(filthy!) lies ...

  .. are told to deceive ...

    .. how dare the (ugly!) bastards?

-=*=-

Every time I hear - on a publicly-financed broadcaster, the words "ME-peace process" - or anything related or similar - I get the instant, almost irresistible urge to scream: "Lying bastards!"

How dare they? I mean, they are paid by us, accepting our tax-dough. In a democracy, the electorate *MUST* be fully and accurately informed - else how could we, the (voting) people ever decide on anything? In a democracy, we, the (voting) people are sovereign; both the politicians who solicit our vote and are then subsequently elected by us, and the public servants who take our dough to provide needed public services are working for us, paid by us - and better bloody-well perform - or else.

But some - even a lousy, single one would be one too many - some, like almost all our politicians (there must be a (vanishingly?) few honest ones) and certainly our public broadcasters - do not just do a crook job, but often (once would be one more than enough!) a criminal one. Politicians must represent us, we the people, and public servants must serve us, we the people - and in the case of publicly financed broadcasters, they must tell us the truth, the whole truth - and nothing but the truth. That is exactly why we pay them, and for bloody-well nothing else.

Try this:

April 15, 2009
Obama's Bubble of Ignorance
Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON

  «To a greater degree than perhaps ever before, Washington today is engulfed in denial about Israel and its stupefying behavior, about its murderous policies toward the Palestinians, about the efforts of Israel and its U.S. defenders to force us to ignore its atrocities. Blinders have always been part of the attire of U.S. policymakers and politicians with regard to Israel and Israeli actions, but in the wake of the three-week Israeli assault that laid waste to the tiny territory of Gaza -- an assault ended very conveniently just before Barack Obama was inaugurated, so that he has been able to act as though it never occurred -- the perspective from which Washington operates is strikingly more blinkered than ever in the past.»
[counterpunch/christison]

(Yair. Aus is not *exactly* the US, but on the "monkey see, monkey do" principle, Aus is close enough (far too eff'n close!) Despite the fall of Howard and his particularly filthy regime, the so-called 'alternative' government that replaced Howard is extending the Afghanistan war. Boo! Hiss! Getting back on track ...) We can see quite well what's going on in the sadly now mostly ex-Palestine. The Israeli regime, so-called 'democratically' elected - but note that whoever 'wins,' the result is always the same, i.e. 60+ bloody years long now and no (just!) end in sight, whatever 'flavour' regime, all we see is the (obscenely offensive!) IDF slaughtering ever more (hapless, innocent!) Palestinians - whose only 'crime' (such a crime!) is to have been born - in a line stretching back 100s (if not 1000s!) of years - on the land the (filthy, criminal!) Israelis covet.

Why don't some (honest!) lawyers take the lot to court?

I mean, the actual murdering Israelis, their accessory/arms-supplier the US regimes, the apologists and especially the publicly financed broadcasters who spruik such nonsense as "ME-peace process" when what is really going on is mass-murder for land and water - why aren't these lying, murdering criminal bastards brought to justice?

We demand the truth, we demand justice!

One and only warning(3):

Anonymous said...

Kathy Farrelly has been dropping t*rds on the doorstep of our blog. We have asked her quite nicely (at first) not to do so, but now we have been forced to turn moderation on. If she comes back, ever, we will spam every blog we know that she has ever contributed to - obviously, including the blog where this message appears as comment, but 10* whatever she drops on us. Sorry - but not too sorry; blame it on Farrelly.
17/4/09 6:47 PM

fake élite vs. genuine plebs ...

  .. power corrupts, absolutely ...

    .. unjust might can never be right

-=*=-

Prologue:

Ern asks (and I do too), after JSM; Q: "Why is it so?"

A: All the better to rip us off.

  (There's a subsequent Q: "How do they get away with it?"

   A1: Firstly, by dumbing-down the people into sheople, then A2: By telling them lies.)

-=*=-

Intro:

What we can *NOW* easily see - after the scales having been Oh, so rudely ripped from our eyes[2] by the utterly ghastly B, B & H and their even more ghastly crimes, is that we are being lied to - and not 'just' little whites, either. Lies are deployed to deceive[3], and then we have to ask, Q: Why are we being deceived? See A: above.

Here, a 'little' warning; a friend very wisely said: "It is not simple." Whereas that is certainly true, if we pull even the most horrendously complicated things apart into ever smaller pieces, we *must* eventually arrive at the 'atoms,' the indivisible components. One such atom, as far as this discussion goes, is greed. Another is power, as accumulated, exercised or directed by - ta ra! - the greedy, or their sycophant/proxies. We can throw in arrogance, selfishness ("Me, me, me!" assumed). Now, there's more than one sort of greed, and here I'm thinking of immature vs. mature, and the latter further separated by 'normal' vs. extreme. Before we leave immaturity, recall that "All [we] really need to know [we] learned in kindergarten" - but Q: Did we all? A: No, quite obviously not.

-=*=-

Quick notes:

If I were to try to make this article rigorous, I'd be here all day - simply not possible. Worse perhaps, the article might get too long and so diffuse its impact. Sooo, to my 'raw' notes:

Many different approaches: sheople asserted to be no good. Plato, religion, 2*Bernays(Freud); the so-called 'noble' lie (the concept of which is itself a filthy & self-serving lie.) Again post-WW2, liberals *allegedly* failed to deliver(!!?) BS; all special (vested) interests. D *can* work; one set of rules for all; honesty etc, no more rip-offs! US, Zs deliberately fooling the sheople, cheating, murdering to steal etc.

Even Obama has to deny 'wealth envy' - bizarre. Lakoff framing, 'fat-cat think tanks.' Via for-profit everything, the rich have 'hollowed' the sheople out; Marx' long-ago prediction has arrived.

Body (also quick):

This article is my 1st try at a response to two BBC documentaries, 'The Century of the Self' and 'The Power of Nightmares' by Adam Curtis. Together seven hours of video, and no transcript in sight. 'High'-points to be considered are:

 · Bernays' book "Propaganda," morphed into PR = Public Relations.

 · The crash of '29. (Sheople encouraged to buy shares, market (over!) leveraged; WHAM! Yes, all those years ago, and happening all over again. Hmmm?)

 · The 'New Deal.' Hated (irrationally!) by the rich.

 · WW2; spurred a 'real' recovery, laid industrial foundations for 50s & 60s.

 · The dual worst war crimes, the double A-bombing of overwhelmingly innocents in Japan. (This added in by me. The 'excuses' given were all lies. But not unusual, for that 'mob.')

 · The 60s 'breakdowns,' were not at all, the incidents were *proper* responses by citizens to injustices; black inequality, Vietnam etc.

 · The development of marketing techniques; focus groups.

 · Nixon's perceived 'failures.' (Yes, he was a crook. But not unusual, for that 'mob.')

 · Reagan & Thatcher elections: clever marketing.

 · Reagan & Thatcher 'prosperity:' more clever marketing; perhaps *totally* divorced from Reagan & Thatcher - rather, parallel developments.

 · Separately, neo-liberal policies; the dismantling of unionism, the privatisation of public utilities, off-shoring & out-sourcing - the whole sad story.

 · The neo-liberal policies (plus associated others) have lead to a *massive* transfer of wealth to the already (obscenely!) filthy-rich fat-cats. Note: it's no joke to say that the rich get ever-richer - because the inescapable corollary is that the poor get poorer- and how low can that process go? (Tip: We are now seeing exactly how low.)

 · Massive 'printing' of US dollars; interest rates held artificially low. (Recall Costello. 'All' he did was copy - and so stuffed-up the great Aussie own-your-own-home dream for so many - and perhaps for all time.)

 · The 'wild-cards,' the ones that apparently *no-one* saw coming, the ones the so-called 'financial geniuses' actually invented were the derivatives. The derivatives mess - at a guess - may not have happened, had they not so wildly de-regulated, dismantling as many bits of the 'New Deal' that they could, all because of that stored-up hate - from the already (obscenely!) filthy-rich fat-cats. Circles within circles - and now they've *really* stuffed-up. (BUT: think that's bad? Well, recall these keywords: excess CO2-caused climate change.)

 · I'm running out of time; transition.

-=*=-

Quick summary:

We can see what's happened. The sheople have had their wages 'compressed;' same expression: held artificially low. To (only partially) compensate, import prices have also been held low - but not as low as they could be; far from it. It's the old story of buy low, sell high. (No fair prices, only what the market will bear.) But Marx (not at all fully studied by me) foresaw this; and the US fat-cat capitalists also understood: another ta-ra! - insufficient demand.

For a long time, they've been manufacturing demand - for really stupid things, typified by the ghastly over-gross, über-gas-guzzling Hummer (also on sale - and some sold, in Aus. Boo!) After the wages had begun seriously to decline, they 'goosed' demand by encouraging people to borrow. With low interest rates they could - and caused asset-bubbles on the way (stock-market, housing.) All bubbles now popping/popped.

See for yourself, that is exactly what's happened: wallets empty, demand exhausted. Looks like it's been widely recognised too; and *no-one* seems to know the way out. All this 'pump-priming' they say they are doing is just throwing ever-more money at the already (obscenely!) filthy-rich; as far as I can see, *none* of the dough is reaching the plebs; they've simply given up buying - for lack of money. Checked Qantas fares lately? (Haw! - then, sob.)

There's a not-so-side issue not yet addressed (here), and that is the failure, deliberately caused, of our so-called democracies; I've mentioned this before and it's integrated into this story (telling us lies, no-real-choice Lib/Lab pug-ugly twins, reps not representing we the sheople, corrupt & venal MSM plus public broadcasters like AusBC, SBS - all the ghastly etc.s). As proof of the so-called 'élite' contempt for the sheople, see the US 'health' system (widely being copied, also in Aus by the continuous Liberal attempts at enabling private heath (actually sickness) insurance at the expense of nobbling Medicare.) As for privatised utilities; shift public services into a for-profit mode, hand it over to our 'genius' capitalist management, then basically you get only the expected: profits. Who cares if the bills cannot be paid (pay up or die!) - as long as there's some profit for the share-holders.

Epilogue: I'm out of time (for now) and out of here (also for now.)

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] pleb n. colloq. usu. derog. = *plebeian 2.  plebby adj. [abbreviation of *plebeian] [POD]

plebeian —n. 1 commoner, esp. in ancient Rome. 2 working-class person, esp. an uncultured one. —adj. 1 of the common people. 2 uncultured, coarse. [Latin plebs plebis common people] [ibid.]

[2] follow my ref to Enlightenment, a quote:

  «-fostered the belief in natural law and universal order and the confidence in human reason that spread to influence all of 18th-century society. Currents of thought were many and varied, but certain ideas may be characterized as pervading and dominant. A rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility.»
[thefreedictionary/Enlightenment]

My comment: Under the current world 'order' (actually, more like disorder), the Enlightenment has all but been trodden into the ground. Again, Why, Oh why? See A: above.

[3] lie2 —n. 1 intentionally false statement (tell a lie). 2 something that deceives. —v. (lies, lied, lying) 1 tell a lie or lies. 2 (of a thing) be deceptive.  give the lie to show the falsity of (a supposition etc.). [Old English] [POD]

A New Sport: Spot the Problems

Above at the top is the inaugural photo of Binyamin Netanyahu's right wing Israeli government.

Below it is what was published by the ultra-Orthodox Jewish (i.e fanatical, fundamentalist, extremist) newspaper Yated Ne'eman.

The chauvanist ultra-Orthodox Jewish editors erased from the photo two women who are ministers - Limor Livnat (Minister of Culture & Sport) and Sofa Landver (Minister of Immigration Absorption).

As you can see, the censors at Yated Neeman superimposed onto the gaps they'd created the enlarged images of a couple of men (who had been standing at the extremes in the official picture). The men are Ariel Atias (Minister of Housing & Construction), one of the extremist Shas members of Netanyahu's regime, and Moshe Kahlon (Minister of Communications), a Likud MK.

Another newspaper for Jewish fundamentalists Sha'a Tova newspaper just blacked the women out altogether.

Imagine how they edit and re-package the rest of the news!

The Middle East Murders

The Middle East Murders.

It is almost unbelievable that the 60 years of terrorism by the Zionists in Palestine to confirm their “God-given right” to the Arab lands of a people who knew nothing of the method of smash and grab – has been ignored by the so-called civilised nations of the world.

After consistent acts of terrorism, not the least of which was the bombing of the King David hotel in Palestine, the Zionists arrogantly declared at midnight on the 14th May 1948 - when the British Mandate lapsed - that this (Palestine) was their land and called it “Israel”.

Previously it was originally accepted by all civilised peoples that the years of Zionist brutal underground activity made them “terrorists”. This, even long before the Bush administration in the US decided to use that as an excuse for their terrorism.

The immediate acceptance by the United States of America, of that unilateral declaration of seizing Palestine by the foreign Jewish immigrants, was absolutely criminal then and a massive abuse of Human Rights. That was only one of the many abuses of “others” that the US/Israeli alliance has committed since.

So there was established a common bond of aggression between these “untouchable States” and it has developed to the point where it is a danger to world peace.

The claims of the Cult of Mount Zion that their God gave them the right to “kill” but not to “murder” must have been accepted by nations along with the US as an unimportant and even justifiable sacrifice of Arab rights; lives; dignity and possessions to a beat-up European conscience of the “Final Jewish Solution”.

After all – who cares about the Arabs? They are “untermenschen”! Human rights must be handed out carefully otherwise they might become universal.

It has taken many years for the build up of military and nuclear power in this “foreign wannabe westerner state” of “Israel” based on lies and concocted stories – to produce the Middle East Murders in Gaza .

This should have been condemned by the US sponsors of this terrorist gang – right in the middle of the lands of peaceful Arab farmers – and should give a wake up call to all civilised peoples that this cannot be accepted – no matter how powerful the US/Israeli “mafia like” alliance is now.

Because it will only get worse and their “God-given” right to rule the world will be a lot nastier than the Nazi intention of producing a “Master Race”.

and so the idols tumble - or crumble, into dust

Distasteful, corrupt and venal dust:

  «The war the young lieutenant is now fighting might have been the subject of John F Kennedy's address to West Point cadets in 1962, counsel that foreshadowed a deepening engagement in Vietnam. Kennedy spoke of the necessity to prepare for a conflict "new in its intensity, ancient in its origin - war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy".»
[Philip Smucker/'Killing season' opens in the Afghan hills]

Note the (propagandistic!) words - back then, from a so-called 'All-American Hero.' All totally lying bulls**t.

They say one thing (sounds good!) - but do another (murdering for spoil.) That's *criminal* hypocrisy; read all about it here [re-citing; 5.4k *worth it* words]: killinghope/Blum/Parenti/Against Empire.

I have my own formalization of a practical and fair morality: do unto others etc., do no harm (slightly redundant but reinforcing) and mind your own business - plus a new bit: if transgressed against, return the 'favour.' (Note that religion is neither mentioned nor required.)

In the same vein, only just laws are valid, and force may only ever be deployed *in defence* of such valid, just law.

In a perfect world, we'd not need police - sadly, in a less than perfect world we do. If we had a less horrible world, those with criminal tendencies might be properly deterred by the likes of the good old English Bobby-type policing; I think you get my drift.

There's a new word, 'scalability;' as far as policing goes we just don't have it. Example, the scoff-laws the US and Israel; they 'get away' with their despicable murder-to-thieve crimes *only because* international law and the required policing are as good as absent. So we have an international community without effective cops, and filthy criminals rampant.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

There are many, many, more law-abiding types than crooks; *ALL* we have to do is unite and demand justice.

Yep, that'd do it.

Pipelinestan

Tomdispatch has the first of a series of articles by Pepe Escobar - "Postcards from Pipelinestan" - on oil and the machinations surrounding it. As Tom puts it:

At one point last week, the price of a barrel of crude oil -- which had risen as high as $147 last July and, with the global economic meltdown, hit a low of $32 in 2009 -- rebounded above $51. Prices at the local gas pump are expected to rise as well in the coming weeks. However, given a worldwide falloff in oil use, these price jumps may not hold for long. Still, cheap or not, oil and natural gas (as well as coal) are what drives global civilization, and that's clearly not going to change any time soon.

As an added bonus, following is an extract from a chapter of my thesis on US policy in the ME, this covers a little of the history of efforts to control oil. Given the topic it necessarily from a US perspective:

Early in the 20th Century oil was raised to the status of a vital military and strategic asset and a primary source of energy that would power economic growth. Navies began to convert from coal as the fuel for their vessels and the internal combustion engine led to the increasing development and use of powered military vehicles, such as trucks, armoured cars, aircraft and tanks. Such was the extent of these new uses of oil during World War I that a severe shortage of oil developed in 1917/18.

Britain had gained control of Persia’s oil reserves prior to the war and had made gaining control of other fields, even those as yet unproven such as in Mesopotamia, an aim of the Middle East campaign. The campaign continued through diplomatic, political and commercial methods after the war with France joining Britain in the quest for oil. Immediately after the war, the United States, as producer of 64% of the world’s oil and with access to Mexican reserves was not immediately interested in Middle East oil. However, by 1920 an awareness grew that growing domestic consumption would begin to deplete its existing sources and that major sources outside North America would soon be tied up by foreign interests. This was exampled by the comment of British oilman Sir Edward Mackay Edgar who commented in 1919 “All the known fields, all the likely or probable fields outside of the United States itself, are in British hands or under British management or control, or financed by British capital”. The US became involved in Middle East oil to protect its strategic interests and future industrial growth.

The basis for relations between the major powers in the division of Middle East oil reserves up to the outbreak of World War II was established by the Red Line accord of 1928. Despite protestations to the contrary, the interests of the local peoples do not seem to have been a primary concern, the well-being of the oil companies and the home economies taking priority. Also there were suspicions of the motivations between the participants, the British believed that given the possessive way in which the US treated its dominance of the Americas, that US claims to be promoting the principles of free and open trade were somewhat hypocritical. Likewise, the US believed that through the mandate system and thence in relations with the newly created states Britain was trying to perpetuate a quasi-colonial suzerainty. Given the circumstances of the contemporary situation in the Middle East, at least some of these claims are still being made.

In the post-World War II period a number of factors would cause the process of acquiring Middle East oil to become much more volatile and complex. Amongst these factors were the onset of the Cold War where denying the USSR. access to, much less control of, the oil reserves become a major concern for the West, the changing balance of power between the US and Britain, and the ever-expanding need for oil for military and non-military uses in the post-war economic boom. In the case of the US, the war generated massive expansion of its economy and the depletion of its own reserve made an imperative of gaining access to other sources of oil above and beyond the desires for commercial gain by US oil companies. The aspirations of the oil producing states for greater control of and benefit from their oil reserves, both as a result of natural aspirations and in light of the United Nations principles of self-determination, led to growing tensions between the oil companies and their home states and the oil producers. A major example of these tensions was the case of Iran where political manoeuvring between the concerned parties led in 1953 to the British and US backed coup which replaced the elected leader, Mossadegh, with the returning Shah. Iran became for twenty-six years a major US strategic partner in the region, propped up by US aid and support, including the training of Savak, the Shah’s brutal secret police. The decades of suppression of Iranian independence led to an extreme reaction in 1979 when a fundamentalist Islamic regime replaced the monarchy. This caused a major shift in the balance of power in the region which had serious ongoing consequences for the US and other foreign states.

Iraq had been receiving royalties of just 5% from its oil reserves and in response to a growing dissatisfaction and sense of injustice, nationalised its oil in 1972. Unlike some of its neighbours, and despite some of the less savoury aspects of the governing Ba’ath party, the wealth was shared relatively equally amongst its citizens and public infrastructure was amongst the most advanced in the region.

One of the developments amongst a number of oil producing states was the establishment of OPEC - Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which was designed to dominate the international oil market and thus price levels. Price increases could be made not only for the benefit of its members financially, but also as a political weapon. OPEC oil price increases in 1973 and 1979 caused great consternation in developed economies and made governments aware of the importance of oil to their economies and the dangers of price fluctuations and the future depletion of reserves. There were efforts made to economise on oil consumption as well as to find alternative energy sources. The seriousness of these efforts depended upon the political colour of parties and the nature of their electoral support.

The importance of OPEC has decreased since the oil shocks due to increased oil supplies from non-OPEC countries, such as Russia and in west Africa. Nevertheless, the onset of oil depletion is a matter of great importance and complexity. The complexity comes from factors such as determining what oil reserves remain, the ability to extract them in terms of projected economic or environmental cost and the likely amount of undiscovered reserves. An exposition of these factors can be found in Campbell and Laherre. They explain one factor that is a determinant on the viability of oil fields and the calculations of oil reserves, that is, the Hubbert curve. This postulates that once more than half a region’s crude had been extracted production would decrease. M. King Hubbert used this theory in 1956 to correctly predict that oil from the lower forty-eight US states would peak in 1969. By this method Campbell and Laherrere predict a permanent decline in the world’s oil production within the next ten years. Another proponent of this prediction is Gerald Leach who sets the date of declining production as 2010.

Of particular pertinence to this paper is that the world’s largest known reserves of oil are in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia having approximately 25% of known reserves and Iraq 11%. Iraq has many unexplored fields which could hold much larger reserves possibly matching or even exceeding those of Saudi Arabia. Iraq’s oil production has been limited by damage to its wells suffered in the 1991 Gulf War as well as by the restrictions imposed under the sanctions regime. The US, after deposing the Hussein regime, has proposed an end to the sanctions against Iraq to enable the oil revenues to be used to finance the reconstruction of Iraq. Saudi Arabia is the only other source of oil with spare capacity. Saudi Arabia is seen by many analysts as the key to world oil production, not only due to having the largest proven reserves but also due to having excess production capacity. With the onset of depletion these two states will become increasingly important for the continued access to oil, most particularly from the major oil consumer, the United States.

The United States formalised relations with Saudi Arabia in 1945 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt met King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud. Although the details of this meeting have been kept secret it is believed that Roosevelt promised the King protection in exchange for privileged access to Saudi oil. Although Saudi light crude is valued in the US due to its suitability for sophisticated applications such as aircraft fuel, there are other benefits from access to Saudi and other Gulf States oil reserves. One is the continued access to reasonably priced oil for US trading partners such as Japan and Europe and thus the continued well-being of the triad underpinning the international economy, particularly as viewed from a US perspective. A further benefit is that much of the revenue received by the Gulf states returns to the US and other western states in the form of investment and, in particular for the US, Saudi arms purchases. This last item has had mixed results in that extravagant Saudi arms acquisition has caused an imbalance and growing debt in their economy. The US has “propped up” unrepresentative regimes in the Gulf, to the extent of leading the coalition that prosecuted the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait and protect Saudi Arabia’s oil fields from possible capture by Iraq. Concern for the loss of influence and access to oil should the Islamic Revolution in Iran spread across the region had previously led the US to support Iraq against Iran in their long and bloody war from 1980-88, to the extent of allowing US companies to supply Iraq with technologies, agents and components for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The export of such items by the US and other western states has been the subject of much media attention as well as a Congressional inquiry in 1994. Continued US involvement and interference in the politics of the Gulf can have deleterious effects as outlined by Mamoud Fandy, long before September 11 :
Uncritical U.S. support for autocratic Gulf monarchies and their human rights abuses have weakened both U.S. policy and the oil regimes. It undermines U.S. policy by demonstrating the hypocrisy in American rhetoric about democracy and human rights and weakens the regimes by creating the perception among Gulf subjects that their countries are being ruled in the interests of an outside power.

There is another reason some assert for US interest in influencing at least, if not dominating , access to Middle East and other oil reserves, that is the denial of oil to its perceived enemies. Declassified documents reveal a policy of denial of oil to the Soviet Union in the early Cold War years. In 1949 the US developed plans to destroy Middle East oil fields if there was a threat that the Soviet Union would capture them. Radiological weapons were considered and rejected as explained in NSC 26/3, dated June 29, 1950:

'Denial of the wells by radiological means can be accomplished to prevent an enemy from utilizing the oil fields, but could not prevent him from forcing “expendable” Arabs to enter contaminated areas to open well heads and deplete the reservoirs. Therefore, aside from other effects on the Arab population, it is not considered that radiological means are practicable as a conservation measure.'

Bizarre as this scenario might seem it illustrates the lengths to which the US has contemplated going to protect its strategic interests as embodied in the continued access to oil at economically sustainable prices for itself and its allies and trading partners and the denial of oil to its perceived enemies. Energy security continues to be a basic element of US policy as detailed in the so-called Bush Doctrine. The depletion of the world’s oil reserves only adds urgency and emphasis on this aspect of US strategic policy.

The Great Game continues, as Pepe writes:

What happens on the immense battlefield for the control of Eurasia will provide the ultimate plot line in the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order, also known as the New Great Game.

Our good ol' friend the nonsensical "Global War on Terror," which the Pentagon has slyly rebranded "the Long War," sports a far more important, if half-hidden, twin -- a global energy war. I like to think of it as the Liquid War, because its bloodstream is the pipelines that crisscross the potential imperial battlefields of the planet. Put another way, if its crucial embattled frontier these days is the Caspian Basin, the whole of Eurasia is its chessboard. Think of it, geographically, as Pipelineistan.

Further instalments as they appear. As well as other relevant material.