Voice of the Whitehouse

And all the sons of Congressmen! And the two adorable 100 Proof Bush daughters! (Ginna and Tonic)

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people, On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
- H.L. Mencken

“That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

"Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage - - - -torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians - - - - which does not change its moral color when it is committed by our side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
-George Orwell

"Under the Bush administration, openness and accountability have been replaced by secrecy and evasion of responsibility. They abuse their power, conceal their actions from the American people, and refuse to hold officials accountable."
-Senator Edward M. Kennedy

“George W. Bush is deeply interested in Deep Space Exploration. His next project will be to circle Uranus and search for Klingons…..”
-Dallas Herald

“Once a Republican, always a coprophile…:”
-Mother Theresa

“A government official is a man who has risen from obscurity to something worse.”
-Pat Robertson

"The voters decide nothing. Those that count the votes decide everything."
-J.V. Stalin

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

America’s Enemies!

There are four entities who represent the most dangerous enemies to American liberties since George III.

They are:

1. The Neocons or Likudists who owe their personal allegiance to another country and now completely control our foreign policy. They lied and deceived us into the Iraq war and are demanding that more and more American soldiers die to preserve their own country and ideals.

2. The Christian Evangelical right who is trying to force the United States into becoming a theocracy under their rule. They know in their hearts that they alone can restructure a secular humanist America into their idea of Heaven on Earth.

3. An element of American society that call themselves Patriots and are obsessively militaristic and great admirers of the corporate or fascistic state. Many of these have been very minor members of the American military and as a counterbalance to their reserve or rear area tours of duty, are rabidly in favor of draconian military action, the bloodier the better. Usually these drumbeaters are too old, or too fat, to fight and have no sons of draft age.

4. George W. Bush, who is the worst president in the history of the United States and directly responsible for the huge death tolls in Iraq, is determined to rule the United States until God puts a stop to him and is even more determined to force the American people into becoming obedient, Christian and self-sacrificing lemmings who worship at his shrine and march in step.

Recommended reading

We gather information, on a daily basis, from many websites. There are a number of publications that are well worth viewing for their intelligent reporting of national and international news. All of those sources, listed below, are daily newspapers with the exception of the Asia Times. The latter is a very well written site with in-depth articles that are worth reading.

The New York Times: www.nytimes.com
The Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com
The Christian Science Monitor: www.csmonitor.com
The Guardian: www.guardian.co.uk
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: www.seattlepi.nwsource.com
Asia Times www.atimes.com

Note: Very little of the information in this edition of TBR news has come from the mainline American media. It is just not there. Most of it has come from foreign sources and the Internet. Most of our sources can be seen on the main page.

The Voice of the White House

November 11, 2005: “Government offices are packed to the Plimsoll line with reams of reports, memos, plans, suggestions and enough generally useless papers to cover the State of California three times over. I have been reading a very high-level report, never mind its source, that sheds a very bright light on the past, present and the future of the United States’ actions in the Middle East. This report runs to about 150 pages and is filled with maps, charts, excerpts of intelligence intercepts from England, Russia, Iran, China, Turkey and Israel. It is one of the most revealing documents I have ever read but if I printed it in toto, I would be down at Gitmo in an orange jumpsuit being waterboarded by the beady-eyed perverts from the CIA’s Torture Brigade. This is an excerpt with only one lone map but I assure you that it is very important reading.

It shows, with great clarity, the role played by Vice President Dick Cheney, his Halliburton group, allied American and British oil companies, Israeli political and military entities and other such creatures in shaping our military and foreign policy. Read it and mourn for the escalation of the mindless economic wars, for the damage to America’s world image and see it as a monument to the colossal failure of the bankrupt Bush/Cheney politico-economic policies.

If you happened to have voted for Bush, perhaps you would be better off sticking your head into the oven and turning on the gas (apologies here to Abe Foxman).

Brian Harring, who writes for TBR News, has had the following brief comment published in the Washington Post. It makes an excellent précis:

The rationale behind the obvious concept, and probably the planning, for a U.S. military adventure into Syria is based entirely on economics, not military need. There is a great deal of oil in northern Iraq. Northern Iraq is Kurdish territory.

At the present time, there is no practical way to use the current Iraqi pipeline system to ship this oil out. This is due to the guerrilla activities against the pipeline system. The postulation is that if Syria were occupied by American troops, an oil pipeline could be built across that country to Israel and their port city of Haifa on the Mediterranean.

In this way, much needed oil can be accessed by both the United States and Israel, a potential breeding ground for pan-Muslim activists can be neutralized and the state of Israel will benefit, not only from oil revenues but from the removal of an old enemy.

The simplest answer to a complex problem is generally the correct one, bloggers not withstanding.

Brian Harring: Washington Post, Nov 8, 2005

Excerpts (see links at the end of the study for further background information)

“The rapid shrinking of international oil production has greatly alarmed responsible U.S. officials, who realize that the United States has become vulnerable to a serious diminution “ of vital oil.resources. Vice President Dick Cheney as a “prominent member of the government and a strong influence with both the office of the President and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld”……”has long recognized this looming threat and has been in year-long contact with important members of the American petroleum industry.” “As a strong advocate of the U.S. seizure of Iraqi oil fields with their immense untapped reserves…” Cheney was a powerful and very effective advocate of the Iraqi war. “Now, with the oppressive stalemate in Iraq and growing public disapproval of the war,” Cheney has hit upon a plan, already suggested to him by Israeli and industry spokespeople on his staff. This is to secure defensible pipeline capacity from the friendly Kurdish-controlled northern Iraqi oil fields, through Syria or Jordan to the Mediterranean. “Jordan has been rejected because Israeli interests have expressed, very strongly, that such a pipeline should terminate at the Israeli port of Haifa.” The fact that a U.S. alliance with the Kurdish section of Iraq will only serve to severely antagonize Turkey, who has a hostile attitude towards the Kurds, “it has been jointly decided between the United States and Israel that Turkish connections, while important, are not as important as removing Syria as an enemy of Israel, providing a safe and easily controlled route for friendly Iraqi oil and, more important, to allow the free and unhindered passage of American military supplies and troops into Iraq without subjecting them to a possible military attack from the Iranians” who are armed with advanced Russian rocketry. The damage these rockets “could inflict on American, and British naval and civilian shipping in the Persian Gulf is considered as an unacceptable risk.”

“Israel is seriously considering restarting a strategically important oil pipeline that once transferred oil from the Iraqi city of Mosul to Israel's northern port of Haifa. Given the Israeli claim of a positive US approach to the plan, the Israeli project provides grounds for a theory that the ongoing war against Iraq is in part a joint US, British and Israeli design for reshaping the Middle East to serve their particular interests, including their oil requirements.”

Note: The following story appeared as this article was in preparation. Ed

U.S. checking possibility of pumping oil from northern Iraq to Haifa, via Jordan

By Amiram Cohen
November 11, 2005
Haaraz

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister's Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a "bonus" the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.

The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948. During the War of Independence, the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years.

The National Infrastructure Ministry has recently conducted research indicating that construction of a 42-inch diameter pipeline between Kirkuk and Haifa would cost about $400,000 per kilometer. The old Mosul-Haifa pipeline was only 8 inches in diameter.

National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said yesterday that the port of Haifa is an attractive destination for Iraqi oil and that he plans to discuss this matter with the U.S. secretary of energy during his planned visit to Washington next month. Paritzky added that the plan depends on Jordan's consent and that Jordan would receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to piped through its territory. The minister noted, however, that "due to pan-Arab concerns, it will be hard for the Jordanians to agree to the flow of Iraqi oil via Jordan and Israel."

Sources in Jerusalem confirmed yesterday that the Americans are looking into the possibility of laying a new pipeline via Jordan and Israel. (There is also a pipeline running via Syria that has not been used in some three decades.)

Iraqi oil is now being transported via Turkey to a small Mediterranean port near the Syrian border. The transit fee collected by Turkey is an important source of revenue for the country. This line has been damaged by sabotage twice in recent weeks and is presently out of service.

In response to rumors about the possible Kirkuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline, Turkey has warned Israel that it would regard this development as a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations.

Sources in Jerusalem suggest that the American hints about the alternative pipeline are part of an attempt to apply pressure on Turkey.

Iraq is one of the world's largest oil producers, with the potential of reaching about 2.5 million barrels a day. Oil exports were halted after the Gulf War in 1991 and then were allowed again on a limited basis (1.5 million barrels per day) to finance the import of food and medicines. Iraq is currently exporting several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.

During his visit to Washington in about two weeks, Paritzky also plans to discuss the possibility of U.S. and international assistance for joint Israeli-Palestinian projects in the areas of energy and infrastructure, natural gas, desalination and electricity

From the report:

“Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky considers the pipeline project as economically justifiable as it would reduce the country's cost of oil imports. This is currently very high, as Israel imports oil from Russia. There would also be a strategic justification for the project, as importing oil from an oil supplier in Israel's close proximity would increase its fuel security and would address its major handicap, that is, its total dependence on imported fuel from far-away suppliers.

Paritzky has requested an assessment of the Mosul-Haifa pipeline's current state, which ceased to operate in 1948. Presumably, the pipeline will require major repair and/or upgrading, if not an overhaul, as it has not been in use for more than half a century. However, its full operation, including the required repair work, needs the consent of Iraq, the would-be oil supplier, and Syria, a country neighboring both Iraq and Israel, through which the pipeline passes.

Iraqi consent would have been out of the question as long as the regime of Saddam Hussein was in power. As acknowledged by the Israeli minister, a prerequisite for the project is, therefore, a new regime in Baghdad with friendly ties with Israel. However, such a regime” “will still require Syria's consent to operationalize the pipeline. Given the overall political environment in the Middle East and Israel's continued occupation of Syria's Golan Heights, the existing Syrian regime will never grant its consent as long as the status quo prevails. As stated by the Iranian government, during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) when Iraq enjoyed cordial and close relations with Israel's mentor, the United States, Israel tried, but failed, to resume the oil flow through the pipeline. Syria, a friend of Iran and an enemy of Iraq, blocked the flow of Iraqi oil.”

“The Caspian Sea region has become a central focus point for untapped oil and natural gas resources from the southern portion of the former Soviet Union. Beginning in May 2005, oil from the southern sections of the Caspian Sea began pumping through a new pipeline (built by a BP-led consortium) to the Turkish seaport of Ceyhan. The 8-year effort of Western capital, technology, and diplomacy had aimed to decrease reliance on Middle Eastern oil. However, in recent years, new oil finds and production performance in the Caspian region have not met levels that had been expected in the 1990s. At any rate, the Caspian Sea's production levels, even at their peak, will be much smaller than OPEC countries' output. Production levels are expected to reach 4 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2015, compared to 45 million bbl/d for the OPEC countries in that year”

“The Destabilization of areas viewed as vital for the unimpeded flow of Mid-Eastern oil”

An overview:

“The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves. Just to give an idea of the scale, proven natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day. By 2010, western companies could increase production to about 4.5 million barrels a day, an increase of more than 500 percent in only 15 years. If this occurs, the region would represent about 5 percent of the world's total oil production.

One major problem has yet to be resolved: how to get the region's vast energy resources to the markets where they are needed. Central Asia is isolated. Their natural resources are land locked, both geographically and politically. Each of the countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia faces difficult political challenges. Some have unsettled wars or latent conflicts. Others have evolving systems where the laws and even the courts are dynamic and changing. In addition, a chief technical obstacle which we in the industry face in transporting oil is the region's existing pipeline infrastructure.

Because the region's pipelines were constructed during the Moscow-centered Soviet period, they tend to head north and west toward Russia. There are no connections to the south and east. But Russia is currently unlikely to absorb large new quantities of foreign oil. It's unlikely to be a significant market for new energy in the next decade. It lacks the capacity to deliver it to other markets.

Two major infrastructure projects are seeking to meet the need for additional export capacity. One, under the aegis of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, plans to build a pipeline west from the northern Caspian to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Oil would then go by tanker through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean and world markets.

The other project is sponsored by the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, a consortium of 11 foreign oil companies, including four American companies, Unocal, Amoco, Exxon and Pennzoil. This consortium conceives of two possible routes, one line would angle north and cross the north Caucasus to Novorossiysk. The other route would cross Georgia to a shipping terminal on the Black Sea. This second route could be extended west and south across Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

But even if both pipelines were built, they would not have enough total capacity to transport all the oil expected to flow from the region in the future. Nor would they have the capability to move it to the right markets. Other export pipelines must be built.

The second option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route is across Afghanistan, which has of course its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades, and is still divided by civil war. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company.”

“Destabilization in: Iran- 1953: Operation AJAX …..
Guatemala –1953: Operation PBSUCCESS …
Indonesia- 1965….
Chile- 1973….
Georgia-2003….
Ukraine- 2005…..
Uzbekistan- 2005 (unsuccessful)” (Technical material redacted. Ed.)

Annexe: “Preliminary Report on Muslim Riots in France….”

“At the suggestion of the American Vice President, Cheney, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, with the technical assistance of both the Israeli MOSSAD and AMAN, have fomented domestic civil strife inside the French Republic.” “MOSSAD penetration of dissident Muslim groups in France, permitted the technical coordination…” ” of the attacks in: Paris, Rouen, Lille, Nice, Dijon, Strasbourg, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Rennes, Pau, Orleans, and Toulouse. Later, the closely coordinated rioting spread further to Lyon, Roubaix, Avignon, Saint-Dizier, Drancy, Evreux, Nantes, Dunkirk, Montpellier, Valenciennes, Cannes, and Tourcoing.” “Funds for this were supplied entirely by the CIA and technical assistance by the MOSSAD was further enhanced by the use of a cell-phone system believed to be secure from French interdiction….” “The Israeli official attitude towards France is coloured by the perception of barely-disguised anti-Semitism on the part of French officialdom as manifested by” specific incidents listed. “Thusly, the hostility of the French population against resident Arabs is guaranteed,”… “to permit military action in the former French colony of Syria, without let or hindrance….”

Summation:

“* The Turkish port of Ceyhan is on the Mediterranean Sea north of the Syrian border.

* Since the Turkish Parliament refused US invasion troops overland access to Iraq via Turkey at the last minute in February 2003, Turkey has been re-evaluated by Washington as an unreliable ally.

* Now that Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, bordering on Turkey, and Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan across the Caspian Sea, are no longer part of the Soviet Union, Turkey is less strategically important anyway, as a US ally.

* The pipelines from Central Asia to the Black Sea are strategically vulnerable to Russia blockading the Bosphorus.

* When Syria and Iran are either destabilized or invaded and come under US domination, Kurdish Northern Iran and Kurdish Syria could join with Kurdish Iraq in a Greater Kurdistan. This may (or has?) been held out to the Kurds as a carrot to encourage their buy-in to the larger plan.

* This larger plan would be: To build a new, or refursibh an existing, oil and probably also a gas pipeline from the Kurdish Northern Iranian shores of the Caspian Sea, through Kurdish Iran, into Kurdish Iraq, to link up with the Mosul-Haifa pipeline through Kurdish Syria into Northern Israel. A pipeline running via Syria that has not been used in some three decades.

* Via these mega-pipelines, all the oil and gas of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Greater Kurdistan (Northern Iran and Northern Iraq) could flow, safely guarded by the Kurds, from Central Asia into Israel and the Mediterranean.

* To open a secure line of communication and supply for U.S. mideasst forces now in Iraq from the secure Mediterranean area, avoiding the dangers of sending military vessels into the Persian Gulf where they could be vulnerable to rocket attacks from Iran.

* When (not if) Turkey throws the US out of its airbase at Incirlik, the US could relocate to a new base in former Northern Iraq, soon to become Kurdistan, which is far more strategically located to dominate the region, and this new airbase could also help the Kurds guard the pipelines down to Haifa.

* Building this new US military facility would provide billions of dollars of no-bid contracts to KBR and Halliburton. Cheney's stock options would be worth even more than they are now.

* In order to neutralize any French assistance to their former colony of Syria and to anger the French population against the Arabs, joint CIA/Mossad operations have created and maintained massive and very destructive civil unrest in France by dissident Arab youths. These action also serve as a warning to other countries such as England and Germany, that have large Moslem populations that similar “civil unrest” can just as easily plague their countries.”