Oil

Funny how Exxon and BP profits keep going up and up. Has anyone noticed how they always have "refinery problems" just before summer vacation?






Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 21:16:04 -0400 From: Col. L. Fletcher Prouty To: len_osanic@mindlink.bc.ca Subject: RE: Reynolds letter This response is for Daniel E. Reynolds, 29 July 1996 on the subject of "Oil - A renewable and abiotic Fuel?"

Dan, your use of the word "abiotic" is good. As a non-fossil fuel, petroleum has no living antecedent. It contains chemical elements found in living matter; but it is not "formerly living matter." There has not been enough true "formerly living matter"through all of creation to account for the volume of petroleumthat has been consumed to date. My background in this subject goes back to 1943. I was the pilot who flew a U.S. Geological Survey Team from Casablanca to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. We met the Cal. Standard Oil team holding down that lease. Then we went back to Cairo to meet President Roosevelt during the Nov. 1943 "Cairo Conference" with Churchill and Chiang Kai Shek. FDR ordered the immediate construction of an oil refinery there for WW II use. This led to ARAMCO. During the "Energy Crisis" of the 1970's I was detailed to represent the U.S. Railroad industry as a member of the "Federal Staff Energy Seminar" program started by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sponsored by Georgetown University. That began in Jan 1974 and continued for four years. It was designed to discuss "the working of the United States national energy system, and new horizons of energy research." Among the regular attendees were such men as Henry Kissinger and James Schlesinger...most valuable meetings. During one meeting we took a "Buffet Break" and I was seated with Arthur Kantrowitz of the AVCO Company..."Kantrowitz Labs" nearBoston. At the table with us were four young geologists busily talking about Petroleum. At one point one of them made reference to "Petroleum as organic matter, and a fossil fuel." Right out of the Rockefeller bible. Kantrowitz turned to the geologist beside him and asked, "Do you really believe that petroleum is a fossil fuel?" The man said,"Certainly" and all four of them joined in. Kantrowitz listened quietly and then said, "The deepest fossil ever found has been at about 16,000 feet below sea level; yet we are getting oil from wells drilled to 30,000 and more. How could fossil fuel get down there? If it was once living matter, it had to be on the surface. If it did turn into petroleum, at or near the surface,how could it ever get to such depths? What is heavier Oil or Water?" Water: so it would go down, not oil. Oil would be on top, if it were "organic" and "lighter." "Oil is neither." They all agreed water was heavier, and therefore if there was some crack or other open area for this "Organic matter" to go deep into the magma of Earth, water would have to go first and oil would be left nearer the surface. This is reasonable. Even if we do agree that "magma" is a "crude mixture of minerals or organic matters, in a thin pasty state" this does not make it petroleum, and if it were petroleum it would have stayed near the surface as heavier items, i.e. water seeped below. My D. Van Nostrand "Scientific Encyclopedia" says "Magma is the term for molten material. A natural, complex, liquid, high temperature, silicate solution ancestral to all igneous rocks,both intrusive and effusive. The origin of Magma is not known." My "Oxford English Dictionary" does not even have the word "Magma." Some years ago I wrote two or three pages that appeared in theMcGraw Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology, i.e. "Railroad Engineering." Even that source is a bit uncertain about the"origin of petroleum" to wit: "Less than 1% of the organic matter that originates in or is transported to the marine environment is eventually incorporated into ocean sediment," and "Most petroleum is formed during catagenesis (undefined anywhere). If sufficient organic matter is present oceanic sediments that undergo this process are potential petroleum sources. Deeply buried marine organic matter yields mainly oil, whereas land plant material yields mainly gas." (Their idea of "deeply buried" is the "out.") All this leaves us no where. I still go with Kantrowitz. Since oil is lighter than water, everywhere on Earth, there is no way that petroleum could be an organic, fossil fuel that is created on or near the surface, and penetrate Earth ahead of water. Oil must originate far below and gradually work its way up into well-depth areas accessable to surface drilling. It comes from far below. Therefore, petroleum is not a "Fossil" fuel with a surface or near surface origin. It was made to be thought a "Fossil" fuel by the Nineteenth oil producers to create the concept that it was of limited supply and therefore extremely valuable. This fits with the "Depletion"allowance philosophical scam. During one of our C.S.I.S. "International Nights" (1978) the Common Market Energy boss, M. Montibrial of France, told us that while petroleum was being marketed then for $20.00 per barrel or more, it cost no more than 25 cents per barrel at the well-head. There is our petroleum problem! We were paying more than $1.50-$1.60 per gallon, one 42nd of a barrel, at that time. Interested folks need to learn more about the Chartered Institute of Transport, and not waste their time with OPEC, the "Cover" story. Those who pumped the Pennsylvania wells "dry" during the late eighteen hundreds saved what they had for those better days. L. Fletcher Prouty


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Sustainable oil?

{May 25, 2004By Chris Bennett© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com}

About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.
By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.
Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.
Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil.
Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?
An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates.
The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:
Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system – huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.
At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil.
Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."
In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.
In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.
Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan.
Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil.
There are a number of observations across the oil-producing regions of the globe that support this theory, and the list of proponents begins with Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes Dr.Thomas Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas.
In his 1999 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere," Dr. Gold presents compelling evidence for inorganic oil formation. He notes that geologic structures where oil is found all correspond to "deep earth" formations, not the haphazard depositions we find with sedimentary rock, associated fossils or even current surface life.
He also notes that oil extracted from varying depths from the same oil field have the same chemistry – oil chemistry does not vary as fossils vary with increasing depth. Also interesting is the fact that oil is found in huge quantities among geographic formations where assays of prehistoric life are not sufficient to produce the existing reservoirs of oil. Where then did it come from?
Another interesting fact is that every oil field throughout the world has outgassing helium. Helium is so often present in oil fields that helium detectors are used as oil-prospecting tools. Helium is an inert gas known to be a fundamental product of the radiological decay or uranium and thorium, identified in quantity at great depths below the surface of the earth, 200 and more miles below. It is not found in meaningful quantities in areas that are not producing methane, oil or natural gas. It is not a member of the dozen or so common elements associated with life. It is found throughout the solar system as a thoroughly inorganic product.
Even more intriguing is evidence that several oil reservoirs around the globe are refilling themselves, such as the Eugene Island reservoir – not from the sides, as would be expected from cocurrent organic reservoirs, but from the bottom up.
Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a "renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."
Smaller oil companies and innovative teams are using this theory to justify deep oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, among other locations, with some success. Dr. Kenney is on record predicting that parts of Siberia contain a deep reservoir of oil equal to or exceeding that already discovered in the Middle East.
Could this be true?
In August 2002, in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US)," Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of "The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum." Dr. Kenney and three Russian coauthors conclude:
The Hydrogen-Carbon system does not spontaneously evolve hydrocarbons at pressures less than 30 Kbar, even in the most favorable environment. The H-C system evolves hydrocarbons under pressures found in the mantle of the Earth and at temperatures consistent with that environment.
He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century."
Deeply entrenched in our culture is the belief that at some point in the relatively near future we will see the last working pump on the last functioning oil well screech and rattle, and that will be that. The end of the Age of Oil. And unless we find another source of cheap energy, the world will rapidly become a much darker and dangerous place.
If Dr. Gold and Dr. Kenney are correct, this "the end of the world as we know it" scenario simply won't happen. Think about it ... while not inexhaustible, deep Earth reserves of inorganic crude oil and commercially feasible extraction would provide the world with generations of low-cost fuel. Dr. Gold has been quoted saying that current worldwide reserves of crude oil could be off by a factor of over 100.
A Hedberg Conference, sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, was scheduled to discuss and publicly debate this issue. Papers were solicited from interested academics and professionals. The conference was scheduled to begin June 9, 2003, but was canceled at the last minute. A new date has yet to be set.
http://www.prouty.org/oil.html

Comment from the RI post 3-8-2007 during a highly energized session on the comment board concerning the WTC failures.




Tom Breidenbach said...



Jeff:I deeply admire your blog, as well as the work of Hopsicker. I also think Nafeez Ahmed is an important and underrated voice on 9/11 and I can’t recommend his WAR ON FREEDOM and WAR ON TRUTH highly enough.

Reasonable people may and do disagree about the controlled demolition hypothesis, for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that “physical evidence” can be a tough angle to make stick, forensically speaking, especially now that most all of it’s been swept away. That said, I’m morally certain (as the philosophers say) that the Towers were blown up. And that even if I’m eventually proven wrong (and I might be), there is every reason at present to defend the controlled demolition hypothesis.

Here’s why.
Molten metal, in all likelihood steel, was found under WTC buildings One, Two and Seven. This metal appears on film of the site taken nearly six weeks after the attacks. Its presence was commented upon extensively by various officials and first responders at the site. It roiled and smoldered for many weeks, perhaps months. I live in New York and, along with millions of others, smelled that pile burning for nearly half a year after 9/11 (the longest uncontrolled fire in any city in US history, if I remember the article in the NY Times correctly). Anyone following the controversy has heard testimony from various witnesses, including firefighters and first responders, about the molten metal. Those of us here in the city probably remember reading articles about it. It was common knowledge in the weeks and months following the attacks. I’ve spoken at length with a first responder who’s active in the 9/11 Truth Movement and is very sick now; he testifies to what others on “the pile” reported seeing: flowing metal throughout the rubble following the attacks. A lot of it. He also confirms that the steel beam cut slant-wise was visible, very much as it appears in photos, when he first arrived at scene within an hour after Tower One “collapsed.” Architect Bart Voorsanger, attempting to account for the survival of the North Tower’s antenna, clearly confirms the view that the molten metal underneath the rubble at Ground Zero was steel. Commenting on the antenna, which was made of steel, Voorsanger says, “It was the piece that collapsed onto everything else, and I think it must have fallen far enough away from the internal fires within the center of the Towers that it was not melted into some unrecognizable fused mass.” Here the man described by the Associated Press as having “headed the team of architects that retrieved trade center steel” is acknowledging what multiple eye-witnesses including engineering professionals working at Ground Zero, as well as video and “thermographic” aerial photography (not to mention scientists including Jones) all point to: that masses of molten steel roiled beneath the Towers for weeks, even months after they’d “collapsed.” There has been no rational explanation as to how this could have occurred without the use of explosives or some source of destructive energy other than hydrocarbons. NIST appears to understand that no such explanation is possible, that the molten metal (most probably steel) is the Achilles heal of the official “collapse” narrative. Which is why NIST Engineer John Gross now simply denies that molten metal ever existed under the rubble pile. Here we might identify the source of some of the rage being directed against you on this post. In the face of what appears to be a bald and arrogant ploy by authorities, one echoing all those others we’ve seen play out in official responses to almost every other aspect of the attacks, you—who’ve fought this battle bravely on so many fronts—appear to capitulate here, going weak in the knees, as if resigning the fight to hold on to the very history of 9/11 even as others risk their livelihoods and reputations to salvage and defend it. Yes, the painstaking contextualization of the 9/11 attacks provided by Ahmed is essential and sadly under-emphasized in 9/11 studies.

Caveats expressed by Sander Hicks and others concerning the “physical evidence” school of 9/11 skepticism are well-taken, at least by me. Clearly, even if we prove the CD hypothesis, knowing the buildings were blown up won’t tell us all or even most of what we need to know about 9/11. But on the other hand, it isn’t fair (though it might appear far more respectable in some circles) to leave the matter at that, especially with the multiple indications in the public record indicating the possibility—make that the likelihood—of controlled demolition. Besides the molten metal issue, there’s the powerful and corroborating testimony from multiple eye-witnesses that has been categorized by David Ray Griffin into eleven categories of observed phenomena, each strongly indicative of, if not exclusive to, controlled demolition. With the broad array of relevant data on the matter, 9/11 Truth appears on solid, even fruitful theoretical ground with the controlled demolition hypothesis, especially given the state of the aptly titled “collapse” theory, that “ever-changing, but always flimsy, story” in Kevin Ryan’s words, reliant on “anti-science” whose handful of actual proponents “started with their conclusions and worked backward to some ‘leading hypotheses.’” Of course the bitter fact remains that most of the evidence regarding the Towers’ destruction was hastily and, as has been strenuously argued from official corners, illegally destroyed. (Retired NYPD Officer Craig Bartmer, who labored at Ground Zero, reports rumors widely circulating on “the pile” that “the mob was stealing the steel.”)

While certainly crippling to the material investigation, this destruction of evidence, protested vehemently in official quarters, in itself is highly indicative of official complicity.

As with 9/11 in general, it is the broader context of the controlled demolition issue, more than any one or few of the multiple anomalies in the official account, where the charnel depths of state complicity come into focus.

The controlled demolition theory not only best explains the array of specific phenomena witnessed that day, it also points up some disturbing circumstances relating to security at the Towers complex prior to the attacks, and to the roles played by certain agencies—private, State and municipal—in 9/11 and the corrupt military/industrial power structure more generally. The controlled demolition hypothesis also begs some very serious questions pertaining to the precise nature, structure and tactics of state-sponsored terrorism, implying among other things the existence of a special forces unit whose expertise includes spectacular feats of mass human slaughter.And then there’s the crux of the matter: the psychological angle.

Kevin Ryan, who was fired from his job with Underwriters Laboratories, the company that certified the steel components of the WTC, observes, “if we really want to zero in on the exact turning point around which we plunged into chaos, we need to focus in particular on the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. This is where our hearts were wrenched and our minds were made ready for never-ending war, torture, and apparently the end of everything that was American. If we are ever to emerge from this insanity, we need to know how three tall buildings collapsed due to fire, all on the same day, when no such thing has ever happened before.”As Ryan implies, whether we like it or not an intelligible account of what brought the Towers down is essential to determining the character and fate of our society. Short of any cogent explanation from our officials we are morally compelled to advocate the most consistent hypothesis regarding their destruction—however incredible we ourselves may find it. Here I’ll quote from an essay in which I paraphrase and reflect on observations by Webster Tarpley: “the subliminal effects of 9/11 threaten to permanently distort our at-home-ness in reality, in the physical world, which on that day became a place where majestic state-of-the-art buildings, marvels of engineering and modernist architecture’s capstones, monuments (affirmed by cliché) to human ingenuity and spirit…unpeeled so strangely to dust. The question of how the towers fell isn’t merely academic, but in some measure crucial to our psychological health as a people. If they were destroyed by explosives planted in the structures, then we’ve been compelled to accept a counterfeit view of physical reality, marking the radical intensification of a schizophrenic mindset already endemic in—and increasingly definitive of—Anglo-American culture. “The effect of the Towers’ destruction is tied to the structures’ form as well as the place of the ‘tower’ and ‘twin’ archetypes in legend (whether in Tolkien, the Tarot or the Pentateuch for the former, or astrology, religious esoterism and classical myth for the latter). Anthropomorphic totems, the Twin Towers connoted a unity of two (or balanced duality), the harmonious couple (thus love, or lovers), or the self and its reflection: in short, completion, with the North Tower (with its antennae) the yang to the South’s yin (slightly recessive, as if, from the greater Manhattan perspective, backing the other up). Their destruction, then, was an eidetic inscription, rooted in mortal shock, of the shattering of unity, the failure of love, the death of the iconic companions, God’s wrathful judgment (ala Babel) upon our aspirations (and the futility of endeavor) and the fracture of communion (language, community—or logos, word or idea embodied…meaning). Situated at the millennial cusp, at the crossroads of macrocosmic time and superhuman space, the structures’ spectacularly surreal dematerialization unmistakably declared the triumph of disunity, unreason, separation and loss—in short, the reign of antichrist, which 9/11 would appear to have been intended by certain of its architects to herald.” I do not imply here that I necessarily believe that the fall of the Twin Towers announced the advent of the “end-times.” But I do believe their destruction reverberates as such an omen, however reflexively, among many in western society and beyond. And based upon express oligarchic intent to reduce Earth’s human population, I also take seriously the possibility that 9/11 was intended as such a harbinger by at least certain of its sponsors. And I certainly do not discount the possibility that the fears engendered by 9/11 might yet qualify it as the herald of a final judgment (perhaps in the form of nuclear or biological war), especially if they are not bravely, rationally and collectively confronted. Tarpley warns that 9/11 plays into radical millenarian or “end-time” neuroses, exacerbating fears and paranoia exemplified by the many millions strong “Left Behind” or “rapture” movements, whose adherents—including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, implicated in facilitating 9/11—have been powerful allies of the current administration. Investigating, determining and articulating more or less precisely how the Towers fell may be one of the central acts of demystification that breaks the pernicious spell under which 9/11, called by Tarpley the “myth of the 21st century,” holds the world. The “pancake collapse” is perhaps the chief idol of the official 9/11 cult to be smashed, as it appears to most effectively mask the iniquity of the attack’s actual sponsors. To fathom what was taken from us on 9/11, recall the technological achievement represented by our shimmering Towers, once widely assumed—whatever their aesthetic flaws—to be masterpieces of engineering, state-of-the-art and revolutionary. The Twin Towers occupied a lineage of epic industrial expressions including the Brooklyn and Golden Gate Bridges, the Empire State Building, and the moon landing. In this sense they signified a soaring, celebratory triumph of our nation’s commitment to science, industry, technology and commerce, and were an enduring symbol of our collective ingenuity, ambition and intelligence. (Whoever expected to outlive them?)

As the casual TV viewer understood, they could withstand hurricanes, earthquakes and jet-liner impacts. And most anyone watching that day knew they weren’t about to fall.Here we may begin assessing the precise depths of our betrayal on 9/11. Again, one doesn’t need to have liked the Twin Towers—our blasé, even disdainful regard of them is the point. The extent to which we took them for granted marks our shock upon their destruction, in which we were faced with—and forced to swallow—our own failure as a culture to protect those left alive in the buildings, awaiting our rescue. Mistaking it for humility, we internalize this guilt, inducted into a collective masochism marked by a loss of analytical impetus, of which our acceptance of the simplistic pancake-collapse “theory” is symptomatic. Shamed children, we abide the illegal destruction of the rubble pile, eager to see our mess cleaned up, erased, and blamed on others.Imagine one of the Towers collapsing without the handy scapegoat of a people whose natural resources we covet, and which our leaders had already divvied up. A lost or malfunctioning airliner had freakishly struck a Tower at high speed, let’s say. The building’s failure should have been an unacceptable err, a blow to our collective sense of ourselves so severe no resources would be spared in careful scrutiny of the event, as happens after catastrophes in societies valuing knowledge, quality, professionalism, craftsmanship, expertise and life. To recover our sense of ourselves, we would have taken every care—as healthy societies have throughout history—to articulate as precisely as possible the causal aspects of the disaster.

Once the search for survivors was called off we’d have carefully and thoroughly scrutinized, documented and analyzed the scene. Recognizing that untold lives may depend on our investigation, that our findings could rewrite engineering code books, we would have encouraged a period of active and open debate, sparing no sacred cows, until clear, concise and reasonable explanations emerged as to why the Tower failed to live up to its revolutionary design. On 9/11, the Twin Towers’ massive 47-interlinked-column core structure and 240 interlocking outer or “box” columns failed to impede the weight of the upper floors in their rush to the ground by so much as a second.

Yet with next to none of it subjected to forensic examination, the rubble was hauled away as quickly as possible and nearly all of the steel sold as scrap on Asian markets. As Kevin Ryan notes, the NIST report, refusing to consider the controlled demolition hypothesis, dares take us only to the onset of the “collapse event,” after which its authors merely declare that “global” failure of the astonishing order observed was, somehow, “inevitable.” It takes twenty-two thousand pages of ignoring principles, observed phenomena, eyewitness reports, of distorting physical and computer models, fudging numbers and morphing variables, for NIST to swindle us into an abstruse combination of confessedly “less-likely” scenarios. To register the wound dealt to our collective imagination on 9/11, we must appeal to archetype. The esoteric associations with the Twin Towers are profound. From Hebraic legend they reference the two great pillars Joachim and Boaz, placed at the entrance to Solomon’s Temple. Besides the ancient Hebrews, the Spartans, Phoenicians, Aryans and Scandinavians all associated the twin pillar motif with the presence of the deity. The Vedas refer to the twin Asvins, the Spartans to the Dioscuri, “clad in shining armor” and associated with clouds. The twin pillars: for the Greeks, symbols of Heracles (heroism), for the Scandinavians, of Thor (might). Legend associates them with Castor and Pollux, the twin brothers, one who gave his life for the other. They recall the twin Trees of Eden—Knowledge of Good and Evil (duality), and that of Eternal Life (unity)—as well as the Tree of Life diagram of Kabala, between whose pillars all is made manifest. For the Hebrews symbolizing establishment and strength, justice and mercy, as pillars of cloud by day and fire by night they led the Israelites from bondage, connoting a union of opposites, or harmony, fullness, the guidance and immanence of God. Joachim and Boaz are central symbols of Freemasonry, bespeaking the resonance of the twin pillar motif at the deepest mythic strata of our cultural imagination. Guardians of the holy-of-holies, the twin pillars are ineluctably associated with mystery and initiation. Their magical destruction then, in the imago of the Twin Towers, is a sort of reverse, false or diabolic initiation into the realms of unreason, into the death or withdrawal of God. In the face of this threat to our image of the protective deity (or state) we accept the Towers’ “pancaking” and like raped or battered children turn the blame inward. With grasping sincerity, we acknowledge as dogma officialdom’s bloated appeal to its own authority.What the controlled demolition hypothesis confronts us with is the likelihood that on September 11th, 2001, 2800 people were purposely—nay ritually—immolated, over a third of them vaporized beyond trace, while of many others mere fragments were found, some fleck of bone or viscera. This implies a most obscene affront to human dignity, blinding in the vastness of its degeneracy, a primordial and epic violation of a people by their leaders. Such cold-bloodedness is wholly distinct in character and degree from the comparably flaccid or sloppy negligence invoked by the LIHOP crowd, or the “roll ‘em” mentality naively attributed to complicit officials by those 9/11 skeptics who squirm at suggestions the planes may have been remotely guided into the buildings, or the buildings blown up. You suggest in the previous post that Morgan Reynolds is a disinformation artist sent to emphasize the controlled demolition hypothesis in order to keep us barking up that tree. Yet if he is a plant, Reynolds may have intended what it appears he’s actually accomplishing, dividing a hitherto unified view on the destruction of the WTC with his “particle beam” theory and thereby inserting a timely “wedge” into an inquiry that was gaining traction. If so, he’d be accomplishing what Martin Schotz, a psychiatrist who’s studied the JFK assassination, points out is the real objective of disinformation, which is not to persuade us of the “official account" but to create so much uncertainty that "everything is believable and nothing is knowable."The molten metal. The multiple eye-witness accounts.

The incessant bad-faith responses (forensically speaking, “guilty behavior”) on the part of defenders of the official story. The profound psychological implications. These are powerful inducements against letting the controlled theory die, as you verge on proposing. Jeff, you call yourself a pessimist, and (if I may) I suspect you’re living up to that title here. That is, that your skepticism on the controlled demolitions issue has crossed into pessimism that we may ever arrive at the verification of CD which many of us might desire. Might your dismissal of CD be a sort of preemptive strike against what you subconsciously feel is the possibility that your hope for “proof” of a conspiracy will eventually be dashed anyway? A kind of beating-the-devil-to-the-punch? “The wolf who cannot reach the grapes claims they are sour.” We may never reach those grapes, Jeff, but I’m not through trying. And I respectfully submit that personal predilections and reasoned analysis may be blurring in your irked and seemingly wholesale rejection of CD. As far as the Silverstein comment, it’s not that relevant. Though it sounds to me like he’s talking about the building and not the firefighters, as with the CD hypothesis, I could be wrong. But of course I was down there on 9/11, about five blocks north of WTC 7, on the west edge of the West Side Highway. A loose bunch of us New Yorkers standing around had heard and passed on the message since maybe forty minutes before that “They’re going to bring it down.” And we were staring up at building 7 as it fell. But then again, who the f**k am I?Keep up your excellent work on your blog. Don’t know what I’d do without it. And no, we certainly don’t need to agree. A coalition of the dubious can be a beautiful thing.

Respectfully,Tom

Thanks for that Tom and Jeff Wells @ RI

Behold this Day

For those of you that have an interest in researching alternative health or spiritual options, this might be of interest.

A while ago David Crews wrote "The Joy of Disillusionment"- a disertation on the trials and triumphs he went through leaving a Christian Fundamentalist life much the way I had experienced. His writings on this are located here.

I wondered why he chose to believe in a total end of life & conscienceness and wrote to him with my query.

I was delighted when he wrote back. It seems that he has rather mellowed out and gained a new understanding of the dynamics of life and what forces are at work in the universe. David recently made a trip to the rainforests of Peru to do research on the spiritual plant called Ayahuasca. To those who are knowledgable about Aya, it is revered as a spiritual guide within, and the spirit of the vine is Mother Ayahuasca.

A short excerpt from his website:

"This is a condensed journal from my personal experiences in the Peruvian Amazon in 2006. I had traveled to the greatest forest on Earth to partake in the sacramental use of a shamanic “Teacher Plant” – the highly psychoactive and complex brew known as Ayahuasca, the “Vine of the Soul.” This “tea” from a specific plant mixture has been used for thousands of years for healing and visioning purposes by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin from Brazil, to Columbia and Ecuador, and especially in Peru.Although extremely powerful, and notoriously difficult, unpleasant, and challenging to work with (including a horrific taste and powerful purging), Ayahuasca is a safe way to see incredible beauty and encounter mystical realms and spiritual entities that are otherwise difficult for Western people to experience. For me, it was a journey to see for myself what I might make of such realms, visions, and entities – to try to determine What Is Real and what might be simply illusion or masterful creativity.
Working with Ayahuasca is an adventure of the body and spirit. For me, it was an INTENSE set of experiences – one that challenged my physical body through difficult diets, strong physical exertions, and often, extremely uncomfortable conditions.___ – But that was the easy part.It challenged my mind and spirit on levels that can only be described asawesome and unexplainable.
We worked with a master shaman - a healer named Don Rober, and we had the excellent guidance and teaching of our host, Howard Lawler, also a shaman, who is revitalizing many of the other ancient shamanistic traditions of South America.
Shamanism is the oldest spiritual practice of humankind. The essence of shamanism is personal, direct experience and expression – not relying on anyone’s testimony or doctrines about spiritual or mystical encounters.
In 1951, Carl Jung wrote:"In psychology, one possesses nothing unless one has experienced it in reality. Hence, a purely intellectual insight is not enough, because one knows only the words and not the substance of the thing from the inside."
Ayahuasca is the world’s most direct and powerful form of shamanic experience, and I had been desiring and planning to work with it for almost a decade. Now, at last, I had come to Iquitos, Peru, in the heart of the great selva or jungle. My hosts for this trip were to prove impeccable in their set and setting and in the preparation and the personnel for this great adventure of the soul."

A fascinating read! I encourage you to enjoy it.

Credit: David P. Crew- jaguarfeather.com

Sorrow

The following is a discourse between Aaron Klein (WND) and a suicide bomber-to-be.

This was posted on World Net Daily News.

I do not want to get involved in an anti-Jewish/Anti-Terrorist discussion. The above picture is from an attack just this morning in Eilat-Jan 29,'07, possibly from the individual below who was interviewed.

The point I wish to examine is, (if we can trust the translator and the author's veracity) is the calm "suredness" of the would be assassin. Outside of the killing, this testimony could be witnessed from any fundamental Bible believing church in America.

****

'I pray Allah makes me dead in a (suicide) operation'
WND: Tell me about your life and what you do with your free time.
BOMBER: I study at a West Bank university and I have great hopes of getting married within the next couple of months. My life is very normal. I watch television, particularly news, and historical and religious programs. From time to time I play soccer and lift weights.
WND: Is your family poor?
BOMBER: No. We are regular but far from being wealthy. I share my bedroom with my brothers but now there is less pressure because last summer one of my brothers was married and moved to live outside.
WND: Why do you want to become a suicide bomber?
BOMBER: I originally decided to become a martyr after I saw what the Israeli army did in the refugee camp of Jenin in the big military campaign of April, 2002.
But this idea became stronger when I understood what status I will have in heaven if I scarify myself for Allah. Every time somebody else dies as a martyr in a suicide bomb attack, I pray for him but I feel jealous. I want to be where he is now and I pray that Allah will one day offer me this occasion and this honor.
[Editor's note: The potential bomber was referring to an Israeli anti-terror raid in his hometown of Jenin in 2002 in which Palestinian leaders accused the Jewish state of a "massacre," claiming the Israeli Defense Forces killed over 500 Palestinian civilians, including many women and children.
It was later determined 56 Palestinians, mostly gunmen, were killed in the raid, which followed a series of deadly suicide attacks inside Israel that were reportedly planned and directed from the terror infrastructure in Jenin. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers died in the Jenin battle, in which IDF troops conducted house-to-house searches to minimize civilian casualties by avoiding air attacks.]
WND: Is your main motivation for becoming a bomber is to serve Allah?
BOMBER: Yes, of course. Allah gave Muslims the possibility to gain their prize and payment in different ways. There are those (Muslims) who pray and fast only and respect Allah's commandments, and there are those who wish a higher prize. And the highest prize is given to those who scarify themselves, their lives, their bodies and everything in this world.
WND: What you are saying is interesting because a lot of academics in the United States and many of my colleagues in the media claim Palestinians become suicide bombers because they are poor and desperate and because of so-called Israeli occupation. Are you telling me these are not the reasons you want to blow yourself up amongst Israelis?
BOMBER: The will to scarify myself for Allah is the first and most major reason. It is true that the Zionists are occupying our lands and that it is our religious duty to fight them, including through suicide attacks. The goal is not the killing of the Jews, but that this is the way to reach Allah.
The goal is satisfying Allah and his instructions. No money interests, nothing. No brainwash, no pressure; it is my decision. All the other lies are pathetic Israeli propaganda.
I pray that Allah gives me the honor to be dead in an operation. This is the supreme and the noblest way to ascend to Allah.
These martyrs have special status in the next world and have bigger chances to watch Allah's face and enjoy the magnificent pleasures he offers us.
'It is our duty to fight Jews but our goal is to please Allah'
WND: Did I hear you say your goal is not to kill Jews? Isn't that exactly what you will do as a suicide bomber?
BOMBER: Maybe the fact that I was born here has sharpened my religious conscience, but I believe that even if I was in Chechnya, in Iraq, Afghanistan on anywhere else I would want to be a martyr.
It is Allah's satisfaction that is important to me no matter where I live. But as we live in this part of the world the way to reach Allah for me is through fighting the Zionist enemy. It is the jihad, the sacrificing that is important.
WND: These cliches are impressive but I know you are aware that you are speaking to a Jew. Perhaps you are telling me what I want to hear. Tell me the truth. You want to kill Jews, don't you?
BOMBER: We were never taught to hate Jews but to hate the occupation of the Zionists to our Islamic land that the Zionist entity with the conspiracy of the world has stolen and occupied. Jews can have their state but not on our lands and until this goal is achieved every Muslim must fight this entity.
The Jews stole this holy Islamic land and we must fight them, but I am looking to receive what waits for me in the next world.
'Enjoy your tea and our hospitality before I send you to hell.'
WND: You talk about fighting them, the Jews. I'm an American Jew. Do you want to kill me?
BOMBER: You are here and nobody hurts you and nobody thinks to do so. But if, unfortunately for you, if you will be in a place where my (suicide) operation will take place, I will not feel sorrow.
You American Jews are fully partners with the Zionists and even more dangerous than the Israelis because of the international support you give to the Israelis in their massacres against our people and the maintenance of the occupation.
WND: So if after today's meeting you saw me in a cafe in Jerusalem that you were sent to attack, you'd still try to blow it up?
BOMBER: At the moment there will not be a place for feelings and hesitations. If I go in an operation it means that I decided to leave behind my loved ones – my mother, my father, brothers and sisters, all my family and my friends. And if I am capable of this I would not give you a break just because we met for one time.
Meanwhile and before I drive you to hell in an operation, enjoy your tea and our hospitality. (Laughing).
'And Allah shouted: Be pigs and monkeys'
WND: Many programs on Palestinian television have been teaching viewers Jews are descended from pigs and monkeys and that we use Palestinian and Christian blood to bake our Passover matzos. Is this what you believe?
BOMBER: I know where this question comes from. You think that we all are naive or bad from birth or that we were exposed to brainwashing. We just follow what we are demanded in the Quran to do because if we do not do so we will be attacked, occupied, controlled and killed by these enemies of Islam.
WND: You didn't answer my question. Do you believe I come from pigs and monkeys?
BOMBER: The Quran tells us that Allah was upset with the Jews because of their negative behavior towards Moses and Allah's commandments and Allah shouted to the Jews, 'Be pigs and monkeys.'
I don't know if physically Allah turned them to pigs and monkeys, or it was a way to tell them that they are as terrible as pigs and monkeys. The most important thing is that this is what Allah, may he be blessed, thinks that the Jews deserve to be.
I don't know about the Passover matzo but I know the Jews are the nation who was known for killing Allah's prophets and the nation that in our days wants to control the world or at least this part of the world, from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Meanwhile they (Jews) are controlling the U.S., its media, its financial system and its administration.
'You'll go to hell while 72 dark-eyed virgins await me in paradise.'
WND: When you mentioned before the pleasures that await you after a suicide bombing, I assume you were referring to the 72 dark-eyed virgins you believe will be waiting for you in heaven?
(Potential bomber nods to signal yes.)
WND: You talk about so-called martyrdom being divine. About being rewarded in the next world on supreme spiritual levels for what you say is a gift to Allah. And yet you tell me that what awaits you after a suicide operation is an eternity of sex with virgins. This is the most baseline physical pleasure imaginable. This is your religious version of heaven?
BOMBER: Let me explain something to you. The world, the lower one we are in now, it is temporary. Allah examines the loyalty of human beings, asking you in this materialistic world to avoid all that is tempting, all that pleasures you on earth, and to dedicate yourself to Allah.
This doesn't mean that Allah does not think it is good to take part in these needs of sex, in the pleasure of drinking alcohol, enjoying nature and other stuff. The point is that non-Muslims do those things in this world while ignoring Allah and all moral rules, while Muslims are asked to do a tremendous spiritual effort on earth in order to gain these other (physical) pleasures in the next world.
I don't know how you Jews see these physical pleasures, especially after the Torah that Allah gave you was falsified, but in our religion all spiritual efforts are asked from us on earth and it is much more difficult. So it is not that all the story is about sex. You do free sex now, I do not.
But you will go to hell after living 50, 60, 70, 80 years, and I will go, I pray that Allah accepts, to heaven and there I will do and will enjoy what you did during these 80 years. The difference is that after these years you will burn in hell forever and I will, after my years in this world of faith, restraint and patience, enjoy Allah's pleasures forever.
WND: Let's say your concept of heaven is accurate. You are indeed rewarded with 72 dark-eyed virgins for living the kind of life you describe. Do you really think you will go to heaven for killing innocent civilians during a suicide operation?
BOMBER: You are treating in a ridiculous way this issue, but this is in the Quran. Go and, Allah forbid, ask Allah about this point. We are promised in the Quran to have the dark-eyed virgins and that's it. The Quran is full of verses glorifying the shahid, the martyr.
WND: Show me exactly where in the Quran it states you will get 72 dark-eyed virgins for blowing yourself up amongst civilians.
BOMBER: You and I, we do not discuss Allah and the Quran. I will tell you more the moment that I will explode myself when there will be one dark-eyed virgin who will carry up my soul to the sky.
This is the important part of our mission – fulfilling Allah's commandments and hoping to receive the prizes we were promised in the Quran.
'America is a culture of immorality and free sex'
WND: What do you think about the Unites States?
BOMBER: I have no interest in the American culture which is an empty culture with no values. It is full of immorality and elements that are forbidden by Allah, like free sex and violence.
WND: So I take it you don't listen to American music or watch American movies?
BOMBER: I do not watch American movies and regret those days before the intifada (the Palestinian terror war that started in 2000) when I used to watch American movies like "Platoon" and that film that was made under the water.
These are stupid things and I ask Allah to forgive me for those hours I spent watching this nonsense.
In my opinion, America is the big enemy leading the war against Islam, Muslims, Palestinians and against anything that threatens the Zionist enemy.
WND: In the last suicide bombing, which took place in Tel Aviv earlier this year, an American teenager named Daniel Wultz was severely injured and later died of his wounds. In general, are Americans part of your target?
BOMBER: America is destroying and exploiting the Arabic and the Islamic world as part of a Zionist and Crusader plan. The American Jews, we say, are the godfathers of this Zionist entity in America.
Therefore this Daniel, I am sure, participated in the army activity. If not, he collected money for this Zionist entity. If not, he would decide one day to come to live here as a settler. Therefore there is no way that he can be defined as innocent.
WND: Do you think your family will miss you if you became a suicide bomber or would blowing yourself up amongst Israeli men, women and children make them proud?
BOMBER: My family, I think especially my mother, they have the feeling that one day they will hear that I carried out an operation. I do not think that they will be sad that I killed myself in an operation. It is the will to satisfy Allah.
I do not think my family will be surprised if I do it but I never told them anything because there may be some pressure and all our ideology is based on avoiding pressures and temptations connecting us to this lower world. It is the other world that I am seeking to join with all the love I have to my mother and my family. Now they love me and I hope in the future they will still love me but also be proud of me.

By Aaron Klein© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

photo: Ynetnews.com

Your Gold is worthless

Well, "worthless" might be too strong a term, but those of you who have wet dreams of trading/bartering with gold when and if the sh*t hits the fan might be in for a rude awakening.

Last month, in an interview on CNBC a VP for a London investment firm urged America and her immediate neighbors to drop their national currency and replace it with a Euro type "Amero". (www.worldnetdaily.com)

This was greeted with little fanfare except over conspiratorial web sites who have been chatting on this possibility for a while.
Recently WorldNetDaily has reported that the REAL U.S. shortfall is $4.6 Trillion-that's with a 'T 'as in 'Take them for all their worth", a modern-day version of a former queens suggestion that "they can eat cake".

"The 2006 federal budget deficit of $4.6 trillion is $1.1 trillion more than the 2005 federal budget deficit," econometrician John Williams, who publishes the website Shadow Government Statistics, told WND. "The Bush administration is in an untenable situation with a budget deficit this dramatic. Taxing 100 percent of all wages, salaries, and corporate profits would not eliminate a deficit of this magnitude, and cutting Social Security and Medicare spending is politically impossible."

In 1967, just a few years before President Nixon officially declared the US would not honor their dollar-Gold commitments to foreign nations, an up and rising economic star named Alan Greenspan said this:

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."


Gold restrictions in current history:
As part of this process, many nations, including the U.S., banned private ownership of gold either de jure or de facto. In the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt using the Trading With the Enemy Act for statutory authority to abrogate gold and silver clauses in U.S. Securities and impose fines of up to $100,000,000 on those who refused to do so. Over this period FDR passed two laws prohibiting U.S. citizens and the Federal Reserve ownership of gold, Executive Order 6102 of 1933 and the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. Jewelry, private coin collections, and the like were exempt from this ban, which in any case seems not to have been enforced too zealously. In 1975 all restrictions on the right of American citizens to own gold were abolished.

Dr. Chris Marenson stated on his site on December 17, 2006 that the US is insolvent. He states that our combined federal deficits now total more than 400% of GDP. (GDP is the value of all the services and final goods made in the US each year.) Dr. Marenson is also an advocate of buying Gold and Silver along with multitudes of others . I daresay the current amount of precious metals actually being held by Americans in the last few years has increased dramatically which brings me to my point.

In the event that the U.S. has a currency crisis and the suggestions from the powers that be become stronger and stronger for adapting a North American Euro type dollar, I suggest that it would be in their best interest to make sure that new dollar has some meat behind it: Gold & Silver.

Now where do you think they would get it from? From YOU.
The "authorities" did it once just a few years ago, and it is my humble opinion that it is going to happen again-and soon.
For those of you who believe you can "hide" your gold under your mattress and barter for necessities such as food and services I must suggest that you rethink your vision.
In an economic crisis such as this-IF it happens- would make the have nots and have lots stand out like sore thumbs. It would be in the authorities interest to hand out "finder rewards" to those who turn in their fellow citizens attempting to purchase items with gold and screw those holders of said metals to the wall-publicaly-by confiscating ALL they have and imposing vast fines/prison terms on their persons. After all, having gold is not practical unless you are able to purchase items you need to have with it.
I suggest a near term announcement by the 'authorities' to mandate a citizen liquidation of all precious metals and payments (in new dollars) of half of what they are worth on the open market. To those who refuse, there would be massive penalties. Do you think your stock portfolio full of gold bullion will be safe from confiscation? Do you think your purchases of metals from your checking/credit card accounts will not be noticed?

My apologies, but the drummers of Gold and Silver hoarding-even though they have (ironically)- hit the nail on the head- will not benefit from a crisis that many think are only years away from happening.
Unless you are one of the ultra wealthy, and most who visit blogs are not-you are as much a part of the 'system' as I am, and are able-as I am - to be manipulated within the system to the benefit of the people who run the system.



credits:
http://www.goldfeverprospecting.com/gogapi.html
http://www.usagold.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard
http://drmss.com/wordpress/

Science can't tell you

Anyone here ever heard of Betty Bowers? If you haven't I suggest you visit her site. She is, after all, America's Best Christian. For countless years, America has been relentlessly searching for the true identity of the Betty Bowers Personna. Well folks, the hunt is over, and I won. Read this and visit Betty's site and tell me there isn't a strange resemblance.

I bring Betty's name up because I've discovered a journalist -(whom also is a lady) and a Pulitzer winner- that writes in the same funny, uncanny & serious way. She writes an excellent tongue & cheek article about Christian influences on the Scientific community. Her name is Natalie Angier.

I love a funny intelligent girl...even if she is an atheist. Poor girl, I should have a talk with her. Now where did I leave Pat's number?

Enjoy!

***

MY GOD PROBLEM

In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation's great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether they are biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, or engineers, virtually all my sources topped their list of what they wish people understood about science with a plug for Darwin's dandy idea. Would you please tell the public, they implored, that evolution is for real? Would you please explain that the evidence for it is overwhelming and that an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet?

In other words, the scientists wanted me to do my bit to help fix the terrible little statistic they keep hearing about, the one indicating that many more Americans believe in angels, devils, and poltergeists than in evolution. According to recent polls, about 82 percent are convinced of the reality of heaven (and 63 percent think they're headed there after death); 51 percent believe in ghosts; but only 28 percent are swayed by the theory of evolution.

Scientists think this is terrible—the public's bizarre underappreciation of one of science's great and unshakable discoveries, how we and all we see came to be—and they're right. Yet I can't help feeling tetchy about the limits most of them put on their complaints. You see, they want to augment this particular figure—the number of people who believe in evolution—without bothering to confront a few other salient statistics that pollsters have revealed about America's religious cosmogony. Few scientists, for example, worry about the 77 percent of Americans who insist that Jesus was born to a virgin, an act of parthenogenesis that defies everything we know about mammalian genetics and reproduction. Nor do the researchers wring their hands over the 80 percent who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the laws of thermodynamics be damned.

No, most scientists are not interested in taking on any of the mighty cornerstones of Christianity. They complain about irrational thinking, they despise creationist "science," they roll their eyes over America's infatuation with astrology, telekinesis, spoon bending, reincarnation, and UFOs, but toward the bulk of the magic acts that have won the imprimatur of inclusion in the Bible, they are tolerant, respectful, big of tent. Indeed, many are quick to point out that the Catholic Church has endorsed the theory of evolution and that it sees no conflict between a belief in God and the divinity of Jesus and the notion of evolution by natural selection. If the pope is buying it, the reason for most Americans' resistance to evolution must have less to do with religion than with a lousy advertising campaign.

So, on the issue of mainstream monotheistic religions and the irrationality behind many of religion's core tenets, scientists often set aside their skewers, their snark, and their impatient demand for proof, and instead don the calming cardigan of a a kiddie-show host on public television. They reassure the public that religion and science are not at odds with one another, but rather that they represent separate "magisteria," in the words of the formerly alive and even more formerly scrappy Stephen Jay Gould. Nobody is going to ask people to give up their faith, their belief in an everlasting soul accompanied by an immortal memory of every soccer game their kids won, every moment they spent playing fetch with the dog. Nobody is going to mock you for your religious beliefs. Well, we might if you base your life decisions on the advice of a Ouija board; but if you want to believe that someday you'll be seated at a celestial banquet with your long-dead father to your right and Jane Austen to your left-and that she'll want to talk to you for another hundred million years or more—that's your private reliquary, and we're not here to jimmy the lock.

Consider the very different treatments accorded two questions presented to Cornell University's "Ask an Astronomer" Web site. To the query, "Do most astronomers believe in God, based on the available evidence?" the astronomer Dave Rothstein replies that, in his opinion, "modern science leaves plenty of room for the existence of God . . . places where people who do believe in God can fit their beliefs in the scientific framework without creating any contradictions." He cites the Big Bang as offering solace to those who want to believe in a Genesis equivalent and the probabilistic realms of quantum mechanics as raising the possibility of "God intervening every time a measurement occurs" before concluding that, ultimately, science can never prove or disprove the existence of a god, and religious belief doesn't—and shouldn't—"have anything to do with scientific reasoning."

How much less velveteen is the response to the reader asking whether astronomers believe in astrology. "No, astronomers do not believe in astrology," snarls Dave Kornreich. "It is considered to be a ludicrous scam. There is no evidence that it works, and plenty of evidence to the contrary." Dr. Kornreich ends his dismissal with the assertion that in science "one does not need a reason not to believe in something." Skepticism is "the default position" and "one requires proof if one is to be convinced of something's existence."

In other words, for horoscope fans, the burden of proof is entirely on them, the poor gullible gits; while for the multitudes who believe that, in one way or another, a divine intelligence guides the path of every leaping lepton, there is no demand for evidence, no skepticism to surmount, no need to worry. You, the religious believer, may well find subtle support for your faith in recent discoveries—that is, if you're willing to upgrade your metaphors and definitions as the latest data demand, seek out new niches of ignorance or ambiguity to fill with the goose down of faith, and accept that, certain passages of the Old Testament notwithstanding, the world is very old, not everything in nature was made in a week, and (can you turn up the mike here, please?) Evolution Happens.

And if you don't find substantiation for your preferred divinity or your most cherished rendering of the afterlife somewhere in the sprawling emporium of science, that's fine, too. No need to lose faith when you were looking in the wrong place to begin with. Science can't tell you whether God exists or where you go when you die. Science cannot definitively rule out the heaven option, with its helium balloons and Breck hair for all. Science in no way wants to be associated with terrifying thoughts, like the possibility that the pericentury of consciousness granted you by the convoluted, gelatinous, and transient organ in your skull just may be the whole story of you-dom. Science isn't arrogant. Science trades in the observable universe and testable hypotheses. Religion gets the midnight panic fêtes. But you've heard about evolution, right?So why is it that most scientists avoid criticizing religion even as they decry the supernatural mind-set? For starters, some researchers are themselves traditionally devout, keeping a kosher kitchen or taking Communion each Sunday. I admit I'm surprised whenever I encounter a religious scientist. How can a bench-hazed Ph. D., who might in an afternoon deftly purée a colleague's PowerPoint presentation on the nematode genome into so much fish chow, then go home, read in a two-thousand-year-old chronicle, riddled with internal contradictions, of a meta-Nobel discovery like "Resurrection from the Dead," and say, gee, that sounds convincing? Doesn't the good doctor wonder what the control group looked like?

Scientists, however, are a far less religious lot than the American population, and, the higher you go on the cerebro-magisterium, the greater the proportion of atheists, agnostics, and assorted other paganites. According to a 1998 survey published in Nature, only 7 percent of members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences professed a belief in a "personal God." (Interestingly, a slightly higher number, 7.9 percent, claimed to believe in "personal immortality," which may say as much about the robustness of the scientific ego as about anything else.) In other words, more than 90 percent of our elite scientists are unlikely to pray for divine favoritism, no matter how badly they want to beat a competitor to publication. Yet only a flaskful of the faithless have put their nonbelief on record or publicly criticized religion, the notable and voluble exceptions being Richard Dawkins of Oxford University and Daniel Dennett of Tufts University. Nor have Dawkins and Dennett earned much good will among their colleagues for their anticlerical views; one astronomer I spoke with said of Dawkins, "He's a really fine parish preacher of the fire-and-brimstone school, isn't he?"

So, what keeps most scientists quiet about religion? It's probably something close to that trusty old limbic reflex called "an instinct for self-preservation." For centuries, science has survived quite nicely by cultivating an image of reserve and objectivity, of being above religion, politics, business, table manners. Scientists want to be left alone to do their work, dazzle their peers, and hire grad students to wash the glassware. When it comes to extramural combat, scientists choose their crusades cautiously. Going after Uri Geller or the Ra‘lians is risk-free entertainment, easier than making fun of the sociology department. Battling the creationist camp has been a much harder and nastier fight, but those scientists who have taken it on feel they have a direct stake in the debate and are entitled to wage it, since the creationists, and more recently the promoters of "intelligent design" theory, claim to be as scientific in their methodology as are the scientists.

But when a teenager named Darrell Lambert was chucked out of the Boy Scouts for being an atheist, scientists suddenly remembered all those gels they had to run and dark matter they had to chase, and they kept quiet. Lambert had explained the reason why, despite a childhood spent in Bible classes and church youth groups, he had become an atheist. He took biology in ninth grade, and, rather than devoting himself to studying the bra outline of the girl sitting in front of him, he actually learned some biology. And what he learned in biology persuaded him that the Bible was full of . . . short stories. Some good, some inspiring, some even racy, but fiction nonetheless. For his incisive, reasoned, scientific look at life, and for refusing to cook the data and simply lie to the Boy Scouts about his thoughts on God—as some advised him to do—Darrell Lambert should have earned a standing ovation from the entire scientific community. Instead, he had to settle for an interview with Connie Chung, right after a report on the Gambino family.

Scientists have ample cause to feel they must avoid being viewed as irreligious, a prionic life-form bent on destroying the most sacred heifer in America. After all, academic researchers graze on taxpayer pastures. If they pay the slightest attention to the news, they've surely noticed the escalating readiness of conservative politicians and an array of highly motivated religious organizations to interfere with the nation's scientific enterprise—altering the consumer information Web site at the National Cancer Institute to make abortion look like a cause of breast cancer, which it is not, or stuffing scientific advisory panels with anti-abortion "faith healers."

Recently, an obscure little club called the Traditional Values Coalition began combing through descriptions of projects supported by the National Institutes of Health and complaining to sympathetic congressmen about those they deemed morally "rotten," most of them studies of sexual behavior and AIDS prevention. The congressmen in turn launched a series of hearings, calling in institute officials to inquire who in the Cotton-pickin' name of Mather cares about the perversions of Native American homosexuals, to which the researchers replied, um, the studies were approved by a panel of scientific experts, and, gee, the Native American community has been underserved and is having a real problem with AIDS these days. Thus far, the projects have escaped being nullified, but the raw display of pious dentition must surely give fright to even the most rakishly freethinking and comfortably tenured professor. It's one thing to monkey with descriptions of Darwinism in a high-school textbook. But to threaten to take away a peer-reviewed grant! That Dan Dennett; he is something of a pompous leafblower, isn't he?

Yet the result of wincing and capitulating is a fresh round of whacks. Now it's not enough for presidential aspirants to make passing reference to their "faith." Now a reporter from Newsweek sees it as his privilege, if not his duty, to demand of Howard Dean, "Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation and eternal life?" In my personal fairy tale, Dean, who as a doctor fits somewhere in the phylum Scientificus, might have boomed, "Well, with his views on camels and rich people, he sure wouldn't vote Republican!" or maybe, "No, but I hear he has a Mel Gibson complex." Dr. Dean might have talked about patients of his who suffered strokes and lost the very fabric of themselves and how he has seen the centrality of the brain to the sense of being an individual. He might have expressed doubts that the self survives the brain, but, oh yes, life goes on, life is bigger, stronger, and better endowed than any Bush in a jumpsuit, and we are part of the wild, tumbling river of life, our molecules were the molecules of dinosaurs and before that of stars, and this is not Bulfinch mythology, this is corroborated reality.

Alas for my phantasm of fact, Howard Dean, M. D., had no choice but to chime, oh yes, he certainly sees Jesus as the son of God, though he at least dodged the eternal life clause with a humble mumble about his salvation not being up to him.

I may be an atheist, and I may be impressed that, through the stepwise rigor of science, its Spockian eyebrow of doubt always cocked, we have learned so much about the universe. Yet I recognize that, from there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere. Why is there so much dark matter and dark energy in the great Out There, and why couldn't cosmologists have given them different enough names so I could keep them straight? Why is there something rather than nothing, and why is so much of it on my desk? Not to mention the abiding mysteries of e-mail, like why I get exponentially more spam every day, nine-tenths of it invitations to enlarge an appendage I don't have.I recognize that science doesn't have all the answers and doesn't pretend to, and that's one of the things I love about it. But it has a pretty good notion of what's probable or possible, and virgin births and carpenter rebirths just aren't on the list. Is there a divine intelligence, separate from the universe but somehow in charge of the universe, either in its inception or in twiddling its parameters? No evidence. Is the universe itself God? Is the universe aware of itself? We're here. We're aware. Does that make us God? Will my daughter have to attend a Quaker Friends school now?I don't believe in life after death, but I'd like to believe in life before death. I'd like to think that one of these days we'll leave superstition and delusional thinking and Jerry Falwell behind. Scientists would like that, too. But for now, they like their grants even more.

credit: The Edge.org

Professor Pan

A scenario for the New American Century.

By Victor Corpus



One could call this article a worst-case scenario for the new American century. Why worst case? Because of the hard lessons from history. The Romans did not consider the worst-case scenario when Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants and routed them; or when Hannibal encircled and annihilated the numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae.

The French did not consider the worst-case scenario at Dien Bien Phu and when they built the Maginot Line, and the French suffered disastrous defeats. The Americans did not consider the worst-case scenario at Pearl Harbor or on September 11, and the results were disastrous for the American people. Again, American planners did not consider the worst-case scenario in its latest war in Iraq, but instead operated on the "best-case scenario", such as considering the Iraq invasion a "cake walk" and that the Iraqi people would be parading in the streets, throwing flowers and welcoming American soldiers as "liberators", only to discover the opposite. Scenario One: America launches 'preventive war' vs China

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and Southwest Asia. –Paul Wolfowitz, former US deputy secretary of defense and currently president of the World BankConsider these snapshots of China:
Since 1978, China has averaged 9.4% annual GDP growth
It had a five-fold increase in total output per capita from 1982 to 2002
It had $61 billion in foreign direct investment in 2004 alone and foreign trade of $851 billion, the third-largest in the world
The US trade deficit with China exceeded $200 billion in 2005
China has $750 billion in foreign exchange reserves and is the second-biggest oil importer
Last year it turned out 442,000 new engineers a year; with 48,000 graduates with master's degrees and 8,000 PhDs annually; compared to only 60,000 new engineers a year in the US.
China for the first time (2004) surpassed America to export the most technology wares around the world. China enjoyed a $34 billion trade surplus with the US in advanced technology products in 2004 (The Economist, December 17, 2005). In 2005, the surplus increased to $36 billion
It created 20,000 new manufacturing facilities a year
It holds $252 billion in US Treasury Bonds (plus $48 billion held by Hong Kong)
Among the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities –grain and meat, oil and coal and steel –consumption in China has eclipsed that of the US in all but oil.
China has also gone ahead of the US in the consumption of TV sets, refrigerators and mobile phones
In 1996, China had 7 million cell phones and the US had 44 million. Now China has more mobile phone users than the US has people.
China has about $1 trillion in personal savings and a savings rate of close to 50%; U.S. has about $158 billion in personal savings and a savings rate of about 2% (The Wall Street Journal, Nov 19, 2005)
Shanghai boasts 4,000 skyscrapers – double the number in New York City (The Wall Street Journal, Nov 19, 2005)
Songbei, Harbin City in north China is building a city as big as New York City.


Goldman Sachs predicts that China will surpass the US economy by 2041. Before China's economy catches up with America, and before China builds a military machine that can challenge American superpower status and world dominance, America's top strategic planners (Project for the New American Century) decide to launch a "preventive war" against China. As a pretext for this, the US instigates Taiwan to declare independence. Taiwan declares independence!China has anticipated and long prepared itself for this event. After observing "Operation Summer Pulse –04" when US aircraft carrier battle groups converged in the waters off China's coast in mid-July through August of 2004, Chinese planners began preparing to face its own worst-case scenario: the possibility of confronting a total of 15 carrier battle groups composed of 12 from America and three from its close British ally. China's strategists refer to its counter-strategy to defeat 15 or more aircraft carrier battle groups as the "assassin's mace" or shashaujian. After proper coordination with Russia and Iran and activating their previously agreed strategic plan, troops and weapon systems are pre-positioned. China then launches a missile barrage on Taiwan. Command and control nodes, military bases, logistics centers, vital war industries, government centers and air defense installations are simultaneously hit with short and medium range ballistic missiles armed with conventional, anti-radar, thermo baric and electro-magnetic pulse warheads. At the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command and Control Center, ranking defense officials watch huge electronic monitor screens showing seven US and two British aircraft carrier battle groups converging on the East China Sea with another three US carrier battle groups entering the Persian Gulf, while the remaining two US and one British battle groups remain in the Indian Ocean to serve as a strategic reserve. As the aircraft carrier battle groups advance, China draws out one of its "trump cards" by leaking to the world media that it is dumping its holdings of US Treasury bonds and shifting to gold and euros.
Meanwhile, strategic planners at NORAD watch with glee as they observe on the screen as monitored by their radar satellites that Chinese surface ships are making a hasty retreat as nine allied carrier battle groups advance toward the Philippine Sea and Chinese waters near Taiwan. The assassin's mace: China's anti-satellite weapons Glee and ecstasy soon turn to shock as monitor screens suddenly go blank. Then all communication via satellites goes dead. China has drawn its second "trump card" (the assassin's mace) by activating its maneuverable "parasite" micro-satellites that have unknowingly clung to vital (NORAD) radar and communication satellites and have either jammed, blinded or physically destroyed their hosts. This is complemented by space mines that maneuver near adversary satellites and explode. Secret Chinese and Russian ground-based anti-satellite laser weapons also blind or bring down US and British satellites used for C4ISR (command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). And to ensure redundancy and make sure that the adversary C4ISR system is completely "blinded" even temporarily, hundreds of select Chinese and Russian information warriors (hackers) specifically trained to attack their adversary's C4ISR systems simultaneously launch their cyber offensive. For a few precious minutes, the US and UK advancing carrier battle groups are stunned and blinded by the "mace", ie, a defensive weapon used to temporarily blind a stronger opponent. But the word mace has another meaning; one which is deadlier and used in combination with the first. A mace can be a spiked war club used in olden times to knock out an opponent. Applied in modern times, the spikes of the assassin's mace refer to currently unstoppable supersonic cruise missiles capable of sinking aircraft carriers that are in China's inventory; complemented by equally unstoppable "squall" or SHKVAL rocket torpedoes and regular 65 cm-diameter wake-homing torpedoes, bottom-rising rocket-propelled mines, and "obsolete" warplanes converted into unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) firing anti-ship missiles from standoff positions and finally dive-bombing into the heart of the US and UK aircraft carrier armada. Missile barrage on advancing carrier battle groups A few seconds after the "blackout", literally hundreds of short and medium-range ballistic missiles (DF7/9/11/15s, DF4s, DF21X/As, some of which are maneuverable) pre-positioned on the Chinese mainland, and stealthy, sea-skimming and highly-accurate cruise missiles (YJ12s, YJ22s, KH31A/Ps, YJ83s, C301s, C802s, SS-N-22s, SS-NX-26/27s, 3M54s & HN3s) delivered from platforms on land, sea and air race toward their respective designated targets at supersonic speed. Aircraft carriers are allotted a barrage of more than two dozen cruise missiles each, followed by a barrage of short and medium-range ballistic missiles timed to arrive in rapid succession. Supersonic cruise missiles constitute China's third deadly "trump card" against the US – part of the so-called assassin's mace. These unstoppable cruise missiles may be armed with 440-lb to 750-lb conventional warheads (or 200-kiloton tactical nuclear warheads 10 times stronger than Hiroshima) traveling at more than twice the speed of sound (or faster than a rifle bullet). The cruise missiles, together with the SRBMs and MRBMs (short and medium-range ballistic missiles) may also be armed with radio frequency weapons that can simulate the electro-magnetic pulse of nuclear explosions to fry computer chips, or fuel-air explosives that can annihilate the personnel in aircraft carriers and battleships without destroying the platforms. Their effective range varies from less than 100 to 1,800 kilometers from stand-off positions. Delivered by long-range fighter-bombers and submarines, their range can be extended even further. In fact, stealthy Chinese and Russian submarines can deliver such nuclear payloads to the US mainland itself. No US defense vs supersonic cruise missiles The US and UK aircraft carrier battle groups do not have any known defense against the new supersonic missiles of their adversaries. The Phalanx and Aegis ship defense systems may be effective against subsonic cruise missiles like the Exocets or Tomahawks, or exo-atmospheric ballistic missiles, but they are inadequate against the sea-skimming and supersonic Granits, Moskits and Yakhonts or similar types (Shipwreck, Sunburn and Onyx - North Atlantic Treaty Organization codenames) of modern anti-ship missiles in China's inventory. Not only China and Russia have these modern cruise missiles, so do Iran, India and North Korea. These missiles can be delivered by SU-27 variants, SU-30s, Tu22M Blackjacks, Bears, J6s, JH-7/As, H-6Hs, J-10s, surface ships, diesel submarines or common trucks. Adding to the problems facing aircraft carriers are the SHKVAL or "squall" rocket torpedoes installed in some Chinese and Russian submarines and surface ships. At 6,000 lbs apiece, these torpedoes travel at 200 knots (or 230 miles per hour) with a range of 7,500 yards guided by autopilot. They are designed to sink aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. Again, it is unfortunate for the US and UK to have no known or existing defenses against this new generation of rocket torpedoes. China's sea minesComplicating matters for the US aircraft carrier battle groups are the hundreds of hard-to-detect, rocket-propelled, bottom-rising sea mines that are anchored and hidden on the sea bottom covering pre-selected battle sites in the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea designed to home in on submarines and surface ships, particularly aircraft carriers. These sophisticated sea mines (EM-52s) have been deployed by Chinese and Russian submarines before the missile attack on Taiwan in anticipation of the major event that is to follow. Finally, in addition to all these asymmetric weapons, the US and UK aircraft carrier battle groups will have to contend with the thousands of "obsolete" Chinese fighter planes converted into unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) launching missiles at stand-off positions and finally diving kamikaze-style into the heart of the carrier battle groups. Chinese and Russian submarines fire their inventory of anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and "squall" rocket torpedoes at the aircraft carriers and submarines of the US and UK as the carrier battle groups come within range. As the battle progresses, the Chinese and Russian submarines maneuver to the rear of the carrier battle groups to complete the encirclement. In less than an hour after launching the saturation barrage of missiles on the US and UK naval armada, all the aircraft carriers and their escorts of cruisers, battleships and several of the accompanying submarines are in flames, sinking or sunk, turning the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea into a modern-day "Battle of Cannae". Meanwhile, the Chinese fleet that conducted a strategic retreat forms a phalanx along the forward positions off China's coast, ready to augment the hundreds or thousands of land-based long-range surface-to-air missiles of China (SA-10s, SA-15s and SA-20s) with their own short, medium and long-range air defense missile systems. Applying its long-held military doctrine of "active defense", China also launches simultaneous missile attacks on the forces-in-being and logistics-in-place of the US and its allies in Japan, South Korea, Guam, Okinawa, Diego Garcia and Kyrgyzstan, hitting these US bases with missiles armed with radio frequency weapons, fuel-air explosives and conventional warheads. As another Chinese military doctrine states: "Win victory with one strike." Chinese and Russian missiles cockedBoth Chinese and Russian inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and the two countries' extensive air defense systems have been coordinated and ready to respond in the event that the US and UK decide to retaliate with a nuclear attack. In addition, Ranets-E and Rosa-E radio frequency/electro-magnetic pulse systems scattered all along China's coastal cities are on the look-out to neutralize incoming missiles and aircraft that may respond after the attack on the aircraft carrier battle groups. These systems can work in tandem with airborne-based anti-missile laser systems now in China's inventory. China's trump cards vs the US China's deadly "trump cards" (ie, the huge holdings of US Treasury bonds, the anti-satellite weapons system, the supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, SRBMs, MRBMs, "squall" rocket torpedoes, sea mines, UCAVs, DF31A and DF41 road-mobile ICBMs, JL2 SLBMs, air defense system, IO/EW/IW, and other RMA weapons) are the key ingredients of the assassin's mace. China may not possess any of those expensive aircraft carriers of the superpower, but it can wipe out those carrier battle groups with a "single blow" of its assassin's mace or shashaujian –its major tool for conducting asymmetric warfare to defeat the US in a major confrontation over the Taiwan issue or other issues. The US may possess the most powerful war machine in the world, but it can be defeated by an inferior force by avoiding the superpower's strength and exploiting its weaknesses. Again, an integral part of Chinese doctrine is: "Victory through inferiority over superiority." One famous Chinese strategist, Chang Mengxiong, compared asymmetric warfare to "a Chinese boxer with a keen knowledge of vital body points who can bring a stronger opponent to his knees with a minimum of movement". The sad part for the American people, particularly the innocent sailors who will be manning the battle groups, is that even if US planners come to realize that the aircraft carrier battle groups (which are the mainstay of the US Navy and the main instrument of US power projection worldwide), have been rendered vulnerable or obsolete by China's assassin's mace.

The US cannot simply change strategy or discard such a weapons system. To change strategy or "retool" would mean wasting hundreds of billions of dollars invested in those highly sophisticated systems. The strong lobbying of influential defense contractors making those systems would make change extremely difficult. For defense authorities to admit the strategic blunder constitutes an almost insurmountable barrier to a change of strategy. And finally, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs related to those systems may be politically and economically unbearable for any US administration to bear should the program for the aircraft carrier battle groups be scrapped. Because of these factors, America may be stuck with an obsolete system that is too expensive to maintain but will only lose the war for the US when employed in a major conflict. Meanwhile, on the Middle East Front On another major front, on previously coordinated signals with China and Russia, Iran lets loose its own barrage of supersonic Granit, Moskit, Brahmos and Yakhont cruise missiles carried by trucks or hidden in man-made tunnels all along the mountainous shoreline of Iran fronting the Persian Gulf. The three US aircraft carrier groups that entered the Persian Gulf to ensure the unhindered flow of Arab oil are likely to be helpless "sitting ducks" against the bottom-rising sea mines and low-flying, supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles in Iranian hands. In the process, a couple of oil tankers about to exit the Strait of Hormuz are hit with the aid of rocket-propelled sea mines, thus effectively blockading the narrow strait and stopping oil supplies from coming out of the Middle East.

A "weak" nation like China or Iran, without a single aircraft carrier in their respective navies, could thus obliterate the carrier battle groups of a superpower. Here, one can see the hidden and often unnoticed power of asymmetric warfare, which may well spell the end of "gunboat diplomacy" in the not so distant future. The Central Asian front On yet another major front in Central Asia, Russian troops lead the other member-countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) into a major offensive against US military bases in Central Asia. The bases are first subjected to a simultaneous barrage of missiles with fuel-air explosives and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads before they are overrun and occupied by SCO coalition forces. The missile attack on the US bases is followed by a lightning attack by four mechanized armored divisions coming from the Yili Korgas pass of China's Xinjiang province, linking up with Russia's own armored divisions in a pincer offensive against US forces in Central Asia and the Middle East. America crippled on three major fronts In just a few hours (or days) after the outbreak of general hostilities, America, the world's lone superpower, finds itself badly crippled militarily in three major regions of the world: East Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Impossible? Unfortunately, the answer is no. China now has the know-how and the financial resources to mass-produce hundreds, if not thousands, of Moskit, Yakhont and Granit-type supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles and "squall"-type rocket torpedoes against which US and UK aircraft carriers and submarines have no known defense.

Iran, on the other hand, already possesses the same supersonic cruise missiles that can destroy any ship in the Persia Gulf, including aircraft carriers. Russia and China, meanwhile, are operating on familiar grounds close to their territory, compared to the US, which needs to cross the Atlantic and Pacific to replenish troops and logistics. A geopolitical reality America has to face An important consideration in any US-China conflict is the geopolitical reality that the US and its allies will be operating on exterior lines, while China will operate on interior lines. This gives China a huge advantage in a major war in Asia against US and allied forces. Consider the long sea lanes of communication (10,000 kilometers) that the US alliance would be forced to cross each time its forces had to resupply and you get an idea of the huge logistics problem that the US would face in a confrontation with China.

Such lengthy sea lanes of communication (SLOC) are highly vulnerable to a gauntlet of Chinese and Russian submarines lying in ambush along the route laden with underwater sea mines. This will make transporting personnel and equipment by the US over the Pacific or the Atlantic extremely dangerous and expensive. Compare this US handicap with troop movement by Chinese troops using heavy-lift aircraft, railways and highways within the China mainland. China's interior lines of communication are shorter and protected, with little chance for enemy interdiction. Chinese troops can concentrate numerically superior forces rapidly at any given point to defeat invading US forces one by one with much shorter and less vulnerable lines of communication. And in the event that the US forces and their allies are lucky enough to land on the Chinese mainland, they will be faced not only with a conventional People's Liberation Army of more than 2 million, but also with a people's militia conducting asymmetric warfare and a people's war in its teeming millions. US forces and their allies will be like a raging bull charging and goring a hive of killer bees. US forces may be able to set foot in China, but it is highly doubtful if they could come out alive. Grimmer scenarios There is a scenario grimmer than described above, however, and that is if strategic planners belonging to that elite group called the Project for the New American Century decide to launch a nuclear "first strike" against China and Russia and risk a mutually-assured destruction: 1)In defense of Taiwan ... or 2) In launching a "preventive war" to stop China from catching up economically and militarily. Or, if China decides to start an offensive against Taiwan with a one-megaton nuclear burst 40 kilometers above the center of the island. Or, if China and Russia decide to arm a number of their short and medium-range ballistic missiles and supersonic cruise missiles with tactical nuclear warheads in defending themselves against US and UK aircraft carrier battle groups. Land-attack versions of these supersonic cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads carried by stealthy Chinese and Russian submarines can also put American coastal cities at great risk to nuclear devastation.

Strategic planners must also consider these worst-case possibilities. Scenario two: America vs a medium power "In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve US and Western access to the region's oil." - Paul Wolfowitz "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian. But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan." – Dick Cheney in 1998 as chief executive of a major oil services company History is replete with vivid examples where a much stronger and larger force has been defeated by a weaker and smaller force. The French were defeated by Vietminh guerrillas in Dien Bien Phu. Soviet Union forces, still a superpower at that time, were defeated in Afghanistan. And another superpower, the United States, was defeated by "ill-clad, ill-fed and ill-armed" Vietcong guerrillas in Vietnam. Asymmetric warfareIf the US pushes through its plan of world domination, then it should expect all the smaller and weaker countries that do not wish to be pushed around to fight back using asymmetric warfare. This is a form of warfare that allows the weak to fight and defeat a much stronger foe by "attacking the enemy's weakness while avoiding his strengths". The US, for instance, may possess the most sophisticated weapons system on Earth. It may have the most modern planes, helicopters, ships, guns, precision-guided weapons, sophisticated sensors and command and control systems, but if it cannot see its adversary, if it is fighting a shadowy and "invisible" enemy (like American and British forces are experiencing in Iraq), such advanced and sophisticated weapons systems are rendered useless. In asymmetric warfare, most of the fighting is conducted at the team level. Thousands of agile and elusive teams consisting of two to five members equipped with man-portable surface-to-air missiles, portable anti-tank guided weapons, sniper rifles, man-portable mortars, anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, sea mines, C4 explosives (for making car bombs, booby-traps and improvised explosive devices or IEDs) riding on bicycles and motorcycles and fast boats will make the lives of any invading or occupying forces extremely miserable. These "invisible" agile teams merge with the population most of the time and come out only when there is a vulnerable target to strike at.

Then, they disappear into the shadows. They communicate via runners bringing coded written messages, so there are no electronic signals to track down. They operate semi-autonomously, so there are no centers of gravity that can be targeted. And since they are indigenous to the area and united with the local people, their human intelligence (humint) is far more superior to that of the invaders. They will also enjoy a tremendous advantage in psychological operations (psyops), for it is much easier to mobilize nationalist sentiments against a foreign occupier than for an aggressor to justify occupation. Asymmetric warfare may be compared to a fierce lion invading the territory of a school of piranhas; or a king cobra encroaching into a colony of fire ants. The lion may be the king of beasts, mighty and strong, but it is no match against the tiny piranhas in their own territory. The sharp fangs and claws of the lion are rendered useless. The same is true with the cobra's venom. The analogy applies to the French in Dien Bien Phu, the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Americans in Vietnam and now in Iraq. Asynchronous warfareAside from asymmetric warfare, weak nations fighting the strong can also avail themselves of asynchronous warfare. If a strong nation invades or occupies a weak one, the weak bides its time before striking back. And it strikes at a time and place when and where the adversary least expects.

An example is Iraq. The underground resistance movement in Iraq may recruit Iraqi scientists or sympathetic scientists of other nationalities to infiltrate the US (via the Mexican border, for instance) and manufacture dirty bombs as well as chemical and biological weapons inside the US. Such weapons may be brought to Washington and detonated in or near the US Congress. They could also hire a private plane, or buy one themselves, and use it to spread biological or chemical weapons they have manufactured in-country over New York or Washington. They can mail letters containing anthrax to key offices of vital services all over the US and paralyze utilities and other government functions nationwide. Or they can smuggle, say, the components of a hundred portable surface-to-air missiles, assemble them in the US, and employ them simultaneously in all of the major airports in America. Or they can employ those portable surface-to-air missiles to simultaneously target American airlines taking off or landing in different international airports all over the world. Some major powers may pass on their research on RMA (revolution in military affairs) to the Iraqi resistance to be tested inside the US. These weapons include laser weapons, ultrahigh frequency weapons, ultrasonic wave weapons, stealth weapons, high-powered microwave weapons and electromagnetic guns. They include miniature robot ants that infiltrate computers, stay dormant and then activate on the signal to destroy their hosts. The Iraqi underground could also recruit hackers to work inside and/or outside the US to hack into key US systems. American crossroad As the sole superpower, the US stands at a critical crossroad. One road leads to world domination. Using its pre-eminent military war machine without equal, it can strike at any perceived threat, change foreign sovereign regimes at will, grab precious mineral resources anywhere in the world and control local economies with its host of transnational corporations.

It can also sabotage the economy of up-coming rivals, or launch preventive wars to preempt prospective competitors and try to defeat them militarily while they are still weak compared to America. Such a course of action is very tempting, especially to leaders with global ambitions of becoming "Lords of the Earth". But such a road is full of risks and what is planned on paper, as what was done in Iraq, may not turn out as hoped. And such a path will necessarily ignite the outrage of most right-thinking people. America will earn for itself the enmity and hatred of people all over the world. America had outlined its blueprint for world domination, by force if necessary, in the following documents:
National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2001
President George W Bush's speech at the Graduation Ceremony at West Point, June 1, 2002
Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for the New Century, a report of the Project for the New American Century, September 2000
Defense Planning Guidance written by then deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz in February 18, 1992 In these documents, the US outlined some of its new doctrines and policies, such as: preventive war, pre-emptive military action, unilateralism, regime change, acting as the world's constabulary or "cavalry", establishment of military bases and spreading US forces all over the world, control of outer space and the global commons of cyberspace and control of the world's oil resources.

The alternate road, on the other hand, leads to world leadership. The US can choose to use its power, wealth and influence to sincerely do good for the people on this planet. It can lead in easing or obliterating the debt burden of poor nations, or in promoting the spread of quality education through distance learning in remote villages of developing countries. It can focus in the fight against poverty, or the fight against drugs, or the effort to save the deteriorating environment of planet earth. It can lead the fight against HIV/AIDS, or malaria and other deadly diseases. The whole world is waiting for the US to lead in these important battles. If the US chooses to focus its huge resources on the latter, I am confident that it will gain the hearts and minds of people all over the world. Then it can be a true world leader. Then it can maintain its preeminent world status. By gaining the world's sympathy and support, terrorism directed against Americans and the US mainland will be greatly minimized. The alternate road, in fact, is the key to defeating the phenomenon of "terrorism" gripping the world today.
From Rense/AsiaTimes

Victor N Corpus is a retired brigadier general. He has a master's degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. His major assignment while serving in the armed forces of the Philippines was as chief of the intelligence service.