The Peak Oil Crisis:
Importing Energy

Who gets to import how much after worldwide depletion sets in?


By Tom Whipple
Falls Church News
Nov. 9, 2005

Lurking just beyond public perception is the 800-pound gorilla of peak oil issues.

Currently, distribution of the world's oil production is relatively simple. Whoever wants oil, and has the money to pay for it, can buy as much as they want. No questions. No limits. Historically there have been a few exceptions, such as during World War II or the Arab Oil embargo, but in general if you have the money, importing oil has not been a problem.

Last month, the gorilla began to stir in the form of a report prepared by the folks up at the University of Alberta in Canada. It seems 68 percent of the crude oil and 55 percent of the natural gas produced in Canada is being exported to the US. Under the fine print of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canadians are obligated to continue shipping this portion of their oil and gas production to us even after they go into depletion and can no longer produce enough to satisfy their own needs.

Not unexpectedly, a number of Canadian writers have started to ask why on earth 32 million Canadians should be obligated to send over half of their oil and gas production to help meet the energy appetite of 300 million Americans. As Canada’s production of oil and gas starts to dwindle, there will obviously be pressure to reduce exports. Canada’s Prime Minister recently noted that unless the US is more forthcoming on Canadian complaints about US softwood restrictions, Washington just might be facing Canadian reluctance to keep exporting such prodigious amounts of oil and gas south of their border.

Although there does not seem to be any immediate danger of a reduction in the flow of Canadian oil and gas to the US, the report and media reaction raise a glimmer of what might happen to world energy movements after depletion sets in.

For some period after peak oil, the rich nations will simply outbid the poor ones for dwindling supplies of gas and oil. Indeed, this seems to be already happening after the recent price increases. What will become hardships for the rich will become life and death issues in poorer countries as the underpinnings of modern civilization simply melt away?

In the United States, however, it might be time to start making a distinction between imports of oil and imports of natural gas. There are many sources of imported oil, and stepping up oil imports can be rather easy as we have seen from the marked increases in our imports to compensate for the hurricane damage to production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, importing gas is another issue as most of it comes by pipeline from Canada and Mexico. Only 2 percent of current natural gas imports come as liquefied natural gas (LNG) from distant suppliers. Although there are a lot of calls these days to increase LNG imports to the United States by building more LNG import faculties, importing increased supplies of LNG require the construction of large and expensive LNG production facilities in other countries and the special tankers to move it.

For the US, the bulk of our natural gas imports — some 18 percent of our total consumption — come by pipelines from countries that have their own needs and are starting to raise questions about the scale of their exports.

There is another issue with natural gas however; it is a very versatile fuel and raw material. Currently in the US about 22 percent of our annual consumption of natural gas goes for residential needs where it supplies heating for about 55 percent of the homes in the country. About 38 percent is used in industry to produce power and as the raw material to make multiple products and 25 percent goes to produce clean electricity.

Last month, the Canadian Chemical Producers Association released a statement pointing out that by far the most valuable use of natural gas was to make other materials such as vinyl and plastics. The Association contends that using natural gas to make materials is far more valuable to our civilization than burning it to keep warm or to make electricity that can be produced by other fuels. Until recently there was so much gas around nobody really looked very hard at what it should be used for. Anything that made economic sense was fair game.

It’s now starting to look as if natural gas may become scarce even before oil does. This is especially true in Britain where North Sea gas is running out, and in the US where hurricanes keep tearing up production facilities and at least one neighbor is starting to wonder about how long they really want to keep supplying us.

For the 55 percent of us who are currently cooking, drying, bathing and generally keeping comfortable courtesy of our natural gas supply, it just might be time to start thinking about alternatives.

Source:
http://www.fcnp.com/535/peakoil.htm
_____________________

Green fuel replaces gas – gallon for gallon

Bob Fitrakis
November 11, 2005
FreePress

I’ve seen the future replacement for gasoline, its name is butanol.

In August, I was attending a conference of the International Association of Educators for World Peace at the University of San Francisco, when a 1992 Buick rolled up on campus. The sign on its door read, “Powered by: 100% BUTANOL www.Butanol.com.”

The driver, David Ramey, had just driven from Blacklick, Ohio to the west coast on a fuel that replaces gasoline, gallon for gallon, with no engine modifications. Within a few minutes, Dave had us touching, smelling and burning butanol in small samples he supplied. The first thing I noticed is the absence of black smoke when it’s burned indoors.

“I began this project looking for a sustainable fuel source for small farmers to put in their tractors, then I realized you could put it right in a car,” Ramey told us.

As Ramey explains, there is a lot of excess biomass laying around in agricultural communities, as well as processing waste from corn refineries and cheese factories. The dairy industry has to pay to have billions of tons of cheese waste removed every year. Why not make fuel out of it?

Ramey points out that the production of industrial butanol and acetone through the process of fermentation using clostridia acetobutylicum began as early as 1916. Ramey says Chime Wizemann, a student of Louis Pasteur, isolated the microbe that makes butanol.

Butanol declined as a fuel during the 1940s and 50s primarily because of cheap oil. The price of petrochemicals fell below that of starch and sugar substrates such as corn and molasses. Butanol was not revived during the original oil crisis in the 1970s when ethanol emerged as an alternative biomass fuel. One of ethanol’s drawbacks is that it needed to be blended with fossil fuel; another is that it couldn’t be delivered through the existing gasoline pipeline structures. Nevertheless, ethanol became the alternative fuel subsidized by the U.S. government.

Currently, Ramey estimates that butanol prices as a chemical are at $3.75 per gallon, with a small worldwide market of 370 million gallons per year. He predicts an explosion in the market if butanol emerges as the green alternative to gasoline.

Butanol, Ramey insists, is the alternative fuel of the future. He’s developed a new fermentation process that is far more efficient than in the past. Other advantages of butanol are, unlike natural gas, it does not have to be stored in high pressure containers nor blended in any way with fossil fuel. The burns Ramey is so fond of demonstrating reminded me of burning citronella in a backyard bug torch.

Ramey’s dream is to build “new, smaller, turnkey biorefineries of 5 to 30 million gallons per year for small municipalities and surrounding farming communities.” He’s hopeful that the current oil crisis will push the introduction of his alternative fuel at a much faster rate than in the 1970s.

“Look, these local biorefineries address many local problems. A lot of your biomass can be converted to fuel instead of buried at landfills. Also, decentralized fuel production makes us less vulnerable to terrorist attacks,” Ramey explained. He didn’t mention (but did note he is a Republican) that butanol could potentially eliminate our nation’s penchant for starting wars with oil producing regions like the Middle East and Central Asia.

“Cooperatively owned facilities would allow the agricultural sector to employ more people and retain profits within the local economy,” stated Ramey.

An added bonus is how clean butanol burns. On July 14, 2005, Ramey started his first run across the nation on butanol with co-driver Jim Adkins. The butanol-burning Buick stopped to be tested at various state Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) centers. At the Springfield, Ohio test center, butanol reduced smog-producing hydrocarbon emissions by an astounding 95%. Ramey’s own Environmental Energy, Inc. (EEI) puts combined test figures at a still remarkable 25%. EEI claims that butanol also reduces carbon dioxide emissions from gasoline’s 12% to 7%. With his estimates that butanol could potentially replace 40% of all gasoline use, this would be a real “Clear Skies Initiative.”

Ramey sees his next step as “building and operating a prototype unit which will produce 250 gallons per week of butanol.” He also envisions a 2,500 gallon per week mobile Pilot Plant. Ramey offered that there will be investment opportunities available at various points in EEI’s development of butanol as a green fuel.

Sources:
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1255

BioButanol Information
http://www.biobutanol.com/
http://www.biobutanol.com/info_more.html

Google
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Butanol
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=BioButanol&btnG=Google+Search

____________________________

Big Oil Defends Profits

WASHINGTON
Nov. 9, 2005
CBS/AP

The Senate hearing had yet to begin when a dispute erupted over whether the top executives of five major oil companies should testify under oath about their record profits.

Democrats wanted it that way, but Republicans balked, calling such a move a needless photo op that smacked of grandstanding. So no oath was taken.

In the three hours that followed, the executives, whose companies and parent corporations earned $32.8 billion during the last quarter, provided little beyond what the industry has been saying for weeks: Their profits are huge because the industry is huge; the companies are ready to invest billions of dollars to get more oil; and if Congress tries to punish them by imposing a windfall profits tax, it will only lead to fewer such investments.

CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports oil executives blamed gas station owners for wildly fluctuating prices at the pump and blamed OPEC for the high cost of oil.

From July through September, Orr adds:
ExxonMobil made nearly $10 Billion
Shell earned $9 billion
B.P., $6.5 billion
Conoco-Phillips and Chevron, more than $3 billion each
$33 billion total, or $110 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

The oil executives found little sympathy from senators, who said their constituents are suffering from high energy prices while Big Oil makes big profits.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., cited multimillion-dollar bonuses atop multimillion-dollar salaries and stock options the executives are getting while "working people struggle" to pay for gasoline and face the specter of soaring home heating bills.

"People are concerned about fairness and justice at a time of sacrifice," Boxer told the executives. "Your sacrifice appears to be nothing."

None of the executives responded.

There is a "growing suspicion that oil companies are taking unfair advantage," said Pete Domenici, R-N.M. "The oil companies owe the American people an explanation."

Talking to reporters after the executives were dismissed, Domenici praised them for answering all the questions but added, "The question of gouging still remains" a mystery.

Lee Raymond, chairman of ExxonMobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, acknowledged the high gasoline and home heating prices "have put a strain on Americans' household budgets," but he defended his company's profits. Petroleum earnings "go up and down" from year to year and are in line with other industries when compared with the industry's enormous revenues.

It would be a mistake, said Raymond, for the government to impose "punitive measures hastily crafted in response to short-term market fluctuations." They would probably result in less investment by the industry in refineries and other oil projects, he said.

Oil company heads also warned a tax on their windfall profits could hurt the oil supply, and rejected an idea of voluntarily giving money to help poor people heat their homes this winter, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss (audio).

ExxonMobil earned nearly $10 billion in the third quarter. Raymond was joined at the witness table by the chief executives of Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., BP America Inc. and Shell Oil Co.

But senators pressed the executives to explain why gasoline prices jumped so sharply in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when prices at the pump in some areas soared by $1 a gallon or more overnight.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., asked why the industry didn't freeze prices, as it did after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"We had to respond to the market," replied Chevron chairman David O'Reilly.

Raymond said that after Sept. 11 "the industry wasn't concerned about whether there was adequate supply," as it was after this year's Gulf storms. By keeping prices higher, adequate supplies were assured, he maintained.

Democrats said that during the storm some ExxonMobil gas station operators complained the company had raised the wholesale price of its gas by 24 cents a gallon in 24 hours.

Raymond said his company had issued guidelines "to minimize the increase in price" but added, "If we kept the price too low we would quickly run out (of fuel) at the service stations."

"It was a tough balancing act," said Raymond, who said ExxonMobil was not price gouging.

A number of Democrats have called for windfall profits taxes on the industry. Other senators, including Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., have said it may be time to enact a federal law on price gouging.

Some Republican and Democratic lawmakers have suggested that the oil companies should funnel some of their earnings to supplement a federal program that helps low-income households pay heating bills.

That brought a cool reception from the executives.

"As an industry we feel it is not a good precedent to fund a government program," said James Mulva, chairman of ConocoPhillips.

The head of the Federal Trade Commission said a federal price-gouging law "likely will do more harm than good."

"While no consumers like price increases, in fact, price increases lower demand and help make the shortage shorter-lived than it otherwise would have been," FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras told the hearing.

"That's an astounding theory of consumer protection," replied Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Mulva of ConocoPhillips said, "We are ready open our records" to dispute allegations of price gouging. ConocoPhillips earned $3.8 billion in the third quarter, an 89 percent increase over a year earlier. But Mulva said that represents only a 7.7 percent profit margin.

"We do not consider that a windfall," he said Mulva.

Chevron's O'Reilly attributed the high energy prices to tight supplies even before the hurricanes struck. He said his company is "investing aggressively in the development of new energy supplies."

Shell earned $9 billion in the third quarter, said John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., but he said the company's investment in U.S. operations over the last five years was equal to its income from U.S. sales.

"We respectfully request that Congress do no harm by distorting markets or seeking punitive taxes on an industry working hard to respond to high prices and supply shortfalls," said Hofmeister.

Source:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/09/politics/main1027607.shtml

____________________________

Four questions for Big Oil

Here are 4 questions senators can ask oil company CEO's to get at some causes of high fuel prices.

November 8, 2005
By Chris Isidore
CNN/Money senior writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The oil industry's top executives Wednesday head into dangerous public relations territory when they appear at a joint Senate committee hearing on energy prices and profits.

Not surprisingly leading Democrats have taken shots at big oil, but even some Republicans are expressing outrage over oil industry profits, which soared almost two-thirds to $25 billion in the third quarter alone, as oil and gas prices hit record highs. There have been proposals from both sides of the aisle for a windfall profit tax on the industry which cost the oil industry an estimated $79 billion during the 1980's, the last time there was such a tax.

The oil industry is already waging its own public relations campaign, arguing that profits as a percent of revenue are not out of line with other industries and that government regulations helped drive consumer prices up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

After talking to some oil industry experts and economists, here are some questions worth asking the oil industry executives at their hearing Wednesday if the point is to drive down consumer prices rather than score political points:

What can be done to create more investment in U.S. refining capacity?

It's true that there haven't been any new oil refineries built in the United States in 29 years, but even as the number of refineries fell by more than a quarter in the last 20 years, the nation's total refining capacity increased by 18 percent, according to figure from the American Petroleum Institute.

Sunoco (Research), Marathon (Research) and other oil companies have announced plans to spend billions to make major increases in their U.S. refining capacity, helping the industry to forecast that refining capacity should rise by 1 million to 1.3 million barrels a day, or about 6 to 8 percent of current capacity. That is the equivalent of six or seven new mid-sized refineries.

Still, total industry investment in refining is estimated at only $20 billion a year, or about a third of what it's spending on exploring for new sources of oil. And the industry can't say how much of the $20 billion in refinery spending goes for regular maintenance or repairs of hurricane damage, rather than expansion.

Oil analysts say returns are about four times as great from extracting oil than from refining it.

And many major oil companies see share repurchases and acquisitions as a far surer way to use their cash to raise their stock prices, rather than the longer-term investment in refining capacity that could be unprofitable if oil and gasoline prices fall.

In the first three quarters Exxon Mobil (Research) has spent $12.3 billion on exploration and refinery investments, with the lions' share of that going to exploration, and has spent $12.1 billion repurchasing its own stock.

Can't all gasoline just get along?

There are more than 50 different formulations of gasoline required to meet all of the nation's various local and state regulations. Some require ethanol. Some require other additives.

Coming up with a national or near national standard for gasoline would create economies of scale for the refining process, and reduce costs such as scrubbing out the million-gallon storage tanks as refineries switch from one type of gasoline to another. It would also prevent some of the spot shortages in some regions when a refinery outage causes shortage in specific grade of fuel.

The problem will be finding a fuel that all the various parties can agree upon, meeting environmental concerns for the smog choked cities as well as the more rural area's desire for the cheapest gasoline possible.

"I would argue that the economies of scale would give everyone cheaper gas, but I'm not sure I can prove my case empirically and people would argue with me," said Peter Beutel, oil analyst and president of Cameron Hanover. "But you're going to have to move to a highest common denominator rather than lowest common denominator."

What can be done to increase secondary storage capacity?

This is probably one of the least sexy questions that could be asked, but it's important to prevent gasoline and heating oil shocks that have become common in recent years.

Secondary storage holds the supply of fuel owned by those who sell directly to consumers, such as the owner of a chain of gas stations or a heating oil supply firm. Beutel estimates that environmental regulations have led to about a 60 percent reduction of that capacity in the last 20 years. That makes both markets more susceptible to short-term supply disruptions.

"This is a question very well addressed to the government as well as the oil companies about what can done to rebuild the capacity," said Beutel. "That's a question they probably won't get to, though, because there's no grandstanding involved."

How much more oil is out there?

This is a basic question, and one that might be raised by senators looking for debating points about opening up the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

But no matter where new sources of oil are found, oil is a true global commodity and prices are far more driven by the amount of oil available, rather than its nationality.

That's why there's so much concern in world markets about some estimates recently that Saudi Arabia's oil fields are nearing their peak capacity and that they could soon see declines in production.

While that question is hotly debated, no one questions that worldwide demand for oil is poised for steady increases as China and India see their wealth, and their number of automobiles, grow rapidly.

The question of how many decades of readily-accessible oil are left is not an easy one for oil executives to answer.

If they project a plentiful, long- term supply, it could help to depress the price of oil in current markets. If they talk about the difficulties of meeting growing demand, they open themselves up to questions about what they are doing to prepare for a post-oil world.

"They need to answer if they are going to invest in additional capacity and whether that will meet the growing demand," said A. F. Alhajji, professor at Ohio Northern University. "Production has to increase to match that increased use or there will be a crisis."

For more on the oil executives scheduled appearance before the Senate, click here.
For a look at the chances for Congress imposing a windfall profit tax on the oil industry, click here.

Source:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/07/news/economy/oil_questions/index.htm

______________________________

Bush feels hand of God as poll ratings slump

President's popularity in US reaches all-time low as Maradona leads angry protests in Argentina

Julian Borger in Washington
Uki Goni in Buenos Aires
Saturday November 5, 2005
The Guardian

America's faith in George Bush and in his decision to go to war in Iraq has plummeted in the wake of a White House intelligence scandal that went to court this week, according to a new poll.

As the president encountered violent protests in Argentina at the start of his Latin America tour yesterday, a survey published by the Washington Post and ABC News showed that public confidence was eroding rapidly back home.

Nearly six in 10 Americans, 58%, said they had doubts about the president's honesty, a 13% rise in 18 months. Only 32% believed Mr Bush was handling ethical issues well, a significantly worse score than Bill Clinton achieved in his last scandal-besmirched year in office. His overall popularity has plunged to 39%, a new low for the Washington
Post/ABC survey.

Mr Bush is no more popular in Argentina, where a protest by several thousand demonstrators turned ugly. In the coastal city of Mar del Plata, where he is attending a regional summit, protesters set fire to a bank, looted stores and battled riot police.

Earlier, the tone was struck by the former football star Diego Maradona, who wore a "Stop Bush" T-shirt to an anti-Bush "counter-summit" that drew some 4,000 protesters from around the world and easily eclipsed the official summit in the public's attention. "I'm proud as an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human trash, George Bush," said Maradona.

Maradona's anti-Bush sentiment was replicated across a country driven to a near standstill by tens of thousands of people angry at the Iraq war and the US president's push for a region-wide free trade deal. Hospital and subway workers went on strike in Buenos Aires.

The latest popularity poll was published after Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the first White House aide for 130 years to be indicted in office. He appeared in court on Thursday to plead not guilty to five charges of lying to investigators.

At its core, the case concerns the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction assembled by Mr Libby - at the time the vice-president's chief of staff - and other White House officials to justify the war in Iraq. The president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, is still under investigation for his role in the case, which has refocused attention on the WMD debacle.

According to yesterday's poll, 55% of Americans think the president "intentionally misled the American public" in making the case for war, and 60% now believe it was not worth fighting. Yesterday, Mr Bush was asked whether Mr Rove would keep his job. He refused to discuss the issue on the grounds that the investigation was ongoing.

"I understand the preoccupation with polls," he said. "The way you build credibility with the American people is to set a clear agenda ... and get the job done. And the agenda I am working now is important to the American people."

He pointed to the growth of the US economy, but the poll suggested he was facing scepticism there too. Despite a 3.8% growth rate over the past three months, nearly two-thirds of respondents believed the economy was performing poorly.

Mr Bush is hoping to revive a plan for free trade across the Americas. Yet his economic ideas find few fans in South America, where growing poverty and unemployment are blamed squarely on the free trade policies applied during the past 15 years by regional governments under pressure from the US and the International Monetary Fund.

"We are marching against the creation of a free trade region in the Americas, against the repayment of the foreign debt and against the militarisation of Latin America," said the Argentinian economist Julio Gambina as he arrived with the marchers at the Mar del Plata sports stadium, where Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, addressed the "counter-summit". Mr Chávez, possibly Mr Bush's most vociferous detractor in the western hemisphere, left the American president in no doubt about the opposition to his free trade pact, saying: "Every one of us has brought an a shovel, an undertaker's shovel, because here in Mar del Plata is the tomb of [the pact]."

The 15,000-strong crowd broke out in a roar as Maradona, riding high on his rebirth as Argentina's leading television personality with his own weekly talkshow, embraced Mr Chávez at the microphone and roared:
"Argentina has its dignity! Let's throw Bush out of here!".

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1635037,00.html

_________________________________

China's changing farms damaging soil and water

Exclusive from New Scientist
By Fred Pearce
September 2004

China's economic revolution is coming at a cost. While improved prosperity and government incentives convinced millions of people to give up the rural life and move into towns and cities, China's agriculture is in rapid decline, prompting fears that the country that is home to one-fifth of the world's population will soon be unable to feed itself.

Those fears have been heightened by two new reports by Chinese scientists. They reveal that a national push to encourage farmers to abandon the millennia-old tradition of growing rice in favor of fruit and vegetables is having a profound and detrimental affect on the quality of China's soil and water.

After just five years, fields growing fruit and vegetables are becoming more acidic and barren, while nitrogen and phosphorus levels and fungal epidemics are rising sharply.

Since 1998, the area of land in China devoted to grain crops has fallen by 15 per cent. In August, Beijing confirmed that grain yields have fallen by a fifth in that time, and consumption in 2004 is expected to exceed production by a record 37 million tons. This demand for imported grain has triggered a 30 per cent rise in global grain prices in 2004, and further rises are expected as Chinese demand soars.

The root problem is that China is urbanizing fast. Already 500 million Chinese live in towns and cities, and the government wants that to rise to 800 million by 2020. Cities are spreading across former farmland and are getting first call on scarce water resources.

They are also changing food markets: while prices for grains such as wheat and rice are capped by the government, city people are willing to pay high prices for fruit and vegetables. And the government is encouraging millions of farmers to meet this soaring demand by converting rice and wheat fields to growing these more profitable crops.

More acidic

As a result, in the past decade, farmers have converted 13 million hectares, an area the size of England, to fruit and vegetables. It is this unprecedented change that has triggered the new concern about deteriorating soils.

Researchers from the government's Institute of Soil Science in Nanjing have found that soils in fields converted to growing vegetables are becoming dramatically more acid, with average pH falling from 6.3 to 5.4 in 10 years. Meanwhile nitrates in the soils are at four times previous levels, and phosphate levels are up tenfold (Environmental Geochemistry and Health, vol 26, p 97 and p 119).

The changes in soil chemistry have been accompanied by an equally dramatic decline in soil bacteria and an epidemic of fungus. The deterioration is worst when the crops are grown under plastic.

These changes are starting to hit vegetable yields and quality. "Some plants show abnormal growth, deformed fruits and various plant diseases which are not easy to control by the usual pesticides," says Cao Zhihong of the Institute of Soil Science. There is, in addition, "wide concern because of possible groundwater and well drinking water pollution by leached nitrates and phosphates". Already, a third of well water exceeds government norms for nitrate.

"Anything that disrupts microbial activity and function in soil could be expected to affect long-term soil productivity, and have serious consequences," says Rui Yin, a co-author of the studies.

Western agronomists suggest that changes in soil chemistry are not being caused by growing fruit and vegetables, but by farmers applying too much fertilizer to them. While China harvests a similar amount of the crops to the US, it uses almost twice as much fertilizer, says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in the US and an expert on Chinese agriculture.

Related Articles
Asian farmers sucking the continent dry
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6321

28 August 2004
Sewage waters a tenth of world's irrigated crops
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6297

18 August 2004
Chinese dams blamed for Mekong's bizarre flow
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4819

Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6399

_____________________

LIBBY CASE ALREADY "FIXED"

COVER-UP/DECEPTIONS

FLASHBACK: FBI translator suit dismissed over security issues The Justice Department and the FBI both argued to the court that her lawsuit should be dismissed because much of the information needed to be considered for it was protected by the "state secrets privilege," which is meant to protect classified national security information from being disclosed.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton agreed with the government's position and Judge Reggie Walton will be hearing Libby's case.

"Somehow", Libby's case has been assigned to a Bush appointee. I am NOT reassured by this.

Is Patrick Fitzgerald a Zealous "Independent" Prosecutor or Experienced Cover-up Artist?

"Coincidentally, the U.S. Attorney for Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, on the job for only a couple of weeks, had extensive experience as a terrorism prosecutor and immediately became involved in the investigation of BIF [Benevolence International Foundation] and GRF [Global Relief Foundation]"

Let’s take a look back………..

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

Terrorist Financing Staff Monograph

Chapter 6 - The Illinois Charities Case Study

And "Fitzgerald immersed himself in the case and took a major role"?

Well, this was quite a "coincidence."

In this post Re: FRANK RICH: It's Bush-Cheney, Not Rove-Libby!!!!, I explained that Fitzgerald also was part of the prosecution team in the Omar Abdel Rahman case. Just to recap this, the prosecutors in the Rahman case didn't want their case thrown out on "national security" grounds, so they were careful to totally leave the CIA out of the picture. The leading prosecutor even claimed that when they discovered this "mujahideen" paramilitary training by Rahman's followers, "the FBIs concern was that the group could be violating federal 'neutrality' laws."

Of course, everybody knows that the US was not "neutral" in the Afghan war, and US officials publicly eulogized the "mujahideen" as "freedom fighters." I think that Fitzgerald's role in the Rahman case indicates that the Valerie Plame case will remain as matter of "Rove-Libby," and not "Bush-Cheney."

After examining Fitzgerald's role in the GRF & BIF cases, I am even more convinced that this Valerie Plame case will not reach the "Bush-Cheney" level. Just look at the outcome of the BIF & GRF cases. As soon as the investigations reached those close to higherups in Washington, the prosecutors seemed to spend more time on a coverup, than on pursuing a bona fide investigation. Then attorney general Ashcroft kept a tight rein on the BIF-Arnaout case. "The case fell apart and Arnaout was convicted only of fraud." The terrorism charges were dropped and the DOJ reached this plea deal with Arnaout. It doesn't look like the feds ever even intended to bring a criminal case against the Haddad or the GRF. The plan seemed to be to lock him up until they got him out of the country.

"The decision to deport him rather than continue the criminal investigation was made in Washington, without consultation with the Detroit case agent who had investigated Haddad"? I think that the feds opted to skip a public trial and to get Haddad deported because Haddad had worked directly with the Bin Laden, Azzam, & MAK. With Arnaout, he did work for MAK, but there was more distance between him & the hierarchy of the MAK. GRF co-founder "Rabih Haddad had worked for years for bin Laden¡®s [and Azzam's] Makhtab al-Khidamat, which supported the tens of thousands of Arabs who rushed to Afghanistan to join the anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s." A GRF attorney said "The United States also supported that organization [Makhtab al-Khidamat] then." This is true. A BIF attorney also correctly stated that "Mr. Arnaout's activities in war-torn regions like Afghanistan in the 1980's and Bosnia in the 1990's came on behalf of many of the same rebel fighters the United States was backing then." I think this is the main reason why Fitzgerald came to have such a "major role" in these cases. He had already proved himself in the Rahman case, as someone who knew when to limit the scope of these inquiries. Quite frankly, if he didn't have this reputation, I think that the Bush administration would have found a way to get him off the Valerie Plame case.

It came out in the Kifah Waed Jayyousi case that Rahman's followers had "a network across North America to fund-raise for and recruit mujahedeen to train and fight in various areas including but not limited to Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, and Somalia." Jayyousi "was transferring money intended for Chechen militants through the Global Relief Foundation." Fitzgerald would have been well aware of a connection between the GRF and the followers of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman through Alkifah and Wadih El Hage:

"At the beginning of the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, El Hage left Louisiana and traveled to Pakistan to enroll in mujahedeen war training programs. Thousands of young Arab men from around the world flocked to Pakistan to help the Afghans expel the Soviets. Sources told FRONTLINE that El Hage was a follower of Sheik Abdullah Azzam, one of the most important spiritual leaders of the Arab mujahedeen forces. Azzam preached that the war in Afghanistan was a jihad, or holy war, and that those who participated would have a special place in heaven...

In early 1991, according to El Hage's grand jury testimony, he was called to New York to help direct the Alkifah Refugee Center, a Brooklyn-based group that raised money to support veterans of the Afghan war. According to documents from the World Trade Center case, Alkifah had a Tucson office and contacts with the main mosque in Arlington, Texas, and family members confirmed that El Hage had been in contact with the group." "

Azzam was also involved with Brooklyn's Alkifah group. During the CIAs Jihad, to the ¡°US intelligence community, "Azzam was considered a prime asset because of his close connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi intelligence, and the Muslim World League." Note that Rahman himself had received four visas from "CIA agents acting as consular officers at American embassies in Khartoum and Cairo." Alkifah in Brooklyn ¡°became the de facto headquarters of¡± Rahman. This was the springboard for building up this "string of jihad offices that had been set up across America with the help of Saudi and American intelligence.¡± This network didn't dry up after the Cold War ended. It came out in Rahman's trial that his followers were receiving funds from the Saudi embassy in Washington to recruit for Bosnia. See: Al Qaeda Recruited U.S. Servicemen: Testimony Links Plot To Saudi Gov't. Alkifah followed suit: ARAB VETERANS OF AFGHANISTAN WAR LEAD NEW ISLAMIC HOLY WAR

[Oct. 1994] "The Al-Kifah, or Struggle, Refugee Center in New York, which used to recruit and raise funds for Mujahedeen headed for Afghanistan, last year announced it was switching its operations to Bosnia. It was established in the mid-1980s by Egyptian Mustafa Rahman as a joint venture with Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, spiritual leader of Gamaat al-Islamiya."

If the FBI wanted to know what the GRF & BIF were doing and where the money was going, they didn't have to rely on what they found in trash bins. The GRF & BIF didn't exactly keep their agenda a secret. It was known for years that these "charities" did a lot more just than feed starving kids. This List of Muslim Relief Organizations was published by the Muslim Students Association of the USA and Canada in the 1990's. The BIF & GRF are listed:

A Little History………..

Benevolence International Foundation
PO Box 548, Worth, IL 60482 USA
Tel. 708-233-0062
Fax. 708-233-0069
Email: bif@benevolence.org

URL: http://www.benevolence.org

Focus: Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) is a humanitarian organization dedicated to helping those afflicted by wars. BIF first provides short-term relief such as emergency food distribution, and then moves on to long term projects providing education and self-sufficiency to the children, widowed, refugees, injured and staff of vital governmental institutions.

Current list of projects include running refugee camps, hospitals and clinics, sponsoring orphans, operating vocational and computer centers, and conducting seasonal projects.

Established in 1987, BIF is currently conducting projects in five countries including Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Daghestan, and Tajikistan.

BIF is incorporated in the state of Illinois, USA as a non-profit, humanitarian organization and coordinates its efforts through an office in Chicago. BIF is solely supported by private donations and does not receive any governmental assistance.
Entry updated: Apr 1999. .......


Global Relief Foundation
PO Box 1406, Bridgeview, IL 60455
Phone: 1-888-256-2532 (1-888-ALNAJDA)
Phone: 708-233-1473
Fax: 708-233-1474
Email: talk2grf@aol.com
Email: info@grf.org

URL: http://www.grf.org
US Tax ID#: 36-3804626

Focus: Chechnya, Kosova (Kosovo) and other places. You can ask for a documentary illustrating the genocide in Kosovo. You can use this documentary to create awareness and raise funding for Kosvo. You can order English/Arabic.
Entry updated: Dec 1999."

The sad part is ..... "Scooter" will walk away from all of this with a book deal, and shit-eating grin on his face .... BUSH will roll on him, and give him one of them thar "good ol' boy's pardons" on his way out the backdoor of the White House in about two years ... in the mean time, keep your Vaseline jar handy ..... BUSH ain't finished with you .... or Amerika yet ...........

Well now! one indictment for these lying traitorous bastards......perhaps 20 more to go after they dig into the false lies that have led to over 2000 dead kids in IRAQ and over 15000 wounded!

Hopefully this scum will get railroaded out of office the same as his nemesis Richard Nixon in total disgrace! I may be a petty Felon considered guilty prior to trial as these bastards have. However, my actions never led to the unnecessary deaths and squander of public funds as these bottom of the barrel parasites are guilty of. There is no sense of honor or duty with these kind of maggots. AWOL, draft dodging, deferments seeking assholes describe the moral attributes of these people. Not only these Republicans elected to office, but democrats like Clinton who managed to escape his bullet as well. Their past and very nature paints the total disregard they would have in wasting our youth in an illegal an unconstitutional war, based on the premises of lies.

This was just a STALL TACTIC to prevent REAL RESISTANCE before these SCUM could get WWIII started. It's now INEVITABLE!! There will be NO REAL INVESTIGATION! This was to demoralize YOU further.

ON OCTOBER 28, 2005 ..... Irv Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted for his part in the notorious "Plame-Gate" farce, which has become the biggest joke going since Bubba got caught with his "flavored" cigar, after a night with Monica ...

That scuzzy "lawyer" will of course walk away with nothing more than loosing his license to cheat (in the courts) ... and no doubt, a newly minted multi-millionaire ... all he has to do is "take the fall" until the last minute, when "The Shrub" sneaks out the servant's entrance in the middle of the night, and pardon him on his way out of office, just as Bubba did for all his co-conspiritors!

Unless Fitzgerald squeezes hard (and I doubt he will), neither Scooter nor Rove will be a hinderance to the Bush nightmare ....

GRAB your Vaeseline or KY .. there is more wonderful things to come ... BOHICA!

http://valis.cjb.cc/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=100

_________________________