Petroleum politics have been an increasingly important aspect of diplomacy since the rise of the petroleum industry in the Middle East in the early 20th century. About the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140130799X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp;=1789&creative;=9325&creativeASIN;=140130799X&linkCode;=as2&tag;=tra0c7-20&linkId;=1be7b2288dc1b4c090d6c9a8114c9718 As competition grows for an increasingly scarce but vital resource, the strategic calculations of major and minor countries alike place more prominent emphasis on the pumping, refining, transport and use of petroleum products. The term "petro-aggression" has been used to describe the tendency of oil-rich states to instigate international conflicts. There are many examples including: Iraq's invasion of Iran and Kuwait; Libya's repeated incursions into Chad in the 1970s and 1980s; Iran's long-standing suspicion of Western powers. Some scholars have also suggested that oil-rich states are frequently the targets of "resource wars." In 1956, a Shell geophysicist named M. King Hubbert accurately predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970.[3] In June 2006, former U.S. president Bill Clinton said in a speech,[4] "We may be at a point of peak oil production. You may see $100 a barrel oil in the next two or three years, but what still is driving this globalization is the idea that is you cannot possibly get rich, stay rich and get richer if you don't release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That was true in the industrial era; it is simply factually not true. What is true is that the old energy economy is well organized, financed and connected politically." In a 1999 speech, Dick Cheney, the US Vice President and former CEO of Halliburton (one of the world's largest energy services corporations), said, "By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from?....While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow."[5] Cheney went on to argue that the oil industry should become more active in politics: "Oil is the only large industry whose leverage has not been all that effective in the political arena. Textiles, electronics, agriculture all seem often to be more influential. Our constituency is not only oilmen from Louisiana and Texas, but software writers in Massachusetts and specialty steel producers in Pennsylvania. I am struck that this industry is so strong technically and financially yet not as politically successful or influential as are often smaller industries. We need to earn credibility to have our views heard." In 1998, about 40% of the energy consumed by the United States came from Oil.[15] The United States, with about 5% of the world's population, is responsible for 25% of the world's oil consumption while only having 3% of the world's proven oil reserves.[16] As of 2004, the U.S. had 21 billion barrels (3.3×109 m3) of proven oil reserves and consumes 20.6 million bpd. Several countries have nationalised foreign-run oil businesses, often failing to compensate investors. Enrique Mosconi, the director of the Argentine state owned oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF, which was the first state owned oil company in the world, preceding the French Compagnie française des pétroles (CFP, French Company of Petroleums), created in 1924 by the conservative Raymond Poincaré), advocated oil nationalization in the late 1920s among Latin American countries. The latter was achieved in Mexico during Lázaro Cárdenas's rule, with the Expropiación petrolera. In 1953, Iran's Premier Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown by a CIA/MI6 covert action known as Operation Ajax. The goal was to prevent Mossadegh from nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian oil company which later became British Petroleum. Similarly Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_politics Contents: Introduction: The Silent Majority 1. Blowback 2. OILYgarchy 3. Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship 4. Crackdown 5. Smackdown 6. Lockdown 7. Lies of Our Times 8. State Media, American Style 9. In Bed with the Military 10. Killing the Messenger 11. Sanitized 12. Going to Where the Silence Is 13. Not on Bended Knee 14. Psyops Comes Home 15. Things Get Messy with Sally Jessy 16. Hiroshima Cover-up: How the War Department's Timesman won a Pulitzer 17. The People's Airwaves 18. Conclusion: Free the Media

• published: 13 Aug 2014
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