiers).
Therefore it is not surprising that Zionist Jews expressed in many occasions their worry about Palestinian pregnant women which they call the demographic bomb, and that too explains why one third of the murdered in Gaza war were Palestinian children. The Zionist negation of Palestinians was done on three levels, to negate Palestinians from the past through absenting them from history and through destroying any cultural or archeological findings that belong to Palestinians, to negate Palestinian culture by both destroying it, or drying its sources including trees and water sources and sometimes by claiming Palestinian cultural heritage as belonging to Jews, and finally to negate Palestinians physically by means of ruthless terror.
Within the framework of this thinking it is possible to explain the Zionist collective crimes. The Zionist psyche has already murdered Palestinians on the semantic and psychological levels. Therefore the actual murder of Palestinians becomes easy because it concords the Zionist self made image that Palestinians do not exist and thusly Jews murder nobody! But when Zionists cannot escape the reality of the Palestinian existence they portray them as part of ”the whole world which hates Jews” or as “animals and insects” which made the actual murder an easy job since it is directed against non humans or that Jews are defending themselves against “terrorists”. In this line of thinking the Zionist state was born out of war crimes and its existence surpassed all notions of ethics.
Zionists show neither care nor mercy towards Palestinians and Arabs. This is due to the racist thinking which is an integral part of the Zionist ideology and the Jewish Zionist culture. But, since the Zionist state was and still is heavily dependent on the west, Zionists are keen to conceal their crimes from the western media. For that reason a great part of their propaganda terminology was mostly designed for Western public opinion. Raising the banner of the “only democracy in the middle east” and the “civilized country” against the “extremist Islamists” are just few examples of the arsenal of the Zionist propaganda directed towards the west.
And when they occupied Jerusalem and the west bank and Gaza they called it “administrative areas”. The aim here is clear that which is to absent the name of Palestine, a name which Zionists fear most because it indicates that the victim is alive despite all the Zionist crimes.
However after three generation of Palestinian struggle, and after the world has largely become sympathetic with Palestinians, the Zionist terminologies have relatively changed from full negation to the second period which I call the reduction period. The reduction period does not mean at all that Zionists suddenly become moral creatures; Zionism will be always the source of wars and instability in the Middle East. But, the reality that Zionists are extremely clever to change their skin to fit changing situations, without changing its essence as an anti humanity ideology.
The most recent Zionist propaganda is focusing on Hamas. They seek to benefit from the anti Islamic atmosphere found in the West to present themselves as part of the West which fights “Islamic terror”. For that reason their propaganda terminology has changed to focus on Hamas. They instructed their propaganda machine to say that Zionists are not against Palestinians but against Hamas as if Hamas is not part of the Palestinian people. So following this logic Hamas is the problem and not the Zionist occupation. Off course it is very easy to tear up this argument because Hamas was born in 1987 but what about the ethnic cleaning of Palestine in 1948, and in 1967? What about the long history of war crimes?
The most ridiculous thing in the new terminology tactics is that Zionists began to say that they want the best for Palestinians! Of course Palestinians know well that Zionism and murder, Zionism and occupation are twins, but it is obvious that the new tactics are because Zionists know that the time of truth is coming and that they can no longer brain wash the world.
Netanyahu’s recent speech about accepting the idea of the Palestinian state is yet another good example of the new Zionist tactic. When he referred to Palestinians in (Judea and Samaria!!!), he could not reject the idea of a Palestinian state which is the actual position of his party. He mentioned the existence of Palestinians in the context that it happens that Palestinians are there! (As if Palestinians are there by accident) and accordingly it’s a problem that Israel must deal with. In this way he reflects without any doubt the Zionist mentality, psyche and logic which tries to be flexible under international pressures but without change in its supremacist nature.
He did not recognize that Palestinians are an occupied nation and that they have the right for self determination. He did not recognize the responsibility of Zionist Jews of creating a life of hell for 70 years for Palestinians. He used the same terms Zionist used when they for instance say that they decide to lift the siege on Gaza for one day, which creates a positive impression about Israeli “generosity” and its “great charity” while the original question is why the zionist state besieges Gaza in the first place? The same “positive impression” they try to create when they say they decided to reduce the check points in the west bank from 620 to 590! While the real question is why there are check points in the first place and Zionists know very well that there is no single Palestinian who does not dream every single day to get rid of the Zionist occupation.
Dr. Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian-Norwegian historian in the Middle East, who has written extensively on social and political issues in the region.
Peru’s ‘human fat killers’ were invented to cover up executions
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles – December 3, 2009
When police in Peru announced that they’d broken up a criminal gang who roamed the Andes killing peasant farmers, draining the fat from their dead bodies, and then selling it to European cosmetics manufacturers for use in expensive anti-aging skin creams, there was widespread shock and revulsion although medical experts were quick to sound a note of scepticism.
A functioning kidney, or liver, is worth thousands of dollars, but there is no black market in human fat, they pointed out. Surgeons carrying out liposuction operations throw away gallons of the stuff each week.
Yesterday, the experts were vindicated. Peru’s police chief was forced to sack his top organised crime investigator amid growing evidence that he and several colleagues deliberately invented the elaborate story to cover up evidence of officers being involved in dozens of unlawful killings.
A fortnight ago, the sacked officer, General Felix Murga had claimed to have arrested four members of “an international criminal network trafficking human fat”. The “gang” had carried out between 30 and 60 murders a year, in the country’s central Huanuco province he had claimed.
The macabre details of the alleged gang’s activities garnered international media attention. And opposition politicians now believe that police invented the story to divert attention from allegations that officers had killed 46 suspects in 2007 and 2008 in the coastal town of Trujillo. “My hypothesis is that they were mainly trying to cover up the tremendous revelation of extrajudicial killings of criminals in Trujillo made by Ricardo Uceda … in Poder magazine,” the former deputy interior minister, Carlos Basombrio, wrote on his blog yesterday.
If so, then the senior cops certainly knew how to tell a tall story. At the original press conference, they played a video of one suspect “confessing,” before showing off two soft drink bottles filled with a yellow fluid they said was human fat that had been decanted for export fetching prices of nearly £10,000 a litre.
Journalists were told how victims were approached on remote roads and lured to a hut in the jungle. There the police claimed, they were bludgeoned to death. Heads, arms and legs were cut off, the police had claimed. Major organs were removed and discarded. Candles were placed beneath the torsos, so that melting fat would dribble into pots and other collecting vessels. Investigators in Huanuco, who complain they were excluded from the inquiry, now believe the four arrested men, who are still in custody, had carried out only one murder, linked to the cocaine trade.
They say they may have bottled that victim’s fat to intimidate rivals in an area rife with drug trafficking.
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Sam Husseini: The entire US establishment helped lie their way into the Iraq war
By Slava Zilber | American Herald Tribune | October 14, 2019
Sam Husseini is a senior analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, independent journalist and contributor to The Nation and FAIR.
Slava Zilber: Sam, three years ago, you appeared on Talk Nation Radio with David Swanson and spoke about the case of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. You pointed out that the people involved in the spying on the UN and the people authorizing the Iraq War were not held accountable:
“Virtually everybody who went along with the war, whether it is Kerry or Clinton, of course, the Bush administration themselves has falsified their own records in terms of why, what they did, when they did, why they did it, to the extent that they’ve been scrutinised at all.”
You also address it in a recent article. And recently, Joe Biden has been lying about his position on the Iraq War. How can such an important issue escape meaningful scrutiny? … continue
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