Chilcot's Blind Spot

The long awaited Chilcot report has been declared damning and highly critical of Britain's path to war in Iraq but actually doesn't really say anything we weren't already saying despite it's 2.6 million words.  We know there were no WMDs, we know we were lied to and presented with false evidence already so how about investigating the real reasons we went to war?  This article from Open Democracy UK reveals more in one page than Chilcot has in 7 years of writing.  Chilcot failed to explore the persistent push by Britain and the US to privatise the Iraqi oil industry taking it out of state control and into the hands of BP and Shell.
see article.....

Chilcot's blind spot: Iraq War report buries oil evidence, fails to address motive

from opendemocracy.net 6 July 2016

When the UK invaded, Iraq had nearly a tenth of the world's oil reserves -- and government documents "explicitly state" oil was a consideration before the war. Why didn't Chilcot explore it further?

British troops carry out an evening patrol targeting smugglers at an oil plant in southern Iraq in 2003. 

 

The long-awaited Chilcot Report was finally released today, examining the UK’s involvement in the Iraq War and occupation. Unfortunately, on the most important question, the report’s conclusions are all but silent: why did the UK go to war?
Chilcot takes at face value the Blair government’s claim that the motive was to address Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and limits its criticism to mistakes in the intelligence on WMD, and on insufficient administrative and military planning. He shows a remarkable lack of curiosity about the political factors behind the move to war, especially given the weakness (even at the time) of the WMD case.

Chilcot takes at face value the Blair government’s claim that the motive was to address Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Most important of these is oil. Buried in deep in volume 9 of the 2.6 million-word report, Chilcot refers to government documents that explicitly state the oil objective, and outlining how Britain pursued that objective throughout the occupation. But he does not consider this evidence in his analysis or conclusions. Oil considerations do not even appear in the report’s 150-page summary.
To many people around the world, it was obvious that oil was a central issue, as Iraq itself had nearly a tenth of the world’s oil reserves, and together with its neighbouring countries nearly two thirds. There was a clear public interest in understanding how that affected UK decisions. Chilcot failed to explore it.
Section 10.3 of the report, in volume 9, records that senior government officials met secretly with BP and Shell on at several occasions (denied at the time) to discuss their commercial interests in obtaining contracts. Chilcot did not release the minutes, but we had obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act: they are posted here. In unusually expressive terms for a civil service write-up, one of the meeting’s minutes began, “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there".
Also in that section, Chilcot includes references to several pre-war documents identifying a British objective of using Iraqi oil to boost Britain’s own energy supplies. For example, a February 2002 Cabinet Office paper stated that the UK’s Iraq policy falls “within our objectives of preserving peace and stability in the Gulf and ensuring energy security”. A Foreign Office strategy paper in May 2003, which Chilcot didn’t include, was even more explicit: "The future shape of the Iraqi oil industry will affect oil markets, and the functioning of OPEC, in both of which we have a vital interest".

During the direct occupation of 2003-4, the UK consistently pushed oil policy towards the longer-term issue of privatisation, rather than the immediate rebuilding of the war-damaged infrastructure.

So there was the motive; but how did the UK act on it? That same section 10.3 refers to numerous documents revealing the UK’s evolving actions to shape the structure of the Iraqi oil industry, throughout the occupation until 2009. The government did so in close coordination with BP and Shell. This full story – with its crucial context ­– was told in Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq.
As the UK’s strategy evolved with changing circumstances, two priority objectives remain consistently emphasised in the documents: to transfer Iraq’s oil industry from public ownership to the hands of multinational companies, and to make sure BP and Shell get a large piece of that.
During the direct occupation of 2003-4, the UK consistently pushed oil policy towards the longer-term issue of privatisation, rather than the immediate rebuilding of the war-damaged infrastructure. The government installed Terry Adams, a former senior manager of BP, in Baghdad to begin that work.
British officials knew their plans were not what Iraqis wanted. One document in 2004, seen but not released by Chilcot, noted that the oil issue was “politically sensitive, touching on issues of sovereignty”. Without recognising any conflict, it recommended that Britain “push the message on [foreign direct investment] to the Iraqis in private, but it will require careful handling to avoid the impression that we are trying to push the Iraqis down one particular path”.
British officials actively pressed the oil issue on the interim government in 2004-5, the provisional government in 2005-6, and the permanent government of from 2006. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote to Tony Blair in July 2005 setting out the progress on those activities. He wrote that Iraqi oil “remains important for the UK commercially and in terms of energy security. Foreign investment is badly needed and we need to continue to support Iraq to create the right framework for investment, while also supporting UK companies to engage”.
During the December 2005 election, British Ambassador William Patey sought to pressure candidates to accept passage of an oil privatization law as a top priority for the new government. During 2006 and 2007 this law became the key focus of British and US political efforts in Iraq. Forcing passage of this law became a major focus of UK and US political efforts over the subsequent two years, and was closely tied to the “surge” in troops that President Bush announced in January 2007.

Attempts by Britain and the US to force a law through that legalised oil privatisation failed

Deep in volume 9, when Chilcot refers to these British efforts, he presents them under the veneer of normal diplomatic activity, neglecting the reality that the UK and USA still had 150,000 troops the country, and had directly appointed the interim government. The permanent government in 2006 was established through elections the UK and USA had designed, and contested by the politicians they had promoted. Terry Adams was even commissioned to draft the contracts that would be signed with the likes of his former company.
In the end, attempts by Britain and the US to force a law through that legalised oil privatisation failed. The law was not passed, largely because of a popular Iraqi campaign against it. It was then decided to sign long-term contracts even without any legal basis for doing so.  Iraq´s oil industry is largely now run – illegally – by companies like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil.
Chilcot has said he was not asked to judge whether the war was legal.  Yet in his failure to examine the real motive for war, he has side-lined crucial evidence that might tell us about the legality of the war and occupation, and the culpability of senior UK officials, including Tony Blair.

Iraq´s oil industry is largely now run – illegally – by companies like BP, Shell and ExxonMobil.

War with Iran?

Article from PressTV:

"Iran wants oil payments in euros only"

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/02/05/448836/Iran-wants-oil-payments-in-euros-only-

 Why does this mean possible war or invasion of Iran?  Well when Iraq and Libya stopped trading oil in US dollars and switched to Euros or other currencies they were swiftly invaded, overthrown and switched back to payments in dollars.

If you ain't a clue what I'm on about or why it matters, my blog post "Petrodollar Warfare" from a couple of years ago is still relevant and will explain. http://jonnybrand.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/petrodollar-warfare.html

Saddam Hussein sealed his fate when he announced in September 2000 that Iraq was no longer going to accept dollars for oil and decided to switch to the Euro as Iraq’s oil export currency.
The Iraq war began March 2003; Baghdad fell in April; by June Iraq was now selling oil in dollars again.

.....Good luck Iran!!! 

World War 3

At some point over the next week surely you will have 13 minutes to spare, the video here is 13 minutes long and will explain, if you didn't already know, how and why world war 3 has already begun.  My previous rantings on Syria  and the less ranty, better written (in my opinion) post on petrodollar warfare help to summarise in my own words what the relevance of all this war talk is about. But I find the best source for understanding the real story behind the media/government war propaganda at the moment are the postings by Storm Clouds Gathering on youtube.



Also see my previous postings on
- maybe North Korea are the good guys
- Prince Harry the murderer
- one million dead Iraqis
- Holiday breaks at Guantanamo Bay
- how a corrupt propagandarous US media snuffed out Ron Paul's bid for presidency to give war monger Obama an easy ride
This will now obviously take more than 13 minutes but I feel it's worth immersing yourself in for a short while even if you just scan through long enough to........ are you still reading? hello?  Ah I knew it!  Well the most popular post ever on my blog talks about Gervinho's massive forehead so maybe I should stick to the more popular subject matter of footballers with odd looking heads rather than the sleep inducing prospect of impending doom.  The page with the Gervinho post has 458 hits and if you type 'Gervinho hairline' into google my blog comes up 2nd, beaten only by baldcelebrity.com
Anyway what was I saying about World War 3?
Ahh don't worry it'll be fine.........

Petrodollar Warfare

All the wars, all the corruption, the lies, the media brainwashing, the false flag events, illegal invasions, cries of terrorism, recessions, bank collapses and the road the world war 3 can be directly linked in some way to one thing - the petrodollar.
This subject is huge and has many tangents to fire off at but here's an attempt at a brief summary;

The US dollar is backed by debt, unlike other countries America has no gold reserves to back the value of its currency and instead relies on a global demand for the dollar.  The federal reserve is not owned by the country, the government or the tax paying public but is in fact a private bank, it lends huge sums of money to the government and very literally creates more money out of thin air on the basis that the previous debt will be payed back.  These debts are now so vast they are impossible to ever pay back because the trillions of dollars required simply do not exist.  The one thing keeping the dollar and the whole American economy alive is global demand for the currency due to commodities conventionally being traded in dollars, namely oil and  trade of oil between countries is quoted in and directly linked to the value of the US dollar.
Now that's the basic system with I'm sure some oversights but it sets the scene for what follows, and basically what follows is war.

Saddam Hussein sealed his fate when he announced in September 2000 that Iraq was no longer going to accept dollars for oil being sold under the UN’s Oil-for-Food program, and decided to switch to the euro as Iraq’s oil export currency.  We all know what happened next of course, well we think we do anyway.  The 2003 invasion, the non existent WMD, the toppling of Saddam, the long drawn out occupation of Iraq, and the resulting 1 million Iraqis who have died as a consequence.  Anything else?  Erm... well yes actually..... In 2003 the Bush Administration implemented a switch for Iraqi  international oil sales to revert back to dollars instead of euros despite the fact that in mid-2003 the euro was valued approximately 13% higher than the dollar, and thus significantly impacted the ability of Iraq to finance rebuilding he countries infrastructure.

The Iraq war began March 2003; Baghdad fell in April; by June Iraq was now selling oil in dollars again

It is now obvious the invasion of Iraq had less to do with any threat from Saddam’s long-gone WMD program and certainly less to do to do with fighting International terrorism than it has to do with gaining control over Iraq’s hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintaining the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market.

You get the general idea by now so apply this same thinking to many of the other US led wars, invasions, trade embargos and political interference and you'll find a pattern emerges.

Libya - Gadaffi planned to cease selling Libyan oil in U.S. dollars instead demanding payment in gold-backed Dinars (a single African currency made from gold).  The regime, sitting on massive amounts of gold, estimated at close to 150 tons, was also pushing other African and Middle Eastern governments to follow suit.  The US fed us some propaganda and then stamped on Libya.
Afghanistan - Why have troops stayed so long? The US needs control of Afghanistan to exert influence over Central Asian reserves. (It is estimated that the Caspian Sea basin has $12 trillion reserves of oil and natural gas.).  Important pipelines cross through the region and Afghanistan is not only adjacent to countries which are rich in oil and natural gas (e.g Turkmenistan), it also possesses within its territory sizeable untapped reserves of natural gas, coal  and oil. The US does not necessarily intend to steal anyone’s oil but the nation remains utterly dependent on oil trade continuing in the dollar.
As the US dollar continued to lose purchasing power over time, several oil-producing countries began to question the wisdom of accepting increasingly worthless paper currency for their oil supplies. Today, several countries have attempted to move away, or already have moved away, from the petrodollar system. Examples include Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea… or the “axis of evil” if you prefer to use  the words of the mainstream media.  Additionally, other nations are choosing to use their own currencies for oil like China, Russia and India among others.
Clearly America aren't going to declare war on China, Russia or India (or at least not for a long while yet) but you will no doubt be aware of political unrest in the other countries I mention.
Venezuela - (failed) US sponsored military coup against Chavez.  Attempts to rig presidential elections after the death of Chavez in favour of the pro US Capriles against the socialist Maduro (failed again)
Syria - US funded rebels fighting the Assad 'regime' along with Israeli military interference by US proxy.
North Korea - Strict sanctions and trade embargos justified by the axis of evil story and exaggerated claims of nuclear war threat
Iran - The list of sanctions against Iran is pages long. There is a corresponding bipartisan belief by US government officials that Iranian citizens will become so inflamed by the effects of the sanctions that they will rise up and topple their government but this has not proved to be the case and Iran partly work round many of the sanctions using alternative trade agreements with certain countries such as Turkey, Russia and China.  Iran is the next big war waiting to happen and America just needs to concoct a decent reason to get in there that will carry enough public and international support.

Ultimately the petrodollar is going out of the window bit by bit and without the artificial demand for the US dollar that this system creates the whole US economy will come crashing down with potentially devastating effects.  America imports two thirds of the oil it needs and when the dollar crashes foreign fuel will be too expensive, the petrol pumps dry up and chaos will ensue, starting with panic buying then progressively empty supermarket shelves, looting, social breakdown, martial law, public uprising (this is part of the reason why the government wants to disarm the public through new gun control measures) and of course there will be significant wide reaching global economic problems particularly for those countries whose currency is closely linked to the US dollar.

There's no avoiding this scenario once it is upon us and unfortunately it is already upon us.  This explains why there is so much desperation to stir political unrest and initiate wars. The world is like a chess board with pieces being strategically moved every day and currently it's only really the pawns that have been taken off the board with maybe a rook or two trapped into a corner.  World War 3 is only a matter of time.....

Crossing your own red line is absolutely fine

So here we go..... we know what's coming because we've seen it all before.  Last time it was Bush and Blair and this time it's Obama and Cameron, different leaders, same regime, same intentions.
Remember the pretext for the Iraq war? Weapons of mass destruction, regime attacking their own people, the axis of evil, human rights atrocities, war crimes.  Of course you remember and that's why the talk we're hearing regarding Syria over the last few days sounds so familiar.

“We cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations”

No of course you can't condone that Mr Obama!  You must also have been outraged when the US military used devastating chemical weapons during its barbaric siege of Fallujah in Iraq!  The line was crossed when they used white phosphorus shells and an advanced form of napalm because they are both banned by international conventions and THAT was a war crime yes? men, women and children burnt alive.

The ongoing legacy of these weapons plagues the Iraqi people with huge increases in child leukemia and cancer, and an epidemic of nightmarish birth defects in Fallujah, Basra and the other cities subjected to a US military siege

“It’s limited evidence, but there’s growing evidence that we have seen too of the use of chemical weapons, probably by the regime.”

Aah now David Cameron is chipping in is he? "limited evidence", "probably by the regime", not really convincing me there Dave, sorry mate but no I won't be happy if you spend my taxes on intervening in Syria because there seems to be no evidence whatsoever.

note that Assad does have big support from the Syrian people
 just like Gaddafi did in Libya

Obama has repeatedly stated Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a red line and could move the US closer to military intervention in the Syrian civil war.  Now we're told chemical weapons have probably been used and await the next development..... we know it's all bullshit of course and don't forget that the rebels fighting against the Bashar al-Assad 'regime' are actually supported and encouraged by the US with a blatant intention to destabilise the region.
But why is there an interest in Syria? They're not a major producer of oil or gas, they're not a politically verbal or economic threat in the same way as Gaddafi and Libya, so whats going on?  Well look at it like this- Syria might not be a major power in the Middle East, but a Syrian uprising may determine the shape of the future regional 'energy map'.  The biggest losers in a successful war for regime change would be Iran, who recently signed a major pipeline deal with Syria and Iraq that is ultimately aimed at bringing Iranian gas to the Mediterranean Sea, and Russia, which has sought to expand its own influence in energy development in the region. Washington bitterly opposed this pipeline deal.

The obvious winners of regime change would be the US and its allies, together with the major Western based energy conglomerates.

Syria's geographic location offers Mediterranean access to landlocked entities in search of markets for their hydrocarbons and to countries seeking access to Europe without having to go through Turkey.  Opportunities in the region would be lost with a crushed Syria but more importantly new opportunities will emerge under a new Syrian regime.  The end goal of US imperialism and its NATO allies in Syria is to isolate and prepare for a far larger war against Iran, with the aim of imposing neocolonial control over the whole vast energy-producing region.

Keep watching and see where this red line is drawn, then watch a bit longer and see the very people who drew the line walk straight across it.  It's going to happen and you know it is.  When the war starts many thousands of people will die. Did someone say war crimes?

Prince Harry is a murderer

prince harry's true domain

Prince Harry seems to have been welcomed home as a hero from his recent holiday in Afghanistan.  He returned with blasé comments about his killings, even comparing it to a computer game!
"Take a life to save a life, If there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game, I suppose."
Too right Harry!  If you see any moving dots on the ground from your £50 million heavily armoured helicopter then spray the area with bullets because being as you're in Afghanistan they are probably evil Taliban Islamic terrorists (don't forget to use the words Islamic and terrorist in the same sentence) 
“It’s a joy for me because I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful.” 
Yes this fruitless 10 year decimation of Afghanistan is just like a computer game, you're right actually Harry because there's a generic enemy that just keeps on coming, we are told that they are definitely evil and definitely a threat so keep on bashing those buttons!
Hold on though..... who are the Taliban?  Troops have had to withdraw from Iraq not because the job is done there but because there's no real excuse to still be there,  but with Afghanistan we still have the illusion of these dangerous Islamic fundamentalists who still pose a threat to the world despite the last 10 years.  I suspect though that the recent news reports in our media from Mali and Algeria which are guaranteed to contain the words 'Islamic, militants, terrorists, Taliban, insurgents' means the European and US military presence is now set to shift to North Africa.  The people there are poor but riches there happen to be many, Algeria has vast amounts of oil and gas hiding beneath the desert sands and in Mali there are significantly large amounts of gold to be had.  Also please note that Niger which borders with Algeria and Mali has one of the largest reserves of uranium in the world, so don't be surprised if Barack Obama mentions a Taliban threat in Niger sometime soon.  Actually David Cameron has already preceded that by saying that "the Sahara desert has turned into a haven for militant Islamists who are waging a jihad against the West".  Well best send the boys out there then Dave, the french are already there so best go and help them gain control against these naughty religious desert dwellers.
Going back to our blood thirsty prince, apart from his comments showing appalling disregard for human life, he is just part of the jigsaw that reinforces the ugly love of country stance that makes much of the country proud of their brave war heros and the sacrifices they are making for us in the fight against 'them'.  The enemy are 'them' because if they are just 'them' then their lives are relatively insignificant and them are lesser as people.  This bizarre promotion of the war hero theme is a purposeful distraction and a convenient change of angle to the dumb spoon fed public to mask them from knowing, noticing or caring about the disgraceful atrocities that result from these illegal wars.    For example, over one million Iraqis have died as result of the war on terror and the country's electricity, water supply and transport infrastructure is in ruins but our governments and media are far more concerned if just one of our so called hero's is killed.  Iraq were better off with Sadam, he was far less evil.