Greg Palast says the darnedest things about Iraq, Venezuela and oil wars

[moodforaday]

Greg Palast on Democracy Now today, his new book is coming out. Full transcript and a downloadable mp3 if you want to read/listen are here:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/15/1334249

But just look at this:

AMY GOODMAN: Is the war in Iraq a war for oil?

GREG PALAST: Is the war in Iraq for oil? Yes, it's about the oil, but not for the oil. In my investigations for Armed Madhouse, I ended up with a story far more fascinating and difficult than I imagined. We didn't go in to grab the oil. Just the opposite. We went in to control the oil and make sure we didn't get it. It goes back to 1920, when the oil companies sat in a room in Brussels in a hotel room, drew a red line around Iraq and said, “There'll be no oil coming out of that nation.” They have to suppress oil coming out of Iraq. Otherwise, the price of oil will collapse, and OPEC and Saudi Arabia will collapse.

And so, what I found, what I discovered that they’re very unhappy about is a 323-page plan, which was written by big oil, which is the secret but official plan of the United States for Iraq's oil, written by the big oil companies out of the James Baker Institute in coordination with a secret committee of the Council on Foreign Relations. I know it sounds very conspiratorial, but this is exactly how they do it. It's quite wild. And it's all about a plan to control Iraq's oil and make sure that Iraq has a system, which, quote, “enhances its relationship with OPEC.” In other words, the whole idea is to maintain the power of OPEC, which means maintain the power of Saudi Arabia.

And this is one of the reasons they absolutely hate Hugo Chavez. As you’ll see in next week's Harper's coming out, which is basically an excerpt from the book, Hugo Chavez on June 1st is going to ask OPEC to officially recognize that he has more oil than Saudi Arabia. This is a geopolitical earthquake. And the inside documents from the U.S. Department of Energy, which we have in the book and in Harper's, say, yeah, he's got more oil than Saudi Arabia.

So who do we believe now? Is there too much oil, or have we already peaked? Either Palast is right or people like Michael Ruppert are right, but they cannot both be!

(edited to fix tag syntax - should have previewed first)

[Gabi Hayes]

1. he was on Randi Rhodes today. I missed it, but they ended up right

before 4PM Central

anybody hear it?

didn't see any threads

[Skink]

2. This is why we are going into Iran...

with sanctions or militarily. They have to much oil.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. he said yesterday on Washington Journal that Venezuela has a

GIGANTIC amount of very heavy crude that is now saleable at $50/barrel.

he says it dwarfs the reserves of Saudi Arabia (factor of 5, I believe)

does this interview go into this?

pretty breathtaking news, if correct

[moodforaday]

4. Yes, and

I've just quoted that part :)

[Gabi Hayes]

6. yeah, but the interview doesn't go into the detail he did yesterday

I'm pretty sure he said something like 300 billion barrels in Venezuela, vs. 55 billion in Saudi Arabia

but I could be wrong; wonder if it's in the book

[Gabi Hayes]

5. Palast's book: ''Armed Madhouse''....ring a bell?

I'm with you in Rockland
where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul
is innocent and immortal it should never die
ungodly in an armed madhouse
I'm with you in Rockland
where fifty more shocks will never return your
soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a
cross in the void

[Supersedeas]

9. does now, thanks

[Gabi Hayes]

7. and....strong recommend after that worthless WashPost editorial

which was linked here earlier

stridently anti-Chavez

anybody know anything about an Anthony dePalma? he was on some NPR show today, running down Chavez, pumping a book he's written about a NYT writer who wrote too uncritically for him of Castro at the time he took over Cuba.

he called Chavez a "Castro with oil," and decried his "dictatorial tendencies"

thanks for reminding me of that

the host was completely accepting of dePalma's assertions

[tocqueville]

8. Chavez controls 1.3 trillion barrels of oil

The US DoE report shows that at today's prices Venezuela's oil reserves are bigger than those of the entire Middle East including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Iran and Iraq. The US DoE also identifies Canada as another future oil superpower. Venezuela's deposits alone could extend the oil age for another 100 years.

The US DoE estimates that Chavez controls 1.3 trillion barrels of oil - more than the entire declared oil reserves of the rest of the planet. Hugo Chavez told Newsnight's Greg Palast that "Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. In the future Venezuela won't have any more oil - but that's in the 22nd century. Venezuela has oil for 200 years." Chavez will ask the OPEC meeting in June to formally accept that Venezuela's reserves are now bigger than Saudi Arabia's.

Chavez's increased muscle will not go down well in Washington. In 2002 the Bush administration welcomed an attempted coup against Chavez. He told Newsnight that the Americans had organised it in an attempt to get hold of Venezuela's oil.

Ironically by invading Iraq George Bush has boosted oil prices and effectively transferred billions of dollars from American consumers to Chavez. Up to $200 million a day - half of it from the US - is flooding into Caracas. Chavez is spending this on building infrastructure and increasing the minimum wage and improving health and education in the poor ranchos which surround the cities. As a result even his opponents accept that Chavez is extremely popular and will easily win the next Presidential election in December.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=485&row=1

[Justsayin]

10. Peak oil is a LIE n/t

[Gabi Hayes]

11. well, it could be, if you take into account current reserves like very

heavy crude, oil shale, and other formerly very expensive resources

the ever increasing prices could put off the actual reach date of "peak oil," as I see it, but there will be a point, eventually, at which oil extraction begins to decrease, and diminish to the point of exhaustion

nobody disputes that; it's a matter of when, and the SOONER we wise up (as Jimmy Carter did in his prescient April, 1977 speech, which policy explication was FOUGHT by his own party, the pugs, the oil companies, the car companies, the media, etal), the better off the world will be

http://www.newpath4.com/opec_crude_oil_dilemma_or_opportunity.htm

[Mojorabbit]

12. I think it has to do with the quality of the oil

light sweet crude is getting scarce from what I understand. Venezuela's oil I think is sour crude and needs lots of refining. Lot's of oil in Canada's oil sands but it takes a lot of energy to process it.