WMDs were in Iraq - Blood for Oil was a lie

...REPOSTED FROM LAST WEEK BECAUSE THE DHIMMIS STILL DON'T GET IT:

The president's critics accuse his administration of falsifying intelligence about Saddam Hussein having the capability of building weapons of mass destruction.This stems from the claim that the president solely relied on intelligence that Saddam was trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapons program. These reports later proved to be inaccurate. The media failed to emphasize, however, that Saddam was already in possession of 550 tons of yellowcake uranium, which he was storing at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex south of Baghdad. That uranium was found and secured by coalition troops in 2003 after they liberated Iraq and was finally transported to Canada in July 2008. The president's critics also blast him for allegedly implementing a new policy of Iraqi regime change when in fact that policy was established in the Iraq Liberation Act, signed by President Clinton in 1998.The Act made it the official policy of the United States to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.

Here is Noam Chomsky recently on WMDs. I know he is a liar, but even he does not agree with the idea that there were no WMDs

Chomsky: "This is even sometimes discussed. You can find it in the strategic analysis literature. Take, say, the invasion of Iraq again. We're told that they didn't find weapons of mass destruction. Well, that's not exactly correct. They did find weapons of mass destruction, namely, the ones that had been sent to Saddam by the United States, Britain, and others through the 1980s. A lot of them were still there. They were under control of U.N. inspectors and were being dismantled. But many were still there. When the U.S. invaded, the inspectors were kicked out, and Rumsfeld and Cheney didn't tell their troops to guard the sites. So the sites were left unguarded, and they were systematically looted. The U.N. inspectors did continue their work by satellite and they identified over 100 sites that were systematically looted, like, not somebody going in and stealing something, but carefully, systematically looted." via Chomsky info

As someone who did not vote for G.W. Bush, I find it amusing that I have spent half a decade defending his actions. Bush was the Bunny Lebowski of politics. A political *bimbo* who prostituted the concept of "Moderate" Islam for his Saudi friends (just like Obama). We threw out a Ringer for a Ringer. (The Chomsky quote is referenced in the post so you can see the html I am quoting)

keep in mind that Saddam himself wanted the world to know he had WMDs: Saddam knew he was finished and was trying to get history to view him in a more favorable light. The man murdered thousands of his own people and was capable of just about any kind of violence and bloodshed. I don't believe he feared Iran (over which he had an overwhelming advantage at the outset of their war) and I don't believe he wanted to cowtow to the United States.
An American leader can declare war simply because there is an attempt of assassination. America can declare war because Iraq was supporting terrorism that killed American citizens. As for the WMDs I find it amusing that people thought they would just show up. did you expect them to give them to us? they found Uranium reserves south of Baghdad.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/22/to-dispel-bush-clouds/


In the coming months, years and decades, history will be the judge of what kind of leader former President Bush was, but those Americans interested in preserving his legacy must take an aggressive approach to dispel the many myths and lies that already exist.
Clearly, the most contested area of Mr. Bush's presidency will be his foreign policy, namely his decision to send troops to Iraq. For several years, numerous myths have existed about the war, and it is imperative that we correct any falsehoods for the historical record.
These myths have falsely portrayed Mr. Bush as an imperialist president who illegally invaded a foreign country to seize its oil and dominate its people.
via washingtontimes.com

the US got very little crude oil from Iraq when compared to its other suppliers, while in fact France got a much larger percentage of its total oil requirements from Iraq, and so too did Germany.

so there would be the incentive for Europe to be against a war... wouldn't there be?

If the US defeated Saddam Hussein solely to gain access to Iraqi crude oil, wouldn’t one reasonably think that the governments would have rigged the auctions so that the US could take Iraq’s crude cheaply, effectively and quickly? Exxon Mobil was the only US company that lead a winning bid team in the recent auction, winning the right to develop Iraq's West Qurna 1. Royal Dutch Shell won the right to operate the Majnoon field. The Majnoon has a production target of 1.8 million bpd, and Royal Dutch Shell’s joint bid gets it 45% of that total. Malaysia's Petronas joined Royal Dutch Shell and “won” 30%, with the rest kicked down to more and more minor partners none of which were American.

...Even now, we are hardly dependent at all upon Iraqi crude oil, for as of September Iraq ranks behind Algeria, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and of course Canada, and it is barely ahead of “mighty” Ecuador, with Brazil having ranked ahead of Iraq several times in the past six months but having ranked below Iraq in August and September...

via moneyrunner.blogspot.com

The truth however, is that Mr. Bush liberated a country from the cruelty and oppression of a sadistic dictator, returned the oil to the Iraqi people and acted in full compliance with both domestic and international law. In fact, Mr. Bush's decision to send troops back to Iraq not only complied with international law but fulfilled obligations set by the United Nations.

In October 2002, Congress authorized the president to use whatever military force was necessary to fulfill U.N. resolutions pertaining to Iraq and the Gulf war. This was because after the U.N. authorized a coalition of the willing to use military force against Iraq for its illegal invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the U.N. temporarily suspended the Gulf war in 1991 with a cease-fire agreement that imposed stipulations upon Saddam Hussein.
Saddam violated those cease-fire conditions by failing to give U.N. weapon inspectors unfettered access, which actually prompted military action from President Clinton in 1998 when he launched a massive bombing campaign against Iraq during Operation Desert Fox.
In 2002, the United Nations resolved that Saddam was in "material breach" of the cease-fire agreement and that Iraq faced "serious consequences." Because the cease-fire did not end but merely suspended the Gulf war, Saddam Hussein's continued violations of the agreement reactivated the war.
President Bush did not start a new war in 2003 that violated domestic or international law. He merely complied with Congress' 2002 vote by honoring resolutions passed by the United Nations that reactivated the original Gulf war.
The president's critics accuse his administration of falsifying intelligence about Saddam Hussein having the capability of building weapons of mass destruction. This stems from the claim that the president solely relied on intelligence that Saddam was trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapons program. These reports later proved to be inaccurate.
The media failed to emphasize, however, that Saddam was already in possession of 550 tons of yellowcake uranium, which he was storing at the Tuwaitha nuclear complex south of Baghdad. That uranium was found and secured by coalition troops in 2003 after they liberated Iraq and was finally transported to Canada in July 2008.
The president's critics also blast him for allegedly implementing a new policy of Iraqi regime change when in fact that policy was established in the Iraq Liberation Act, signed by President Clinton in 1998. The Act made it the official policy of the United States to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. President Bush did not implement a new policy of regime change in Iraq. He was acting in the spirit of the policy already established by President Clinton.
The decision to send troops back to Iraq in 2003 was indeed liberation and not an invasion. Investigations by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the U.S. Department of State and the British government have all found evidence that the Iraqi people lived under a regime that systematically employed methods of torture and fear. Dissidents suffered from bizarre, cruel methods of torture including dismemberment, piercing, bone-crushing, cutting, acid baths and imprisonment inside coffin-size cells.
Women accused of prostitution were publicly beheaded without a trial and male soldiers were authorized to rape women to punish their family members for political resistance. Men were often forced to watch soldiers rape their wives, sisters and daughters as a method of punishment when the female victim was innocent.
The removal of Saddam Hussein from power was not an invasion, it was liberation.
One of the most widely spread conspiracy theories about President Bush and the war is the false allegation that he sent troops to Iraq to illegally steal its oil. There is no truth to this allegation. In fact, the new Oil Draft Law under consideration by the Iraqi government proposes using "production-sharing agreements," which is the same type of oil distribution system used in Iraq for decades.
Production-sharing agreements allow foreign governments or private corporations to drill for oil and keep a small percentage of profits for their work while giving the majority of profits earned to the host country. The new Oil Draft Law will continue to implement production-sharing agreements, but the Iraqi profits will now go to the new democratic government instead of Saddam. The United States is not stealing any oil from Iraq.
There are many more myths and lies the far left has successfully perpetuated about Mr. Bush and the liberation of Iraq, but this column is not the appropriate forum to dispel them. Because these lies have been so deeply ingrained in the consciousness of the American public, those wishing to restore the president's reputation must take a pro-active, aggressive approach that exports knowledge to the people.
Merely relying on a passive institute such as a presidential library and waiting for people to learn the truth on their own will not be sufficient in this unique case. Most people who visit the new George W. Bush presidential library will most likely already be sympathetic to him and there must be a more aggressive approach used to inform all Americans.
It is perhaps one of the greatest historical ironies and tragedies that a leader who cares so deeply about human rights and the freedom of oppressed people has been falsely portrayed as an imperialist invader. It is time for those working on the former president's legacy to adequately communicate his vision of worldwide liberation to the American people. The historical record must be corrected to accurately reflect President Bush's legacy and for the honor of our country.
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is the National Organizer of HONOR FREEDOM (www.honorfreedom.com), a nonprofit foundation dedicated to correcting the historical record about President Bush and the war in Iraq.

via washingtontimes.com

For those you of that read this and many other rational blogs, you quite familiar with my frustration with the lack of any investigation into the missing WMDs here and here and and as far back as 10/04 here. We know existed (just ask thethousands of families of dead Kurds). We have suffered
through the mendacity of Dhimmicarts talking points "NO WMDS" and leftwing memes to the point where the lie has become accepted the accepted "myth" (to the point where it damn near cost Bush the election) - now there is a really frightening thought.


Saddam WMD: The Mother of All Cover Ups


.So it is long overdue and long necessary that Washington step out from the Democrat's horsewhipping, and fight for the truth particularly now when Iran has all but declared war on the West. It was Syria, Iran's proxy - it's organ grinder's monkey-, that allegedly took possession of the Saddam's WMD. More Here.

- Nearly a year and a half
after a final report from American weapons inspectors concluded they
could not uncover evidence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence has reopened the question.......

Chairman Peter Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan, is said by his
staff to believe that it is too soon to conclude that Saddam Hussein
either destroyed or never had the stockpiles and programs to produce
biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons that Western intelligence
agencies insisted he had before the war.
In the weeks before and following the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, at least 10 facilities believed by American, European, and Israeli intelligence to be for the production and research of chemical and biological weapons were systematically looted by members of Iraq's Republican Guard, ordered by the regime's leadership to destroy and hide evidence of the programs, according to current and former intelligence officials from America, Britain and Israel. In interviews with the New York Sun, these officials reflect the position of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in the months after the war: "

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence."

Mr. Ware yesterday said Mr. Hoekstra is worried that equipment or stocks of biological and chemical weapons could have been transferred to a third country or landed in the hands of terrorists.

Story here

I'll say

The former undersecretary of
defense for policy, Douglas Feith, said the question of Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction is still open. "People talk about the former Soviet loose nukes problem. The question is whether this is a loose WMD problem," also held by the State Department's chief of Iraq intelligence between 2003 and 2005, Wayne White. In an interview this week, Mr. White, said, "Just as the pre-war WMD intelligence was largely wrong, the conclusion after the war that absolutely nothing was in Iraq could also be wrong."

Even the mendacious left believes the WMD are somewhere;

Canada's Globe and Mail, Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state under President Clinton who would go on to become a foreign policy adviser to Howard Dean during the 2004 election season, raised the prospect of Saddam's missing weapons in terms similar to Mr. Feith. "The richest treasure trove of dangerous WMD material since the collapse of the Soviet Union is on the loose and perhaps far easier for al-Qaeda and other terrorists to acquire than it was under the control of their ideological adversary, Saddam Hussein," she wrote.

The former deputy of the Iraqi air force, General Georges Sada, revealed on
Saturday that that former dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, ordered him
during the first Gulf War to bomb Israeli population centers with chemical weapons. More here.

Why, indeed, did they stop short of Baghdad in '91?

Who can forget the entire population of Israel wearing gas masks during Saddam's SCUD missile attack during the 1991 Gulf war testimony to the House

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, David Kay said "Deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation related to weapons programs began pre-conflict and ran trans-to-post conflict."

A former colonel for Israeli military intelligence who worked onIraqi issues, Miri Eisin, says of a transfer of weapons to Syria, "I don't know all of it, but some things went in that route. At the end ofthe day, it would be the type of things they could hide. This wouldstrike out the biological type things, but they could get chemical weapons, possibly residual missile parts."

Photo here: During Iraqi Scud attacks against Israel in 1991, school

children were trained in the proper fitting of gas masks, lest any of the missiles actually be tipped with poison weapons.
Related Articles:
Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says
Saddam's WMD Moved to Syria, An Israeli Says

via atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com

you might find it interesting that now that the blood for oil claim has been proven false, that many nazis on the internet are defaulting to the stance that it was all Israel's fault. here is a link to a forum that is now blaming Israel instead of the oil companies. http://ff.im/cTjr8

the story changes, but the focused hate and prejudice stays the same. Any progressives that fell for this ruse were Asses

The Ayatollah Leviathan: Power In Iran Today - Hudson New York

It's uncanny how the Iranian government justifies their abuse through philosophy. Even the use of rape in the jails needs to be justified through rational argument. Sometimes through the Quran and Sura, but sometimes through Western philosophy.  If it were not so horrific it would be of intriguing.  

The misrulers of Iran claim inspiration from the Qur’an and other Islamic sources, as well as Plato’s concept of the “philosopher-king.” But it now seems they are inspired by a more recent Western thinker, Thomas Hobbes. In his classic on the state, Leviathan, Hobbes wrote, “the aim of punishment is not revenge, but terror.” The Iranian government takes Hobbes as their guide for maintaining the Ayatollahs’ Leviathan in power.

Recent political murders by “uncontrolled” radicals supporting the Iranian regime are a major element in the government’s response to public demands for political rights. The patron of terror against the people is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who declared on the second day after the presidential election last year that he would “confront and deal violently with any opposition.”

This attitude has translated into selective assassinations, in the prisons and in the streets. But the regime has a varied inventory of repressive methods. First, members of state institutions like the Organization of Islamic Revolutionary Mujahidin, leaders of student unions, and prominent political personalities were jailed for less than a year. The government tried to force confessions out of them, but that scenario, borrowed from Russian Communism, failed.

via hudsonny.org

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband." "I regret that, even though the marriages were legal," he said. Why the regret, if the marriages were "legal?" "Because," he went on, "I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die. "I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over," he said. "I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her

via friendfeed.com

In the second phase, the government aggravated its brutality and torture, imprisoning representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations, journalists, human rights activists, and labor leaders. Families of prisoners have been left uninformed of their fate, and prisoners have died under torture. The latest instance is the death of Alborz Ghasemi, a political detainee at the notorious Evin Prison. His case has not been reported in global media.

The third stage has involved open terror in the streets, and more assassinations of opposition activisits. During the student demonstrations and street protests in Tehran, dozens of marchers were killed by “unidentified” shooters. The regime tries to deny the killings occurred or blames reports of them on U.S. and British “spies” in media.

The personnel at Iran's state television surpassed their bosses when they reported on the murder of the young female martyr Neda Soltanagha , whose image was transmitted around the world. Iranian State TV alleged she was killed by foreigners or by her boyfriend, the main witness to her death. Perhaps next they will assert she was slain in a so-called “honor” murder. But Neda the beloved “Iranian angel,” as she is called by the people, was killed by people without honor, who occupy the seats of power. To deny this is to deny that the sun shines during the day. The same day Neda was killed, at least 28 other protesters were massacred in Tehran according to the government’s own statements.

The Iranian leaders have lost any sense of Iran’s need for stability. A stable Iran is necessary for the security of the whole world, as well as for the defeat of Wahhabism and other radical influences in Islam. The Shia government in Iran has betrayed the ideals of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and martyr for freedom and justice, killed at Kerbala more than 1,300 years ago in a tragedy Shias never forget.

The rulers of Iran have taken the road of the evil Yezid, who ordered the slaying of Husayn and whose spirit kills Islam.

Ayatollah Khamenei, in his latest speech on “Quds Day,” which is supposedly dedicated to the defense of the Palestinians, repeated his earlier attacks on the Iranian reformists, who march for a peaceful change in the government and a new confidence in the people. Instead, Khamenei called for more hatred of Israel and America, blaming the West for Iran’s upheaval. The real message of his rhetoric against Israel and America is marginalization of the opposition, who are described as foreign agents. This propaganda is a green light for the complete liquidation of the reformists.

The Iranian people have begun answering these claims in their own, new way. In demonstrations on November 4, 2009, the 30th anniversary of the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, demonstrators chanted “Death to Russia and China !” Both countries are allies and totalitarian models for the Iranian dictatorship. Official Iranian TV claimed that in the Ashura demonstrations on December 27, young boys and girls with covered faces carried a banner reading “Down With the Taliban Ruling Iran.” This appears to have been a fabrication intended to undermine the reform movement. The government’s thugs have their own slogan: “Obedience to religious governance is required by Islam.”

Seyyed Muhammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s predecessor in the presidency, has reacted to claims that the opposition represents a foreign conspiracy by warning that an extreme reaction to the protests will worsen, not improve, the situation. Muhammad Rafsanjani, younger brother of Khamenei’s rival, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has declared, “dialogue and discussion are better than street fighting, and people should try to find a rational course.”

Ayatollah Khamenei, the cleric as a face of Leviathan, is increasingly alone in his fantasy world of conspiracy theories.

via hudsonny.org

Whose side is he on anyway?

ok maybe I take that back about Berlusconi. I was happy to hear we had a friend. kind of desperate of me... 

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is here visiting, and it's been going quite well. Berlusconi condemned the Goldstone Report for trying to "incriminate Israel for its legitimate response" to Palestinian rocket attacks.
He announced that the World cannot accept a nuclear armed Iran, and called on the international community to pursue stronger sanctions against the terror regime. "

We cannot accept the nuclearization of a country whose leaders have explicitly expressed their desire to destroy Israel, have denied the Holocaust and delegitimized the Jewish state," Berlusconi said, in remarks translated into Hebrew simultaneously.
"We cannot make compromises," he said. "The path that must be taken is multilateral oversight, negotiations and sanctions" against Iran.

He called for Israel to be a member of the European Union (thanks, but no thanks - can you see us with our foreign policy run by Lady Catherine Ashton?).
He listened attentively as Deputy Prime Minister Sylvan Shalom asked him to get Iran's Revolutionary Guards declared a terror group.
And then he went to visit Abu Bluff and came up with this line:

"Whenever war takes the place of peace, whenever violence takes the place of reason, humanity disappears. The relationship between men that should always be kept intact disappears," Berlusconi said at a joint news conference with Abbas. "So just as it's right to cry for the victims of the Shoah, it's right to show pain for what happened in Gaza."

Yes, of course. The 'concentration camp' in Gaza is just like the ones in Poland, isn't it?

I guess while he was here, he was just saying what he thought we wanted to hear. I heard he does the same thing with 18-year old girls - he tells them what he thinks they want to hear.
There's a lesson here somewhere. I leave it to all of you to find it. In the meantime, I hope someone punches Berlusconi in the face again.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Budget Proves Obama LIED About Drilling For Oil In SOTU

We might not always agree on ways to reduce dependency on foreign oil, but at least we request our leaders to be honest with us about what they are going to do. Obama promised more transparency and he has become the public relations president = A chronic liar

During his State of the Union Address President Obama gave us hope that the US would finally tap its own resources to make us energy independent:

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies

Sadly like most of the promises coming from this President this pledge came with an expiration date. Only this expiration had a short window, only five days. When President Obama sent out his budget, it showed a decline in revenue from oil land leases, meaning he planned to be more restrictive in allowing off-shore-drilling than before.
Congressman Hastings issue this press release with the facts from the budget:

In the Presidents’ budget proposal released yesterday, the Administration is anticipating that revenue from new Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing will decline over the next five years. The only way revenue would decline is if less of the OCS is offered for leasing for energy production.


“Despite what the President lead the country to believe in his State of the Union address, this budget proves that the Obama Administration has no intention of opening up new areas for offshore drilling,” said House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings. “In the summer of 2008 when gas prices were skyrocketing, the public demanded that both Congress and the President lift the decades-long ban on offshore drilling. Although there are now 500 million more acres available for offshore energy production, this Administration has deliberately decided to do even less than when the ban was in place. In fact, just days after taking office, this Administration went against the will of the people and reinstituted a defacto moratorium on offshore energy production by delaying the development of a new five-year OCS plan. As this budget shows, the decision not to develop our nation’s energy resources will cost millions of dollars in lost revenue and prevent the creation of a million new jobs throughout the country.”


The table below, included in the President’s FY 2011 budget, shows rents and bonuses from offshore energy production in the OCS falling from $1.5 billion in 2009, to only $413 million in FY2015. Bonuses are paid when a company obtains a new lease; rents are paid when a company holds the lease while conducting exploration.


The President’s 2013 estimate of $409 million is $123 million below the FY09 Bush Administration budget estimate for the same year – even though there was a Congressional moratorium in place at the time. This means that the Obama Administration’s current policies are more restrictive on offshore energy development than the previous moratorium.

(Source: White House FY 2011 Budget, pg. 198) 

via yidwithlid.blogspot.com

Colombia sees reserves rise

Colombia could add as much as 6 billion barrels of oil to its reserves over the next decade if exploration holds at the current pace and state-controlled Ecopetrol boosts recovery rates, a top energy official said today.

News wires Wednesday, 03 February, 2010, 23:27 GMT

Colombia's National Hydrocarbons Agency will auction nearly 200 oil and gas exploration blocks in June as part of a programme that began in 2004.

The sales are likely to boost proven oil and gas reserves from a current 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent as investment picks up into one of Latin America's fastest growing energy sectors.

"The optimistic scenario would be that we'd go to in excess of 6 billion barrels of oil between now and 2020 and that would bring us to a very comfortable position," agency director Armando Zamora said in Toronto during the first leg of a road trip to present the auction to Canadian investors.

He said the official goal was to add 4 billion barrels in the decade.

THE FALKLANDS:

Drilling set to get under way off Falklands

By David Telfer

Published: 03/02/2010

Desire Petroleum, the Aim-listed oil and gas explorer focused on the North Falkland Basin, said yesterday that two drilling slots using the Ocean Guardian rig had been assigned to Rockhopper Exploration.

The rig will be used on an upcoming exploration programme in the Falklands, and is expected to be in position mid-February after a two-month journey from the Cromarty Firth to drill the first well of the campaign on Desire’s Liz prospect, which has been mooted to contain up to 660million barrels of oil equivalent.

Following the Liz well the Ocean Guardian – a unit of Aberdeen-based Diamond Offshore Drilling (UK) – will go to Rockhopper to drill its Sea Lion and Ernest oil prospects.

Desire said advanced discussions continued with BHP Billiton which may lead to the group taking an early drilling slot, and so it was likely that Desire's second well would be the fourth or fifth well in the drilling campaign.

The timing of later Desire wells will depend upon results from Liz, Sea Lion and Ernest.

The Ocean Guardian is to drill a minimum of four wells for Desire.

Desire has said that independent analysis had concluded that it had more than 3billion barrels of oil equivalent of recoverable resources in its top 10 prospects.

The British Geological Survey has estimated more than 60billion barrels of oil may be in the Falklands area.

PAPUA:

BP is eying a new oil and gas exploration area in Indonesia's West Papua province near Tangguh to boost reserves, an official at the Indonesia energy ministry said on Wednesday.
"BP has an intention to explore oil and gas in a new area in Western Papua and it has submitted its request. We welcome their intention and we are now studying their proposal," Edy Hermantoro, a director at the ministry, told Reuters.
An official of BP's Indonesia unit confirmed the company intended to expand its area in West Papua but gave no further details.
BP Indonesia is the operator of the Wiriagar, Muturi and Berau blocks in West Papua, which together have combined reserves of 14.4 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas.
Another Indonesian energy ministry official, who declined to be identified, said proven plus probable and possible reserves in West Papua's Tangguh were estimated at around 23 trillion cubic feet of gas.

THE EARTH HAS NO SHORTAGE OF OIL - OR GAS.
PEAK OIL IS BS - A SCAM LIKE AGW.
OIL SHOULD BE $54/BARREL AND IT WILL BE SOONER THAN YOU THINK.

via astuteblogger.blogspot.com

Berlusconi: Goldstone tried to incriminate Israel - Israel News, Ynetnews

finally someone in Europe is listening and understands:  

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi expressed support Wednesday of Israel's opposition to the Goldstone Report.

 
"We opposed Goldstone who tried to incriminate Israel for responding to Hamas' rocket firing," he said during his speech in the Knesset plenum. "I am proud that Italy knew to act on time during the bombing of Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Italy is proud of gestures such as our government's refusal to attend the second Durban conference which sought to make intolerable accusations of racism and violence against Israel."

via ynetnews.com

Chicago News Bench: Israel Preps for War with Iran, Syria Beats War Drums

it is time for Obama to speak about this. The American public has a right to know.  What is he afraid of explaining.  Go ahead Obama... explain how spineless you are.

February 3, 2010 - Breaking - War seems imminent in the Middle East. This report today from debka.com is very alarming:

Arab voices were fanning Middle East war fever Wednesday night, Feb. 3. debkafile's military sources report that not only are Syrian leaders beating war drums - Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem said in Damascus: "Israelis, do not test the power of Syria since you know the war will move into your cities" - but Egyptian military sources have put out information purporting to outline Israel's preparations to strike Iran.

Debka.com's article goes on, with more info, which I've put into abbreviated list form here:

- Israeli Navy and the US Fifth Fleet been charting Persian Gulf waters and Iranian shorelines "in preparation for attacks"

- Israelie Defense Forces intelligence and special forces ... have been marking out routes for air and ground forces to hit Iran's nuclear installations

- Egyptian sources say that Saudi Arabia is [to put it in my own words] freaking out about all of this

- Some of this has already been "leaked in Cairo Wednesday night to ... a publication which Egyptian intelligence often uses ..." Full Article and more details at debka.com

QUESTIONS: Since this is so widely known now, will the Obama Administration talk about it? How has Hillary Clinton been involved in all of this? Will Israel soon find itself embroiled in a war with Iran and its puppet state Syria? How deeply will the U.S. get pulled in, and how will this affect our efforts on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?

via rogersparkbench.blogspot.com

Infidel Bloggers Alliance: Philippines Allows Muslims To Collect Jizya

modern day taxes on the infidels in the Philippines? 

Why doesn't the Philippine government just give up the ghost already? What good has your Muslim minority ever done for your country? How could you possibly give in to these primitive ingrates?

From Money Jihad (with thanks to Total):

In a chilling decision, Filipino negotiators are poised to put the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in charge of tax collection in the South. Thanks to Rantburg for headlining this story yesterday. Their source for this article was Iran Press TV:

The Filipino government has agreed to offer expanded autonomy to the Muslim minority in the country’s south.

Officials hope the move will pave the way for sealing a peace deal aimed at ending the 40-year-long conflict in the region with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Annabelle Abaya, the presidential adviser on the peace process, was hoping that the offer would convince the MILF to sign a peace accord before a new president is sworn in on June 30. “In enhanced autonomy, the president is offering to share powers,” Abaya told reporters on Monday.

The autonomy allows the Muslim minority to control tax collection and natural resources in the south.

As I commented on Rantburg, this means that as in Pakistan, South Filipinos will be forced to pay the 2.5% zakat tax plus secular Philippine taxes, that Muslim farmers will pay the discriminatory ushr tax on harvests, that Christians will be subjected to the jizya, and in the Philippines we may even see the restoration of Islam’s ancient & hated kharaj tax on land seized from non-Muslims.

Then tax revenues will be skimmed off the top by the tax collectors, who will claim that they’re spending it on the poor, but the bulk of it will actually be spent to propagate Islam and to wage jihad.

Prediction: MILF autonomy will not “solve” militant Islam in the Philippines, it will exacerbate it.

via ibloga.blogspot.com

One Dead Mom, Three Dead Babies, One Clueless Family

did you ever get the feeling that you just would rather not know the truth?

This woman dies alone, at home, while giving birth to full term triplets. She is 27 years old with 2 children ages six and two. The same father for all five children and NO ONE knows she is pregnant; not her parents, baby daddy or best friend.
She has given birth before and makes no effort to get help while in labor with triplets?! This is a tragic story, but the facts do not add up. Four people are dead and we are being sold a fish story.
Read the story here:
Woman, newborn triplets found dead in Shelton - Connecticut Post 
via kristeekelley.com

Detoxifying Islamists

someone get me a rock and tree to hide behind.... 

Haras Rafiq is a director of CENTRI, an organization focused on countering extremism at the operational level. A regular commentator appearing in mainstream media, Mr. Rafiq is also co-founder of the Sufi Muslim Council and has been a "cultural ambassador" for the UK government's Projecting British Islam initiative. On January 27, Mr. Rafiq addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call on the subject of de-radicalization.

When his six-year old daughter announced that she no longer wanted to be Muslim because "Muslims are always angry"—she had seen images of Muslims burning effigies of Tony Blair and George Bush—Mr. Rafiq decided to devote himself to counter-extremism.

His work has led him to conclude that the radicalization process involves four stages: 1) A sense of perceived vulnerability owing to a personal crisis; 2) Exposure to a particular worldview (in this case, Islamism) purporting to offer solutions to such crises; 3) Exposure to extremists who further exploit this sense of vulnerability; 4) Internalization of violent values.

Moreover and contrary to common opinion, the initial personal crisis is rarely due to economic or social dislocation. Mr. Rafiq pointed out that many jihadists come from middle-class backgrounds, were well integrated in the West, and have had some sort of higher education.

Next, Mr. Rafiq discussed his de-radicalization programs, which include the promotion of critical thinking skills, "moderate Shari'a rationale," separation of religion and politics, inter-cultural activities, and a close dissection of those Qur'anic verses and hadiths that are often cited by extremists to further their agenda.

Asked why imams are reluctant to criticize jihadist recruitment activities, Mr. Rafiq replied that, although there are individuals, such as Sheikh Kabbani in the U.S., who speak out against jihadists, many are silent out of fear and intimidation, especially vis-à-vis the doctrine of "loyalty and enmity." Mr. Rafiq further affirmed that many mosques in the West are being funded and run by extremists, and not enough pressure is being put on Muslim leaders such as King Abdullah to allow for a "free market" of ideas. He added that all this is further exacerbated by taqiyya, or doctrinal deceit, which permits Islamists to dissemble their true beliefs.

Finally, asked whether Islam is inherently problematic, Mr. Rafiq responded in the negative, laying the blame on the contemporary ideology of Islamism, and the fact that most of the literature on Islam disseminated in mosques has been sponsored by extremists. According to him, "traditional, classical Islam" is in-and-of-itself not a problem.

Summary written by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi.

via docstalk.blogspot.com

A briefing by Haras Rafiq
January 27, 2010 (initial post)

http://www.meforum.org/2584/detoxifying-islamists

Israel Matzav: Time is on our side

Abu Bluff better get Bluff'n or the Bluff Palestine is gone. The number of Jews in Judea and Samaria has grown to 313,000 – double the growth rate of the rest of Israel – according to the latest CivilAdministration report.

This is from a story about Israel's rejection of Abu Bluff's demand for a three-month construction freeze in Jerusalem.

But Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry’s diplomatic-military bureau, said that direct talks should not be forced on anyone. “There is no alternative to direct talks,” he said, speaking at the 10th Herzliya Conference, “but if they fail, that could be worse than anything.”

Gilad said that the PA security forces were effectively fighting Hamas in the West Bank because of the trauma of losing Gaza to Hamas, which he called “Hamastan.”

But, he cautioned, “Hamas must disappear before peace can be reached.”

Indeed.

Contrary to what our politicians have been trying to sell us since 1993, it is Israel, and not the 'Palestinians' that has all the time in the world. If the 'Palestinians' want to wait another ten years for direct talks until there are a million Jews in Judea and Samaria, let them. The more Jews there are in Judea and Samaria, the less likely that the 'Palestinians' get their state reichlet. And that's with or without Hamas' disappearance (which must happen for Israel to have any hope of living in peace with the 'Palestinians').

There isn't going to be a political settlement in my lifetime or in most of yours. Deal with it.

Heh.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

The Civil Administration report, as quoted by Haaretz, shows that the population in Judea and Samaria grew in the past half-year by 2.75%, and by 5.1% in the past year, and now stands at 312,940. A large part of the growth is due to the hareidi-religious cities of Beitar Illit (6.3%) and Modiin Illit (9,8%) - but even without those cities, Yesha’s growth rate of 3.8% more than doubles that of the rest of Israel, which stands at 1.7%

Two-thirds of the towns in Yesha grew at a higher rate than the rest of Israel (see below).

Sample populations in Judea and Samaria and their growth rate over the past half-year:

Shomron Regional Council – 25,875, up 3.75%

Binyamin Regional Council (Israel’s largest) – 47,636, up 2.5%

Mt. Hevron Regional Council – 5,909, up 3.8%

Gush Etzion Regional Council – 15,818, up 3.5%

Maaleh Adumim – 36,508, up 2.1%

Alfei Menashe – 7,338, up 3.2%

Ariel – 18,264, up 1%

Efrat – 8,674, up 2.4%

Elkanah – 3,460, up 2.4%

Kedumim – 3,840, up 1%

Kiryat Arba – 6,774, up 1%

via docstalk.blogspot.com

this contradicts recent reports that the Arabs would take Judea and Samaria by attrition