Lawrence Solomon - September 12, 2009

Russian research has shown that the Earth doesn’t need dinosaurs to produce oil

Do dead dinosaurs fuel our cars? The assumption that they do, along with other dead matter thought to have formed what are known as fossil fuels, has been an article of faith for centuries. Our geologists are taught fossil fuel theory in our schools; our energy companies search for fossil fuels by divining where the dinosaurs lay down and died. Sooner or later, we will run out of liquefied dinosaurs and be forced to turn to either nuclear or renewable fuels, virtually everyone believes.

Except in Russia and Ukraine. What is to us a matter of scientific certainty is by no means accepted there. Many Russians and Ukrainians — no slouches in the hard sciences — have since the 1950s held that oil does not come exclusively, or even partly, from dinosaurs but is formed below the Earth’s 25-mile deep crust. This theory — first espoused in 1877 by Dmitri Mendeleev, who also developed the periodic table — was rejected by geologists of the day because he postulated that the Earth’s crust had deep faults, an idea then considered absurd. Mendeleev wouldn’t be vindicated by his countrymen until after the Second World War when the then-Soviet Union, shut out of the Middle East and with scant petroleum reserves of its own, embarked on a crash program to develop a petroleum industry that would allow it to fend off the military and economic challenges posed by the West.

Today, Russians laugh at our peak oil theories as they explore, and find, the bounty in the bowels of the Earth. Russia’s reserves have been climbing steadily — according to BP’s annual survey, they stood at 45 billion barrels in 2001, 69 billion barrels in 2004, and 80 billion barrels of late, making Russia an oil superpower that this year produced more oil than Saudi Arabia. Some oil auditing firms estimate Russia’s reserves at up to 200 billion barrels. Despite Russia’s success in exploration, most of those in the west who have known about the Russian-Ukrainian theories have dismissed them as beyond the Pale. This week, the Russian Pale can be found awfully close to home.

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Ramzy Baroud - Sep 9, 2008, 00:12

The series of unfortunate and costly decisions made during the two terms of the Bush administration, combined with economic decline at home, might devastate the US’s world standing much sooner than most analysts predict.

What was difficult to foresee was that the weakening of US global dominance, spurred by erratic and unwise foreign policy under Bush, would reignite the Cold War, to a degree, over a largely distant and seemingly ethnically-based conflict — that of Georgia and Russia. Who could have predicted a possible association between Baghdad, Kabul and Tbilisi?

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Justin Raimondo - September 3, 2008

While the rest of the pundits opine about the meaning and implications of Sarah Palin’s ascension from small town mayor to prospective vice president – and whether or not her daughter’s private life is fair game for any media outlet other than the National Enquirer – those of us whose job it is to stand watch on the ramparts and report the real news are wondering when – not if – the War Party will pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat. For months, I’ve been warning in this space that an American attack on Iran is imminent, and now I see that the Dutch have reason to agree with my assessment. Their intelligence service reportedly has pulled out of a covert operation inside Iran on the grounds that a U.S. strike is right around the corner – in “a matter of weeks,” according to De Telegraaf, a Dutch newspaper.

As the story goes, the Dutch had infiltrated the purported Iranian weapons project and were firmly ensconced when they got word that the Americans are about to launch a missile attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. They wisely decided to close down the operation and pull out.

Remember, the Israelis have been threatening to strike on their own for months: what’s changed is that now, apparently, the U.S. has caved in to what is a blatant case of blackmail and has agreed to do the job for them.

We haven’t heard much about Iran lately, at least compared to the scare headlines of a few months ago, when rumors of war were swirling fast and furious. The Russian “threat” seems to have replaced the Iranian “threat” as the War Party’s bogeyman of choice. What we didn’t know, however, is that the two focal points are intimately related.

According to this report by veteran Washington Times correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave, the close cooperation of the Israelis with the Georgian military in the run-up to President Saakashvili’s blitz of South Ossetia was predicated on a Georgian promise to let the Israelis use Georgia’s airfields to mount a strike against Iran.

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Eric Margolis - September 2, 2008

PARIS – Pipsqueak Georgia’s harebrained and disastrous attack on tiny South Ossetia has produced a full-blown crisis pitting the US and NATO against Russia.

In an act fraught with danger, US and NATO warships are delivering supplies to Georgia, watched by Russian men of war. The US Congress may soon vote $1 billion for America’s embattled Georgian satellite.

The western powers have resorted to fierce Cold War rhetoric. They are playing with fire. Russia has some 6,600 strategic nuclear weapons, mostly aimed at North America and Europe. Besides, the US, which invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose air force just killed 90 Afghan civilians, 60 of them children, is in no position to lecture Moscow about aggression.

France’s conservative president, Nicholas Sarkozy, blasted Russia and will shortly hold a European summit over Georgia in Brussels. As usual, the Harper government faithfully echoed Washington’s words.

Poland agreed to emplace a US antiballistic missile system only 184 km from Russia’s border, provoking Moscow’s fury. Ukraine and Poland are loudly backing Georgia.

Russia’s chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, warns his nation has the right to launch a “preemptive nuclear strike” against enemies, in line, he tartly noted, with the Bush administration’s own policies.

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