Nigeria, Oil and the Global War on Terror Redux.

"This is not just a Nigerian issue, it is a global issue,..There are extreme Islamists around our world who are against education, against progress, against equality and we must fight them and take them on wherever they are." -David Cameron, British Prime Minister, Wednesday May 7 2014

"As the mother of two young daughters, Mrs Obama is taking up the opportunity to express outrage and heartbreak the president and she share over the kidnapping,"-White House deputy spokesman Eric Schultz

..the security council should act quickly to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group."We're working with Nigeria in the security council to secure urgently needed UN sanctions (on) Boko Haram,"Must hold its murderous leaders to account."-Samathan Power on Twitter.

The abduction of 267 girls has been spun into a chorus of denunciation from Western leaders and diplomats is intended as 'public diplomacy' to enable the Western powers to intervene with military aid to shore up the Nigerian state which looks as though it is losing control of the country.

Nigeria provided around 10% of the USA's crude oil imports. Yet the amount of oil imported by the barrel has rapidly diminished since 2011 and plummeted in the latter part of 2013. The start of 2014 saw an upsurge in Boko Haram violence in the north of Nigeria which it has threatened to bring south.

The falling imports of Nigerian crude to the US, due to the exploitation of shale oil, do not mean that Obama's administration is any less concerned about the spread of Al Qaida affiliated terror groups across sub Saharan Africa in what US geopolitical experts term an 'arc of instability'.

For a start, Boko Haram could bring chaos to a nation whose oil still provides a significant proportion of the oil imports of the US's main trading partners in the EU states, especially Britain and France. European demand for Nigerian oil has actually increased between 2011 and 2012.

Sola Tayo, a Nigeria analyst at the London-based think tank Chatham House, has claimed that the effects of Boko Haram attacks spreading south would be "catastrophic" for Africa's leading economy and add to the already damaging attacks from other insurgent group's on pipelines in the Niger Delta.

One reason for the rising conflict in northern Nigeria, of which the abduction of the girls in Chibok is a consequence, is the ruthless determination of the government in Abuja to exploit huge reserves of oil in the Chad Basin and so secure a reduction of its over-dependence on the oil of the Niger Delta.

Should oil in Northern Nigeria be exploited successfully, Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings would increase and it is claimed oil revenue could be used to improve the social and economic welfare of the vastly poorer Nigerians in the region, something that did not happen in the case of the Niger Delta.

In any case, tensions between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian South are widening and set to widen further with the question of who is going to benefit from northern Nigeria's oil. The Nigerian Joint Task Force units are venal and inept, and have attempted to crack down on insurgents heavy handedly.

Before the global media made a cause celebre out of the abducted girls, the JTF was found to have employed extrajudicial execution and torture in some villages where 'terror suspects' from Boko Haram were believed to operate. The danger is now that the West could get drawn in to the struggle.

Indeed, none of this chaos seems to have abated the willingness of the US, Britain and France to try and step up the 'war on terror' and add their assistance and military aid. As President Hollande said in Abuja in January after 43 boys were murdered in a dormitory school 'Your struggle is our struggle'.

Britain and France have strong bilateral ties with Nigeria. Oil revenues and investments in infrastructure and banking are very important for both of their economies, not to mention the role crude oil imports have on keeeping petrol prices for British and French consumers lower.

The need for stable oil prices and foreign export earnings from the sale of oil makes exploration of the oil in northern Nigeria ever more necessary. Yet in March 2014 the Nigerial oil corporation's head declared that Boko Haram is increasingly stalling all possibilities of it being tapped.

So expect further moves towards intervention from the Western Powers in Nigeria in the coming weeks and months and years.

Nigeria, Resource Wars and Boko Haram

Boko Haram's attacks and killings in Nigeria have been going on since 2009. Girls such as Malala in Pakistan have become global media figures for denoucing the Taliban, and now Boko Haram,  for trying to deny Muslim girls an education; the cause has been championed by former British PM Gordon Brown.

But when politicians start adding their voice, questions need asking. Why have Barack Obama and David Cameron have only become more vocally concerned now about such events as the kidnapping of the 267 girls from Chibok ? William Hague talked about the possibility of sending in the SAS if Nigeria asked it to do so.
 
It was not as if Western statesmen did not know Boko Haram was committing atrocities before. Hollande in February 2014 on a visit to Nigeria, that followed an attack on a school dormitory in Buni Yadi , killing 43, stated 'Your struggle is our struggle' and backing in the struggle against insurgents in Mali.

Part of the answer has to lie in fears that the Nigerian state is failing to be able to protect both its citizens. But also Boko Harem, according to Sola Tayo a Chatham House expert on Nigeria, Boko Harem is threatening to strike Lagos and the country's oil pipelines in the Niger Delta.

Boko Haram is also threatening oil exploration in the Chad Basin, a major aim of the Nigerian government at present which needs to reduce dependence on oil supplies from the Niger Delta where an ongoing insurgency from MEND has continuously threatened oil supplies to nations such as Britain.

Britain's crude oil imports from Nigeria amount to 7% of its total. Back in 2008, the threat to the Niger Delta was a major concern for PM Gordon Brown who feared insurgent activity could disrupt oil supplies and create a price spike for British consumers. Hence the growth of British military assistance to the government.

France has major interests in Nigerian oil too representing 88% of French investment in the country. Military assistance is tied to Abuja's continued friendly relations with Western governments, one that is feared to be under threat from China.

The broader context to Boko Haram's upsurge since 2009 is a combination of climate change causing hunger and poverty along with the Nigerian government's use of extrajudicial killings and torture in the region, something that tends to increase support for Al Qaida affiliated groups.

The relentless and ruthless drive for oil, though it could improve the welfare and economic position of the people of Northern Nigeria, helps to explain what is at stake in the conflicts in Nigeria and why they have contributed towards a deteriorating security environment.

Blair's Speech and the New Great Game.

Tony Blair's speech, as with everything this man utters, is a carefully calibrated public diplomacy missive better called a propaganda offensive. The timing is instructive; Blair is upgrading his profile in the Middle East because the crisis in Ukraine is set to lead to EU states searching for alternative energy sources.

It was interesting that Blair claimed the Ukraine Crisis would distract attention away from the Middle East. And why his fellow strategist and sinister operative John McTernan is 'on message' to explain just what Blair meant to those who could regard him as an important critic of Western foreign policy.

As is standard with propaganda, words and meaning must be prized apart from their conventional uses

'Libya and Syria are at the heart of Blair's argument: action started by this government but left incomplete. The passage on Syria is a direct attack on Cameron and Nick Clegg, and their inaction'.

Firstly, the Coalition government were not 'inactive' over Syria. They continually called for Assad 'to go'. Sarkozy set up the Friends of Syria group in Istanbul in 2012 to create a unified opposition with the intention of ousting Assad and installing a client state.

Secondly, Britain and France in particular were highly active in agitating for a missile strike on Syria, far more so even than a more energy independent 'post shale revolution 'USA. Their main client in the Middle East is Qatar which is in rivalry to build a pipeline from the South Pars gasfield which it shares with Iran.

Britain and France have increasingly sought to diversify the gas supply away from dependence upon Russia. One reason why Qatar's copious production of liquefied natural gas is a lucrative opportunity whereby its petrodollars from selling it get invested in the London and Paris property market and arms.

'Not a defence of liberal intervention, but a scrupulous account of the costs of doing nothing – particularly where the coalition has called for regime change. And, typically, looking at the bigger picture. The Middle East matters.. It matters because of oil and gas and our economic dependence on them'.

That statement matters. Essentially, with Russia and the US in a dangerous stand off over Ukraine, like Syria another pipeline transit route between east and west, Blair is trying to revive the idea that democratising the Middle East could provide EU states with better energy security.

Yet 'liberal intervention' was what was on offer when NATO facilitated the victory over the Gaddafi regime in Libya and what was on offer with the West's humanitarian concern over the East Ghouta gas attack in Syria. The reason no action was taken in Syria was increased concern over Al Qaida's presence.

The Libyan intervention made a bad situation worse. It enabled Gadaffi to be removed only for immediate ( and highly predictable ) squabbles over Libya's oil production capacity to divide the rebels ensuring another failed attempt at regime change backfired.

Now jihadists from Libya are known to have gone to Syria. The danger is, should Egypt fall into increased chaos, that the entire Maghreb could become a zone of carnage and bloodshed. Al Qaida affiliates are already operating in the Sinai Peninsula and fighting the Egyptian military.

As in Syria, the reality in Egypt was that the US and US tacitly accepted a military coup, even if the Muslim Brotherhood's bungling policies and attempts at institutional takeover has divided Egypt and led it even further towards economic and political collapse.

The Western Powers need to stop pretending that they can control events in the Middle East. Energy security has to be attained by decisive policies to move away from the great car economy and to find alternatives to oil and gas as well as dealing cautiously with Russia over Ukraine.

Blair's understanding on the Middle East is both simplistic and deranged. But his siren calls for radical and decisive action and drawing up of cosmic battle lines between Good and Evil remain potentially lethal if politicians and the media hail it as delivering a solution to an a looming energy security crisis.

Blair's Speech on Islamism: On the Reaction.

The response to Blair's speech consists of the usual dreary political bores and hack journalists trying to muscle in so as to gain credibility from lauding it as either sage wisdom and a fundamental moral stance or else as the utterings of an evil demonic warmongerer.

On the pro-Blair side, Denis McShane is wholly mendacious when he claims 'Just read Blair speech. Ignore headlines. This is Fulton Mark 2. Bien pensant left then refused to challenge Stalinism. Orwell knew better'. Well, if it's read correctly, the speech is clearly Orwellian in the negative sense.

For example, Blair refers to 'extremist Islamism' when he supports the Egyptian military government's coup against the Muslim Brotherhood and omits to mention the way it massacred protesters in the streets of Cairo. At the same time he refers to the Islamists opposing Assad in Syria as 'Opposition'.

The use of euphemism and clipped soundbite statements makes what was a bloody coup sound as though part of a mere political transition, with no mention of the killings, arbitrary imprisonments, use of torture; that is, the actual reality of events in Egypt in August 2013 to the present.

'The revolt of 30 June 2013 was not an ordinary protest. It was the absolutely necessary rescue of a nation. We should support the new Government and help. None of this means that where there are things we disagree strongly with – such as the death sentence on the 500 – that we do not speak out'.

The use of two negatives in one sentence is used to insinuate that Western governments have, in fact, spoken out about the political murders carried out by a government backed by western governments when the US and EU have refused even to call the coup in Egypt a coup.

Orwell defined doublethink in 1984 as 'Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them'. In Blair's case, Islamism is 'extreme' when it threatens western backed regimes but Opposition needing support when that benefits power interests.

In Syria, Blair makes it clear that even if people are aware the enemies of Assad contain a lot of the vicious jihadists that would be opposed as part of a global force for evil if theyy were not fighting on the side dedicated to removing an ally of Iran and Lebanon's Hizbollah.

'We are now in a position where both Assad staying and the Opposition taking over seem bad options. The former is responsible for creating this situation. But the truth is that there are so many fissures and problems around elements within the Opposition that people are rightly wary now of any solution that is an outright victory for either side'

This entire paragraph is written with lots of abstract nouns in a deliberately vague way so as to obscure the fact that the 'extreme Islamists' Blair sees as a global menace elsewhere are an important part of the armed insurgency at war with Assad's forces in Syria.

As a consequence, Blair calls for an agreement with Assad that would 'see him stay on for a period', after which he would be called on to go, as if that would somehow solve the Syrian civil war and that the entire conflict hinges on the malign will of one leader.

'Should even this not be acceptable to him, we should consider active measures to help the Opposition and force him to the negotiating table, including no fly zones whilst making it clear that the extremist groups should receive no support from any of the surrounding nations'.

Note again, the abstract language that concentrates on what western powers can do to get rid of Assad and only adds in the essential fact later that jihadists in Syria are part of the Opposition and are backed by Turkey ( a NATO power ), Qatar, a major Gulf ally and investor in London, and Saudi Arabia.

To grasp the very dangerous nature of global power politics and the race to control resources, of which the Second Iraq war was a prime example, requires understanding first if the sort of insane geopolitical agenda and propaganda deployed by Blair can stand any chance of being opposed.

For just as preposterous are those posing as 'anti-war' and principled by drawing attention to Blair's hypocrisy instead of to the fundamental reality behind the reason why Blair supports the Egyptian military against the Muslim Brotherhood and, like the rest of the political class, Islamists against Assad in Syria.

That reason is clearly oil and gas for reasons spelt out by Blair himself,

 'the Middle East remains of central importance...it is still where a large part of the world’s energy supplies are generated, and whatever the long term implications of the USA energy revolution, the world’s dependence on the Middle East is not going to disappear any time soon. In any event, it has a determining effect on the price of oil; and thus on the stability and working of the global economy'.

 However, George Galloway, the Bradford MP for RESPECT, claims via Twitter,

'Under pressure @TheBlairDoc the war criminal Tony Blair has finally lost it. And in the heart of "the City" for which he sacrificed us all'.

The fact that Blair chose to give the speech in London in Bloomberg's HQ hardly amounts to evidence that Blair invaded Iraq to benefit the City or financial interests. That could sit well with those keen on conpiracy theories and who watch his shows on Iran's Press TV but it's a mendacious claim.

Ben White calls for protest against Blair,,

'After yet another much publicised op-ed by a man who should be scribbling his musings in a prison cell, it is time we sent a message to Tony Blair. A petition is, perhaps, a strange choice of protest form given Blair's track record in laughing off popular opinion. But at the very least, it will remind him that for every corporation and foreign government willing to top up his bank account, there are many more people wishing he would simply Shut Up and Go Away'.

Until Blair is put in a prison cell or formally indicted as a war criminal, Blair is not going to go away and he simply is not going to care what a group of nonentities think or write on a petition calling on him never to speak in public again. Britain has free speech and is a democracy. He can say what he likes.

Few on the 'anti-war' left or those protesting against Blair really want him to shut up as they enjoy the sensation of outrage, wearing bloodied Blair masks, yelling 'Bliar' and feeling themselves morally superior to Him ( as if this somehow needed continual in group affirmation ).

Such protests ignore the fact that Blair joined the US invasion in 2003 so as to guarantee Britain's energy security, to safeguard the supply of cheap and plentiful oil that underpins the high octane consumer society many protesters and most British citizens enjoy.

The conversion of Blair into a sort of Emmanuel Goldstein figure is a convenient one that diverts attention away from the fact that the political class backed the war in Iraq or that the interest Britain has in the Middle East is closely bound up with energy interests and investment in the UK economy.

The most important thing to recognise if Britain is going to repudiate the sort of politics represented by Blair is that it needs to aim at energy independence and not to depend so much on states such as Qatar for liquified natural gas and petrodollars to boost London's property market.

Even so, the easy explanation for Blair's involvement in Iraq or calls for intervention ( 'it's all about profit for corporations and the super rich' etc ) are so stupid that they play into the hands of those such as Blair who can laugh off that form of 'public opinion' as mere 'conspiracy theorising'.

Syrian Crisis: France's Stance and Its Strategic Partnerships.

“I am struck by how eager Great Britain and France appear to be in favour of military action. And I am also mindful of the fact that both of these two powers are former imperialist, colonialist powers in the region.” -former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski

France has been more hawkish over Syria throughout the conflict there than either Britain or even the US. When news of the alleged chemical weapons strike on East Ghouta broke on 21 August, the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, was first out calling for a 'reaction with force'.

A continuous stream of the most belligerent rhetoric has emanated from Paris since then, with calls from President Hollande that France was 'ready to punish' Assad to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault claiming the attack involved a "massive use of chemical agents".

France's knowledge about Syria's chemical weapons stock may come from the fact that in the 1980s it was French pharmaceuticals that were imported for 'dual use purposes'. The French dossier is technically specific about Syrian CW capabilities but adds nothing towards exact responsibility for the attacks.

The 'public diplomacy' behind the dossier is to back up Washington's version on Saturday and John Kerry's rhetoric about 'we know' everything and 'we have assessed'. Indeed France has been more persistent in backing the Syrian opposition than the US as it was responsible for setting up 'Friends of Syria'.

The 'Friends of Syria Group' or 'Friends of the Syrian People Group' was set up in June 2012 by Sarkozy to bolster support for the Syrian National Council and to prepare for a post-Assad government. The aim is 'revolution' but the reality from the French perspective is its national interests.

France is a staunch ally and strategic partner of Saudi Arabia and Qatar both in the Friends of Syria Group and which support militias with arms and money against Assad. French military ties with the oil rich kingdom have put it at the forefront of the push to directly provide weapons to the Syria rebels.

The FT reported on June 21 2013 an analyst close to ruling circles, Jamal Khashoggi, revealing that Saudi Arabia would never let its Persian Gulf rival Iran 'win a victory in Syria' because Assad had had the upper hand until the alleged chemical weapons attack by his regime occurred.

'”Saudi Arabia has to do something now, even if it will do it alone. The goal now must be toppling Bashar, even if the US is not involved. If Saudi Arabia leads the way, Sunni tribes and o ther countries, including France, will eventually join.”

France, concerned that Syrian opposition forces are losing ground, has suggested it is ready to push ahead with increasing the scale of equipment it supplies to the rebels, but it remains coy on what weapons it may be prepared to include.

Officials said this week that Paris had already “ticked the boxes” of materiel it was willing to deliver on a list presented to the Friends of Syria members by the Free Syrian Army. But they declined to say what these included.'

France's defence of Saudi Arabia's policy in Syria so as to check Iran, its main regional geopolitical rival and Shia enemy, is a lucrative and mutually beneficial partnership. On the August 30 news broke of 'a billion euro defence contract with Saudi Arabia to overhaul four frigates and two refuelling ships'.

France's bilateral ties with Qatar, the other main funder of the Islamist militias, brings numerous benefits from Total's stake in the liquefied natural gas ( LNG ) market and the supply of it as an increasing part of the gas energy portfolio for north west Europe via France's EDF group.

France's energy policy is interconnected to geopolitical strategy and competition with Russia and Gazprom for control over the global market for LNG. The volume of Qatari LNG threatens to displace the importance of Russian gas. The proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline would rival Russian imports and so it backs Assad.

France's interest in energy diversification coincides with many EU states. However, only France ( apart from Britain ) is a military power that can assert those energy security interests in the Middle East. More than that, Qatar invests billions of petrodollars in French real estate and grand projets.

Syria: Enter the Arab League.

'the Arab League threw its weight behind the allies' judgement that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attack, the US and Britain paved the way for intervention, saying it would be a response to a violation of international law and not aimed at regime change.'

The final part of the plan to attack Syria is to get the Arab League to back it. The goal is regime change in that missile strikes are designed to get the Assad to negotiate his departure on the West's terms. But this is still a dangerous calculation in the New Great Game to control oil and gas.

The real stakes in the Syrian conflict are energy resources and global power politics. Qatar has funded the Muslim Brotherhood, as has Turkey, because Iran is a major geopolitical rival that is also vying with it to pump gas from the South Pars field it shares with its tiny neighbour, a leading state in the Arab League.

Qatar is a major supplier of liquefied natural gas ( LNG ) to the West where numerous states want energy diversification and not to be too dependent upon Russia. The depletion of North Sea Gas has also made Britain anxious to please Qatar and benefit from the colossal amounts of money it invests in London.

The facts are instructive as to where Britain's future strategic interests lie even though the vast majority of gas still comes from the North Sea and Norway. The UK economy has become increasingly a rentier one since the 1980s and dependent upon oil money and its export of weapons to oil rich Arabic states.

'Qatar investments in the UK have reached QR125bn ($34bn), including stakes in grocery chain Sainsbury’s, BAA (British Airports Authority), London Stock Exchange, Barclays, the US Embassy building in Grosvenor Square and the Shard of Glass development, which is Europe’s tallest building'

Qatar is a regional gas rich superpower upon which the EU states especially depend upon and hence why Britain and France were pushing Washington to intervene militarily. But the US has vital interests there too as it has become a major player in the global LNG market after its 'shale revolution'.

The Gulf states became increasingly hostile to Assad as Iran stepped up its supply of arms via Iraq and to its Lebanese proxy Hizbollah. Saudi Arabia also fears its non-Arab and Shia rival across the Persian Gulf. The oil rich kingdom fears an axis of influence between Iran, Iraq and Syria to the north and a planned pipeline.

Saudi Arabia even offered Russia a deal on control of the oil market if it gave up its support for Assad. But Russia fears that Western missile strikes could embolden Al Qaida affiliated groups within Syria, some of whom come from Chechnya and are allegedly funded by the West's strategic partner.

If Russia drops its support for Assad, then Saudi Arabia's Head of Intelligence Prince Bandar has offered an alliance between the OPEC cartel and Russia and to safeguard its gas interests in the Eastern Mediterranean such as those discovered near Tartus on the border with Lebanon where Russia has a naval base.

The lack of compliance would result in Saudi Arabia not being able to guarantee the security of the Sochi Winter Games as the West proceeds with removing Assad Bandar claimed of the jihadists “We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role in Syria’s political future.”

The imminent US and British attacks on Syria have not much to do with humanitarian outrage at chemical weapons use as these are largely a pretext for an intervention they wanted. The aim is continuity with that of getting regime change while not leading to a collapse of Syria into a failed state.

That's the reality. European states and their economies are basically too overdependent upon gas for energy from states such as Qatar and do not wish to be dependent on states such as Russia which are global geopolitical rivals with huge resources of oil and gas that it doesn't have enough of any more.

Instead of wasting time denouncing 'hypocrisy', 'warmongering' and so on ( as if this were some surprise ) it is better to concentrate on the underlying reasons why the double standards in the West's foreign policies have become increasingly obvious since the end of the Cold War.

Thoughts on Fracking and National Self Sufficiency.

'..in a country as deindustrialised as the UK, ministers will always go weak-kneed about grand projects and new technologies. But the lingering effects of the crash have pushed their thinking into the realms of the neurotic, as government has been seized by a mixture of fear, profiteering zeal and metropolitan arrogance.'

So writes John Harris who thinks that the Conservatives have lost touch with rural Tory Britain and the shires. It is as if he thinks fracking for oil and gas in Britain would not be supported by a Labour government he is deluded. Energy security is far too important to be reduced to partisan political polemics.

Unfortunately, many in Britain are just not getting it: Britain is both overpopulated and overdependent upon oil and gas from far off dangerous places. Energy security is national security and any government is going to be desperate not only to please energy corporations but also to harness domestic resources.

Few seem to grasp the contradictions here. The Iraq War of 2003 was essentially a war intended to gain control over Iraqi oil. Set against peaking North Sea oil in 1999 and the road haulier strike against high petrol prices in 2000 ( a popular cause ), it was Tony Blair who was convinced that the invasion would improve energy security.

So the Conservative government's obsession with pushing for fracking follows on from developments in the US where energy security is being pursued due to oil lobbying and the hunger for profits but also due to fears that China is gaining inroads to oil concessions in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

Meanwhile, the British left and radical Greens are often living in some parallel universe where it is only sinister elites that are driving environmental destruction and wars. True, elites are making the decisions with less accountability but they are doing so in order to preserve the profligate lifestyles of the many.

High octane consumerism is a fact of life in Britain. Few politicians of any political stripe wanting election are going to tell the electors that fracking is a price to be paid because Britain wants to avoid being dragged into resource wars if possible. Nor that Britons should use less energy, especially petrol.

Britain has increasingly built an entire lifestyle and infrastructure around the use of the car. It was New Labour that sought to increase Britain's population by encouraging mass migration to tap 'human resources' from elsewhere so as keep business costs low and not have to retrain native workers.

Devoted to an obsessive model of economic growth via consumerism, fracking is one way of reducing the price of energy and boost consumer spending. In a country with a meagre productive base and rentier economy, fracking will go ahead and would under any government

The only real alternative is to advocate a changed lifestyle in which energy conservation was promoted more and people were encouraged to use less energy and have fewer children. As well as a commitment to curtailing immigration to a minimum. Otherwise, energy security through fracking will be seen as a panacea.

This is the harsh reality.

The British public tend to be living in a fantasy land where they can have everything-beautiful unspoilt countryside and no military meddling in far off lands and high levels of consumption and energy use, the right to cheap flights and holidays, incessant use of the car and out of season vegetables from abroad.

The evidence is that it is British consumers are responsible for a lot of energy wastage. They top the European table for for that. Educating the public is something governments have shied away from because of the idea of supposed 'individualism' and moaning about the 'nanny state'.

As regards food security, there is still a lot of fridge wastage. There should be a revival of the sort of public information adverts on TV that there were in the 1970s about domestic fires and so on to make people aware of the need for proper fridge management. In 2007 there was 6,700,000 tonnes of domestic food waste.

Supermarkets also waste a colossal amount of food. Not only that, 20-30% of the harvest in the supply chain to supermarkets is wasted because the vegetables or fruit do not meet aesthetic standards. Getting used to strangely shaped vegetables and fruit can overcome that.

The public also needs to be educated about the benefits and safety of genetically modified ( GM ) crops and the increased yields it can bring. Faddish green nonsense about a 'return to nature' and eating only organic vegetables is a waste of valuable land that could be used to better purpose.

British needs to adapt as quickly as possible to the new realities of the impact of global warming, overpopulation and overconsumption in order to be ready to be able to move towards greater self sufficiency and to be able to protect itself from dangers and survive the 21st century as best it can.

The Geostrategic Significance of Egypt.

After the July 4 military coup in Egypt, the British Foreign Secretary William Hague declared the UK "will work with the people in authority in Egypt" but condemned the removal of President Morsi as "a dangerous thing". Since then Hague has uttered numerous platitudes that amount to a tacit acceptance of the situation.

With the latest killing of 82 Muslim Brotherhood supporters following on from a previous one in which 51 were shot dead , Hague opined "now is the time for dialogue, not confrontation”. The situation is clearly very different to Syria where President Assad's use of force against protesters in 2011 led him to demand his removal.

The reason is that British interests are clearly ultimately tied up in upholding the power of the Egyptian army as a force for 'stability' in a way they are not under Assad. Britain's foreign policy is largely an echo of that of Washington which funds the army with $1.3bn annually to provide regional security and retain influence.

The alliance dates back to the late 1970s when Anwar Sadat sought to realign Egypt away from the Soviet Union as it had been under Colonel Nasser and towards the US and Israel. Having suffered defeat in the Six Day War of 1967, Sadat used the Fourth Arab-Israeli War in 1973 and oil price shock to switch sides.

The greater technological power and military superiority of Israel had shown Nasser's Pan-Arabist visions to be no longer tenable. Moreover, by striking a peace deal with Israel and agreeing to protect the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt stood to benefit from its old strategic position and role as an oil transit nation.

One reason that General Sisi knew he could take the risk of deposing President Morsi was that the army is vital in protecting Egypt’s Suez Canal through which 12% of all international trade goes and 22% of the world’s total container traffic. China's consumer goods destined for Western markets go via the canal.

The fall of Mubarak in 2011 saw an increase in Salafist militant activity in Sinai and Sisi has tried to portray Morsi as being in league with them and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clearly, whatever propaganda being used to justify the coup in security terms Salafi groups threaten terrorist attacks on shipping and oil tankers.

Any attack on the Suez Canal or disruption of trade would lead to an increase in oil and commodity prices, something that would be deeply unwelcome to Western economies struggling after the 2008 crash . Consumer goods such as tablets and Ipads would go up and dampen down 'consumer led' recoveries.

Moreover, as an ally of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan and Israel, neither the US or Britain has any interest in a weakening of the 'old regime' and Egyptian state's ability to protect the Sumed (Suez-Mediterranean ) pipeline which pumps over 2 million barrels a day of Gulf petroleum to Europe and the US.

The Sumed pipeline is a owned by Arab Petroleum Pipeline Co., a joint venture between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi's National Oil Company (ADNOC), and Kuwaiti firms. All of the Gulf States involved are important oil suppliers, investors and allies.

The US Energy Information Authority emphasises the growth of importance in LNG transports via Egypt and the Suez region as one of the world's vital 'strategic chokepoints' that needs protection is supplies are not going to add an extra 6,000 miles of transit around the continent of Africa.

'The rapid growth in LNG flows over the period represents the startup of five LNG trains in Qatar in 2009-2010. The only alternate route for LNG tankers would be around Africa as there is no pipeline infrastructure to offset any Suez Canal disruptions. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Italy received over 80 percent their total LNG imports via the Suez Canal in 2010, while Turkey, France, and the United States had about a quarter of their LNG imports transited through the Canal'.

Ultimately, a destabilised Egypt would disrupt energy security and push up oil prices. Even if neither London nor Washington welcome the use of force to crush the Muslim Brotherhood they have no interest either in seeing a weak government collapse before more economic instability and political turmoil.

The Egyptian Coup : Causes and Consequences

The Egyptian military coup of July 3 was a turning point in the history of the Arab revolts. However, the 'Arab Spring' of 2011 was, to use AJP Taylor's phrase' on Germany in 1848, more generally the point where Arab history 'reached its turning point and failed to turn'.

The Egyptian 'deep state' that developed under post colonial dictatorships and the dominance of the army was not really affected by the Egyptian uprising. It was a 'people power' demonstration; there was never a revolution against the deep state and so no actual revolution as in Iran in 1979.

Essentially, what has happened is that the old elites allowed Mubarak to fall in order to appease popular opinion and to try to introduce a measure of controlled democratic representation. That was in continuity with rather more limited experiments in that direction in the 1990s and 2000s.

Set against the background of the disintegrating economy and food crisis, one brought about by a lethal combination of longer term climate changes and demographic pressures, the Egyptian army was able to protect the deep state by allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to take responsibility for the worsening chaos.

A trap was set for the Muslim Brotherhood in having the Supreme Court declare electoral regularities in their seats as a pretext to dissolve the Egyptian Parliament in June 2012.  That was two weeks before an election between a Mubarak era PM and Morsi to vote president who would be the only democratic representative.

That benefited the deep state as it meant that either an old regime appointee would be elected or else a leader without experience who would prove too weak to challenge vested interests. Morsi approved IMF austerity measures and the torture and beatings in Egyptian prisons were not stopped. Nothing changed.

Army grandees such as General Sisi have taken a gamble on a coup because there was mass popular support to be rid of Morsi from those who believed his presidency was leading towards Egypt becoming ungovernable and descending into further economic chaos.

In addition, Salafi jihadists were causing havoc in North Sinai along with Bedouins. The Muslim Brotherhood were portrayed as a danger to Egypt's 'stability' by beings allegedly indulgent towards Islamist terrorists. That has seemed to threaten the basis of the settlement agreed in 1979 between Egypt and Israel.

General Sisi also knew he could execute a coup because the US would be hardly likely to withdraw the $1.3bn it provides to the Egyptian army to provide 'stability' and protect its geostrategic interests. These include preserving peace on the Israeli borders, oil and gas pipelines against attack and the Suez Canal.

The obvious flaw in this plan is that the coup is likely to ensure that Islamist radicals are more likely to resort to terrorism because they can be sure that more alienated and unemployed young men will see the crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood as a sign that only armed resistance can remove the corrupt elites.

If Egypt descended into chaos, it is likely that global jihadists could find a foothold just as they have in Syria. Arms are awash in neighbouring Libya and many jihadists went from Libya to fight in Syria and could also enter the fray in Egypt. This would pose severe threats to world peace.

Egypt is the largest and most influential Arab nation and its collapse would trigger off collapse elsewhere. Yet the move towards a democratic transition in Egypt is bound to be stalled by the coup because it is impossible to see when elections could be held in conditions of anarchy and violence on the streets. 

Events in Egypt may well now spill beyond a turning point at which the course of history did not turn. It , and the entire Middle East, could be heading beyond the point of no return towards violence and civil war which will shake the foundations of the entire global order.

Gadaffi Foundation Members Rediscover their "Ethical Foreign Policy"

Benjamin Barber, a member of the Gaddafi Foundation until February 2011, has accused those promoting the war against Colonel Gaddafi's forces of "hypocrisy" after one of the Libyan dictator's sons was killed in a NATO bombing raid.

.... it is the plain stupidity of the Nato commitment to assassination and violent regime change that is most disconcerting. What on earth is the endgame?

The ultimate endgame is control over Libyan oil, just as it was for those fawning on Said Gaddafi before 2011, including those such as Benjamin Barber who lauded the dictator's son as a force for human rights and progress through collaborating with his Saif Foundation which states lots of worthy NGO style guff and public relations.

Such efforts to rehabilitate Gaddafi's regime from Tony Blair to his Third Way guru Anthony Giddens and others associated with the financial largesse of the Gaddafi Foundation in the LSE and within the ranks of New Labour grandees. As Giddens absurdly claimed ( My Chat with the Colonel )

Will real progress be possible only when Gadafy leaves the scene? I tend to think the opposite.... My ideal future for Libya in two or three decades' time would be a Norway of North Africa: prosperous, egalitarian and forward-looking. Not easy to achieve, but not impossible.

A Guardian report made clear the "ethics" of Blair's entourage in this respect,

Lord Giddens, guru of Labour's third way, twice met Gaddafi on trips in 2006 and 2007 organised by Monitor Group, a US lobbying firm. Leaked documents show at least one trip was disclosed in advance to Abd Allah al-Sanusi, blamed for atrocities in the present uprising.

Giddens, 73, was LSE director for six years until 2003, is the author of 34 books published in 29 languages, and is credited with devising the "third way" political philosophy taken up by Tony Blair.

Monitor Group was paid more than £2m by the Libyan government in 2006 to conduct a "cleansing" campaign of its image, according to leaked documents.

A letter sent in July 2006 by executives at Monitor Group to Sanusi, also known as Abdullah Senussi, is about targeting influential academics to emphasise the emergence of "the New Libya".

Once Gaddafi had lost control of Libya, it was clear "regime change" was sought most by Cameron in the UK and Sarkozy in France.

The foreign policy strategy of both those in Demos in the US, or the liberal left in Britain who rationalised closer trade ties with the dictatorship in order to gain oil concessions, such as the deal with BP negotiated by Blair in 2007, and those who saw the breakdown of his power as a chance to get "regime change" is concerned with oil interests.

The charge of hypocrisy lies as much with those who were part of trade delegations selling arms to the Gaddafi regime after he committed a volte face after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 created havoc and made the necessity for oil diversification even more pressing.

In the longer term, Europe needs to wean itself off dependence upon oil and gas supplies from dangerous lands where politics is a pathological struggles over who controls the oil revenues. The reduction of reliance upon the car and a high octane economy is vital to avert a future of resource conflicts

"Mission Creep" in Libya is nor Folly: It's a Geostrategic Deperation.

Throughout the west there is a desire to relieve people in distress, but when humanitarians arrive with screaming missiles and a clear political agenda, those being attacked are understandably suspicious of motive. I do not believe Cameron is after Gaddafi's oil, but tell Tripoli's residents, whose sufferings were happily ignored by British governments when their leader seemed secure. The first humanitarian duty to those who are suffering should be to relieve that suffering, not to fight their civil wars, suppress their dictators, partition their countries and destroy their infrastructure. Something has polluted foreign policy.

States Simon Jenkins ( These humanitarians come to Libya with missiles, and an agenda, The Guardian April 19 2011 )

Well, no Cameron is not after Gaddafi's oil as an individual. It is somewhat silly to look at foreign policy as if it were merely the personal folly of politicians, those who lack the sense and knowledge that the older generation who grew up during World War Two had in doing everything to avert war after 1945.

In the long term the far bleaker and more frightening reality is that the profligate fuel use inherent in British consumerism, one common across North America and Europe, means that the future will be one of resource wars. That and the New Great Game with China over control of oil rich regions.

There is no point pretending that this is "rapacious imperialism" organised by sinister corporate elites: most people, including anti-war types, collude in creating resource wars when they fly EasyJet to the Algarve, buy out of season strawberries from Waitrose or have three cars on the drive.

The cretinous statement that Britain's wars are "all about oil", as it this were some trump card that proves moral superiority and the hypocrisy of "Them" and not "Us", ignores the way that Blair went into Iraq in 2003 to give the people what they wanted-cheap and abundant fuel.

Just as the fuel protest in 2000 had convinced Blair that high petrol prices could potentially bring chaos, so too the global crash of 2008 and instability in the Arab nations in 2011 has threatened to push petrol prices up to levels that consumers will not like, that is most Britons.

Hence the Chancellor George Osborne's fuel duty reductions and promise to put "fuel in the tank of the British economy" in the March budget. Labour also sought to exploit discontent over petrol prices. When the Libyan crisis broke out, it threatened to disrupt another important source of oil.

So the fact is if that control of oil supplies is part of the geopolitical calculations upon which power operates, then the intervention in Libya is clearly about advancing Britain's oil interests, not least as in 2007 BP negotiated the development of a huge oil concession in the nation.

When Gaddafi lost de facto sovereignty over Libya and the rebels looked as though they could win, only then for the stronghold of Eastern Libya in Benghazi to be threatened with protracted destruction and death, Britain and France sought to use the humanitarian impact as a pretext to remove Gaddafi.

Policy is formulated by politicians, statesmen and 'experts' according to a variety of objectives, often ones that quite clearly are contradictory and clash. No doubt Cameron and Sarkozy thought that a Libya under anti-Gaddafi forces and committed to destroying the dictatorship would be preferable.

It is clear that the endgame all along was the removal of Gaddafi was increasingly seen as unreliable when set against the control he had over Africa's prime source of high grade low sulphur oil. China was also making inroads in Libya.

Here is the rub: now that the Western powers have staked all on backing rebel forces against Gaddafi, it will be impossible for them to avoid continuing to back them by putting military advisers on the ground and continuing to give aid as if Gaddafi returns British oil interests will be threatened even more.

The US seems to have scaled down its role, probably adopting a policy of "wait and see" as it is European nations that have far more at stake as regards drilling and exploration rights. Something which invalidates the idea that the US is primarily behind an attempt at "neo-imperialism" in Libya.

The struggle for diversification over oil supplies is one that connects to the preservation of the consumer lifestyles the great majority of people in the West want, even if they fail to connect it to foreign policy and certain journalists waffle on in bemused fashion at why these wars are happening.

Delusion about a Middle East "Peace Process" and Oil.

If the liberal illusions of those who supported President Obama as a potential new figure for peace can be understood , they can be encapsulated by Jonathan Freedman who wrote in the Guardian,

A president who was inaugurated amid great hopes – generally and for the Middle East in particular – has seen his stock tumble in the intervening 21 months. Obama won great credit for making Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority on his very first day in office, declaring it a national security interest of the US, and for appointing the elder statesman of the Northern Ireland effort, George Mitchell, as his special envoy. Since then there have been crockery-throwing rows with the Israelis, and a nice speech in Cairo, but little tangible progress. The most Obama has to show for his labours is an opening round of direct talks between the two sides, currently on hold.

Usually when people debate the Israel-Palestine conflict and the "peace process", there will be those prepared to see it as a proxy conflict between "the West" and the "Muslim World" without looking at the bleak reality of the bigger picture ( as if the psychopathogical conflict there was not intractable enough already ).

The reason is that the conflict between Israel and Palestine really is a proxy battleground between those powers who see the Middle East as a struggle for hegemony and influence. The USA backs Israel and the Iranians back Hamas and Hezbollah.

This is determined by the New Great Game for oil and gas, which the USA is ever more dependent upon to maintain its current standard of living no less than Israel is too. Iran backs Hamas and Hezbollah as it ramps up tensions in such a way as to discredit any regime change, most obviously its own.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has its own long standing enmity, but it has become more intractable by the wider conflicts across the Middle East caused by the US presence in Arab lands like Saudi Arabia, where the rentier elite diverts discontent outwards through funding Islamist charities.

Again that reflects the US foreign policy of being so dependent upon Saudi oil and the hatred that US military bases cause across the region. As well as the fact that most people living under dictatorships do not benefit from that oil wealth. When tied together with Islamist ideology that causes endless problems

Unless the West can find alternatives to oil, the problems in the Middle East have no chance of a solution. Regimes feeling uncertain of quelling domestic discontent will ramp up hatred of Israel in order to gain domestic legitimacy. Israel depends on that to retain support from the US too.

Likewise Hamas has every interest in ratcheting up conflict by rocket attacks in order to get the disproportionate retaliation that will kill Palestinians, force Israel to become more ruthless and thus improve their standing over political rivals. So too Hezbollah.

The continued military presence of the US in the oil rich lands of the Arab states such as Saudi Arabia provides the reason for the resentment that leads to Islamist fanaticism and the cash that fuels it. Just as it did in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet Union.

The bitter irony is that within Britain, those like George Galloway, a leader of Respect. extol the Palestinian cause and Islamist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and gain great support whilst being fans of Arab nationalists like Colonel Nasser who was a secular nationalist who executed Islamists.

Naturally, Galloway is a dolt. But those supporting an increasingly large constituency of leftists and alienated and politically aware Muslims in Britain fail to realise the underlying conflicts lie mostly in the self interest of the various states in the region.

The USA is one of those along with Israel but so too are states like Iran, whose Press TV funds Galloway to mouth out about Palestine. That makes him merely a "useful idiot" but it points to a wider problem of proxy wars concerned with geopolitics and the West's over dependence upon oil.

The issue of oil dependency never gets much mention in the discussion about the potential to peace in the Middle East. One need only think about Bernard Lewis' "The Crisis of Islam" to realise that that the crisis is thought to be one of Islam more than Western dependency upon oil.

But ultimately the crisis between Israel and Palestine and the Middle East as a whole is based on the crisis between the need of these states to modernise and gain a measure of legitimacy by having control over their own oil wealth and moving towards an Islamic form of democracy.

That cannot be achieved by military invasions of states such as Iraq. But that war reflected the need to control the oil, of geostrategic desperation by the USA and Britain. It can only be achieved by the Western states reducing their dependence upon oil by investing money in R & D on alternatives.

The well intentioned liberal nuances and pieties of those like Freedman will fail to enlighten or gain support unless the nub of what is really at stake is addressed. Suffice it to say that few liberals ever grasp the dilemma because they talk about what the West must, can, should, ought to or must do.

Without first looking at the reality of what is at stake.

Without that we are condemned to perpetual conflict. Obama offers no greater solution because he is the leader of a nation no less dependent upon oil than Western Europe. But is leader of a nation that Europe cravenly hopes will protect it whilst remaining greedy for oil no less.

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it."-Joseph Conrad.

Oil wheels the Hypocricy of Politicians and the Public

On the subject of politicians being part of the 'entertainment economy', and being very shoddy players within it on the whole, it is interesting that on occasions a TV comedian can actually be more serious than those who are supposed not to be 'trivial' but dealing with weighty matters of state.

One article that caught my eye last year on Monday, 19 October 2009 in The Observer was one by David Michell called Oil wheels the Hypocracy of Politicians and the Public . On Iraq, Mitchell said,

....this kind of cynical foreign affairs wheeler-dealing gets a terrible press and causes public handwringing...."We only went into Iraq because of oil, you know." "We only appease Saudi Arabia because of oil, you know." To hear people talk sometimes, you'd think they never used oil.

Oil is vital and Britain hasn't got much of it. I hope it won't be vital forever but it certainly still is. There are worse reasons to fight or appease than the procurement of a necessity. If we went to war for food, I doubt anyone would blame us.

.I completely agree that this sort of cynicism is immoral. What I don't like is people claiming it's all the work of a few malevolent patricians – a self-serving ruling class getting off on their own acquisitive misanthropy – rather than a political community responding obediently to our loudly expressed democratic will.

Oil, trade, employment and money are important to us – and, by us, I mean we the people, not just they the politicians or business interests.

When there's a controversial war, some nice, middle-class people go on an organised weekend stroll. When petrol is too expensive, lorry drivers blockade the major roads and the country grinds to a halt. Our leaders would have to be fools to take the former more seriously than the latter.

But they're so craven, so much the creatures of our favour, that they'll let us hide from our own self-interest.

They indulge us in our belief that they're hypocrites, when in fact it's us. We live in comparative luxury, squeal like a stuck pig at the first sign of its diminution and blame the world's problems on politicians.

there are millions of us in .. being told we can have it both ways – reduced carbon emissions and cheap air travel, an enlightened policy towards the Middle East and affordable petrol, cuts in spending but not services – because we won't vote for anyone who doesn't

It's depressing that such a vital point has been made by a comedian, David Mitchell, whilst most serious journalists and activists, including John Pilger, never have the guts to confront the fact that protesting against wars and realpolitik for control of oil supplies is the only way to give 'The People' what they really think they want.

Democracy has been hollowed out in the West : without the consumer economy a significant number of Britons would demand Fascism if it meant the human right to drive a petrol guzzling SUV or fly to Prague to puke their guts up on Stag Night parties in Krakow, Prague, Riga, Bratislava and Tallinn.

This is partly because people are denied the information that would allow them to understand the world but not entirely. It's that when people are mollified by consumerism and entertainment divertions they need not thnk too deeply, not least if the reality is so frightening that it goes against the hedonistic pleasure ethos that drives the economy and society.

The 'Make Tea Not War' pseuds who protested against the Iraq War in February 2003 did so through their desire for collective narcissism, the hunger of bored consumers for something to stimulate their adrenals, to state 'I Was There' and not through any real belief that the political system must be changed.

Mitchell is an 'ironist' of the trendy 'alternative comedy scene but he's really touched a raw nerve here. Where are the George Orwell's who want to tell people that liberty is telling people what they do not want to hear ? That the quest for diminishing oil will lead to greater terrorist threat and the growth of a national security state.

Writers like Pilger and Chomsky blame the wars for oil on 'rapacious foreign policy' in such a way that is not challenging people to 'think differently' about the world's problems. It encourages the cosy view that only our governments are to blame and if 'we' change them the entire world will be better.

This is a stupefying myth,a parochial remnant of the Eurocentric revolutionary progressive tradition that fails to grasp with intractable problems like overpopulation, resource shortage, and global heating-for progressives these problems can be solved by human mastery and willpower, in overcoming global inequality rather than global numbers.

Mentioning that conflicts over oil are caused by every single person who demands an energy intensive lifestyle is usually written off by those who lack the courage to confront this threat to civilisation. Especially by the kind of doltish Jeremy Clarkson figure whose gung ho defence of the Great Car Economy is environmental imbecility. But he's just doing his job, I suppose.

For inequality to diminish economic growth must proceed apace. Poor people in Third World nations are not more inherently virtuous because poor. They are just poor and history shows that such people will be far more "materialistic" and demand to have a chance at becoming like the West.

More generally the moralistic outrage over conflicts over oil reflects guilt and bad faith, an inability to confront the true driving force behind the rising terror threat-that the West needs falling or stable prices for oil, the Middle East needs rising prices to feed its growing populace. This is going to be a source of war and instability in the 21st century.

Cocooned in wealth and consumerism with corrupt governments supported by the West ,its hardly surprising that Islamists will be intoxicated with hatred because Muslims have died in order that 'we' in the West might live better. If no amount of protest can change it, then only raising the blood price will.

Such are the emerging psychopathologies behind terrorism and the resentment which is the result of being overdependent upon oil in dangerously unstable regions in the Middle East and Central Asia. Revealing the hypocrisy of governments that prate human rights but practice realpolitik.

Oil like sex in Victorian times is the great unmentionable in polite political circles and shattering the taboo by doing the dirty on politics through suggesting 'they' are all corporate stooges rolling around in oil wealth is a projection on to them of the greed that the vast majority of Westerners demonstrate; hence the vitriol directed against Them.