Every Competent Analyst Predicts a Mighty Fall of the USA

"It's over. For the U.S. to win the Iraq war requires three things: defeating the Iraqi resistance; establishing a stable government in Iraq that is friendly to the U.S.; maintaining the support of the American people while the first two are being done. None of these three seem any longer possible. First, the U.S. military itself no longer believes it can defeat the resistance. Secondly, the likelihood that the Iraqi politicians can agree on a constitution is almost nil, and therefore the likelihood of a minimally stable central government is almost nil. Thirdly, the U.S. public is turning against the war because it sees no 'light at the end of the tunnel.'"

Taken from:
Commentary No. 167, August 15, 2005
"The U.S. Has Lost the Iraq War"
by Immanuel Wallerstein
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm

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Yes, it is over. Good analysis from Immanuel Wallerstein and he is basically saying what I was saying 2-years ago. Check this out....

Prepare for strife
- by Tate Ulsaker, March 27, 2003

To the Editor,

"...Daniel 7:4 - "The first [was] like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it." A translation of this "first beast" setting off a final war might be: Lion = UK, Eagle = US, wings may indicate air superiority, man's heart may indicate a new humility which is sure to follow a great Roman fall. Are we seeing the beginnings of this prophesy take place?

I would suggest, whether secular or spiritual, that we not exhort each other to seek peace but rather to prepare for the coming strife. We can see the weather tomorrow. Can't we also see the times in which we live?"

http://www.hpr1.com/archives/mar2703/dearjohn.htm

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Truth can come from any valid study, be it spiritual, economic, political and other sciences. To find the truth, all you need is desire. Knock and understanding will open to you.

My article was submitted in March 2003, during the euphoria of the US "victorious" invasion when we were going to stomp on Saddam and bring democracy to Iraq. Few asked why the United States supported the rise of Saddam when he was a counterweight to our other failed coup in Iran. The darkness of the American mind is impennatrable when it comse to wrongful acts of their own government but truth is a bitter pill for apologists.

Let's go back to that date in March. While all of that euphoria was capturing the hearts and minds of America, why was I one of the few Americans saying that the US would lose the war and fail as a nation?

Back then, with all of that "shock and awe" bombing on TV, what American would have predicted failure. Certainly not one who was watching TV. And after all of those bombs hit their "hardened military targets", then we had the "speed kills" dash from the coastal launching bases through peasant towns towards Baghdad, which fell without much resistance.

At that time, more than half of all Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to an Associated Press poll conducted shortly after the invasion.

Don't forget all of the euphoria out there in zombie-land at that time. And let's be clear, "zombie-land" describes accurately that special relationship that the American public has with their mass-media outlets.

Zombies refused to think then and they refuse to think now.

OK, so we see what 2 years can do to the "world's only superpower" when it fights an unjust war with a losing strategy against a popular rebellion. And now, what are the key indicators showing what will happen to America in the soon future?

A Few Critical Economic Indicators:
1) Historic high debt-to-gdp ratio (higher than 1929)
2) Historic high debt-to-equity ratio (housing bubble way off the charts)
3) Stocks still not corrected from high pe ratios (stock bubble)
4) Loss of manufacturing jobs to China, India (trade deficit can only get worse or collapse)
5) Dollar losing global reserve status and value and we are extending our debts by printing rather than contracting government budgets (collapse of the dollar is imminent)


Have a look at the above graph. I couldn't find one with the 2004 year end update so I made it myself using government numbers.

If that graph doesn't ring alarm bells, then nothing I or anybody says can make any difference. Just keep taking debt America. Keep allowing government to get bigger. Keep relying upon government to "do something" for you. Maybe it will work next time.

Although, let's consider the track record of the US government first, shall we? I mean, what happened when they declared a war on poverty? Poverty skyrocketed. War on drugs? Drug use skyrocketed. War on terror? Ha!

And why is that?

Because the job of government, as a power structure, is to expand by whatever means possible. The easiest way in an environment like America, is to raise taxes and fees and public debts incramentally forever, and claim that expanding government is a "service" to society. And all of those extra bureaucrats didn't help distribute wealth, they helped consume it. And all of those extra government services designed to help end poverty actually helped expand dependency and demand for big government. Meanwhile, the private sector produces continually less of the wealth for a nation because the cost of doing business increases. Big governemnt to end poverty? More likely create poverty.

And what about drug use? The US government is so big and balkanized that we have plenty of components of government actually bringing in the drugs, using the DEA and CIA and big city police departments. Don't believe me? Good, you shouldn't. Check it out for yourselves. Ask Mike Ruppert, former LAPD and dozens of other credible whistleblowers. The little guys on the front line have a better chance of telling the truth than a carefully crafted administration policy report, right? Good, we are on the same page with that one.

And terror? Well, do what Alex Jones said on that one. type "P2OG" into a search engine.

Did you see that? Amazing isn't it? So we have proof that the Pentagon is getting at least as dirty as these illusive terrorist masterminds they claim to be trying to capture. This may lead some of us to question what happens when both sides of a conflict are engaging in an escillating terror war? Could we be seeing more terror in the future as a result? And when one side has a long history of being paid CIA and MI6 assets (Al-Quaida), specifically for purposes of carrying out terror acts, then one has to wonder who benefits from all this terror as government gets bigger and more intrusive. Right? Still with me? It is all about "Cui bono?" Who benefits?

A Few Spiritual Indicators:
1) At the peak empire, the general public knows instinctively that empire is collapsing, so they enter into a state of denial manifest though haughty, arrogant behavior. This is a big mistake. In fact, the opposite is required. Humility will save the soul of America while empire collapses.
2) RFID microchip implants are a beast-ly way to control a population, especially when it is mixed with the national ID card.
3) Global government is becoming a reality, from NAFTA to CAFTA to the world's more powerful trading zones. A strict policy to keep open borders will continue to support a stong trend away from nation-power, towards global power. Is a second Babylon rising from the junk heap of failed nations?
4) Israel is the baseline focus of conflict in the world. Now that is not a surprise to you and I, but it is abolutely amazing that all this was predicted with uncanny accuracy in a 2000 year-old book. Long before "Israel" the state was reborn and before oil was discovered and before Islam was a religion, we had a book that basically predicted the Middle East predicament. Israel is indeed that "immovable rock" the causes nations to stumble, as indicated in Zechariah 12:1-5. You gotta admit, some of these Bible prophesies are worth a second look just because so many of them seem to be unfolding these days.

Conclusion: Although spiritual matters are more difficult to grapple with and prove, it is at least possible to see that we are entering into a time of incredible significance. We may indeed be experiencing the initial birth pangs which will lead us consistently towards the biggest threat against mankind in written history.

What would cause such a threat in the physical world?

Physical Indicators:
1) Peak Oil is my number one mega-big benchmark because it is provable using charts and graphs and worldly understanding. If you understand Peak Oil and follow the thread back through to...
2) the coming collapse of industrial agriculture and, therefore to...
3) the coming deficit of food supply, and therefore to...
4) the coming population correction.

Until this day, no one can tell us how we are going to make 150 million tons of petro-fertilizers on which the world's 6.5 billion have come to depend. If you are like me, then you might need a little help to understand what 150 million tons of fertilizer actually means. Well, Richard Heinberg is ready to help us understand. He tells us that 150 million tons is "...equaling the total amount of available nitrogen introduced annually by all natural sources combined." - from a paper presented at the FEASTA Conference, "What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out?", June 23-25, 2005, Dublin Ireland

When that artificially developed fertilizer becomes as scarce as the petroleum from which it is made, we will have a big problem on our hands. And many claim that our leaders know all about this. Hence the resource wars and the police state and the consolidation of power.

Do I hear someone beginning to understand what kind of a mess we are in today?

You see, substitutes don't exist comparable to oil and natural gas. Yet people are going about their day as if "they will think of something". Even now, at the peak of population and oil and economy, people hope that something else will replace oil and that somebody else will think of something.

These are indeed times of "great deception", a fact that leads us right back into spiritual analysis. And therefore another prediction: America will awaken ONLY AFTER the crash hits us. This is obvious.

What makes me so sure?

People in gereral and especially Americans today are susceptible to primitive propaganda tools. Watch this and be amazed...

Question: Remember that April 2003 event when they took down the Saddam statue?

Here is what they showed on the news:

Looks like a big crowd of Anti-Saddam protesters doesn't it? And you recall now as you look at this picture what they were saying on the news right? There were all of these "spontaneous" Iraqi demonstrations and celebrations. And of course the western mass-media would have no reason to project propaganda tactics upon us right?

Well, watch this....

And now let's have a closer look...

Click on the picture for a bigger view

Would CNN and ABC and CBS and MSNBC and the Washington Post and the New York Times and all of the Tribunes and Posts out there intentionally lead the American public into deception?

So, how did all of this deception overtake Americans about the Iraq war?

Well, there was plenty of accurate reporting, but how come the mainstream news outlets couldn't get it right with all of their resources? Certainly someone in the mainstream press would have noticed that the angle on the camera lens focused on 20 people around the statue of Saddam is misleading, since there were only 20 people there. And certainly someone could have told the talking heads not to present all of this like a popular revolt out in the open square against Saddam.

The mainstream press is deliberately misleading the American public. I have no proof as to the reasons, but the proof of the fact is irrefutable.

So where should we go for our news?

Check out some independent sources for the real facts of what happened to the Saddam Statue in April 2003...

"A tale of two photos" - Information Clearing House
"Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue" - Propaganda Matrix
"Don't be fooled by the spin on Iraq" - Common Sense Almanac
"What Is Happening In America?" - Rense
"Bare Square?" - Counterpunch
"The decline and fall of American journalism" - Working For Change
"Staged toppling of the Iraqi regime was propaganda stunt" - On Lisa Rein's Radar

There are thousands of independent regular people out there interviewing and reading interviews from Johnny Carpenter and Sally Smith about their on the ground experiences in Iraq.

What are they telling us?

1) The Iraq war is a fraud. There are no WMD's... well not from Iraqis. Americans, however, are spreading radiation into Iraq by the thousands of tons.
2) We are spraying thousands of tons of radioactive munitions into Iraq and it is entering into the food supply, water supply and genetic code of our servicemen and women and Iraqi children and women and neighboring countries. This is the greatest crime against humanity right here. With a half life of 4.5 billion years, the world now has inhalable dust particles from Uranium spreading around the world, thanks to G. W. Bush and this Neo-Con Administration and the desire for oil.

Want irrefutable proof? Look no further than the guy who "wrote the book on depleted uranium cleanup" for the US Pentagon, Major Doug Rokke. There are thousands of documents out there from every credible mainstream and alternative media imaginable. Just Google search: Try this one!

Conclusion: We need to stop listening to carefully scripted, big moneyed corporate media and we need to listen to regular people like yourselves. This is simple enough for a child to understand, but brainwashed minds no longer can access simple analytical skills.

Taken together, the two above points surely makes the US look bad in they eyes of the whole world, and it should.

America attacks a defenseless and now proven innocent country on the basis with "pre-emptive" occupation and what do Americans do?

Meanwhile, Iraqis have already been starved by the blockade and the innocent are the ones paying the highest price, squeezed between the US and Saddam and oil and the full range of fighters there in their territory. The bombs being dropped by America doesn't discriminate between child and "insurgents". In fact, the last place an rebel or terrorist or fighter will go is into an apartment. But the US is undermanned so what else to do when taking fire from a city block? Level it, right? Bomb them back into the stone age, right?



America, you will pay for this in a way that you never imagined. A punishment will come due for these crimes. It is way past time to get yourselves oriented on truthful knowledge and to adjust your lives accordingly. You are already at terminal velocity towards a crash zone. At least have the humility to see you are wrong and change your ways. The crash is unavoidable at this point, and the empire status is about to become history. Your survival as a people and a culture hangs in the balance and your mindless distractions are tipping you towards the "Sack of Rome" scenario.

So Wake Up America! Give the world a break from your tyranny complex. Why don't you just focus on giving your kids a descent world to live in?

***

"But today, the cameras are gone, and flags are folded up -- and Kulick's family will continue to live with the loss... None worse than his 9-year-old daughter. "Amanda is in denial," Jim Kulick said. "She said her father promised her he would come back from the war, and she still believes that."

There are so many devestating untold stories out there on this Iraq fraud war.

Still we have half of the country believing that we are fighting terrorists.

The average american will listen to the news channel and get all pumped up, but will they listen to people on the front lines? No. Well, plenty of brave military Master Sergeants and Generals and lower are saying, LOTS ARE SAYING... many, many, many people on the ground are saying that they are not fighting al-CIA-duh! They say that they are fighting local poor people who join the rebellion.

And think about it for a minute America! Put down your remote control and stop eating potato chips here for a second.

If real Iraqi terrorists were bombing your city and if they killed half of your family with bombs, including MOSTLY, yes I know the facts, MOSTLY women and children (because that is what bombs hit... fighters are not in their apartment buildings, you see). So when they kill MOSLY women and children and your family is destroyed, what do you do?

I will tell you what you will do. You will put down your remote control and your potato chips and you will pick up a gun. You will make cheap exploding devices. You will join a popular resistance. And when you start fighting, you will use whatever resources become available from your popular resistance.

Army and Marines on the ground are saying that they are fighting a popular Iraqi uprising.

They say that they are killing too many women and children. Yes, they don't like it but that is what military does in crowded cities. Bombs blow up little kids. That is what they were made to do. Fighters don't stay at home, they strike and get out of town. Under-manned armies drop bombs. You see, this whole thing is doomed.

I have another good post following this one which proves that the Iraq war is lost. I mean proves to a thousand percent.

However, why don't you send this post out to every potato-chip couch potato that you know in the land of the free and home of the brave and ask them a question:

Who are you going to believe - Fox news or "Johnny K." below?

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The legacy of "Johnny K": Fallen Philly soldier revealed the ugly truth about IraqAttytood

Full story here:
www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002316.html
August 20, 2005

Last week, we wrote about the unspeakably sad story of Gennaro Pellegrini Jr. -- Philly cop, welterweight boxer, and National Guardsman. The 31-year-old's life was hitting full stride when he received a fateful phone call ordering him to serve in Iraq, just two weeks before his hitch was supposed to end. Pellegrini was quite unhappy, but he went -- and he paid with his life, along with three of his Pennsylvania National Guard colleagues who were killed in a ruthless ambush near the Iraqi town of Beiji.

Also slain in that Aug. 9 attack was one of Pellegrini's brothers-in-arms, a Whitpain Township firefighter named John Kulick. Kulick -- a 35-year-old from the suburbs, an avid fisherman who loved too much mustard on bologna sandwiches and was called "Johnny K" -- had become had become fast friends with Pellegrini, the tough, tatooed city cop from a rowhouse block of Port Richmond. But the road that these two salt-of-the-earth guys had taken to Beiji could not have been more different.

As a professional firefighter, Kulick was devastated by the loss of so many colleagues at the World Trade Center in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That sense of duty is what prompted him to joined the Pennsylvania National Guard, even though he was already on the far side of 30 and the devoted and involved divorced dad to his daughter, Amanda, who is in grade school. And when his Guard unit from Northeast Philly was called up last December, he told his worried family that he wanted to go, to fight terrorists "over there."

In fact, Kulick's brother Jim -- in a radio interview this morning -- said they watched the movie "Blackhawk Down" just days before his departure for Iraq. After the end of the movie (which depicts the 1993 Somali insurgent attack that killed 18 U.S. troops), John Kulick declared, echoing his commander-in-chief and without irony, "Bring 'em on."

We heard Jim Kulick this morning on the Michael Smerconish show on WPHT-1210. The reason Smerconish invited him on was to talk about the emails that John Kulick had sent home from northern Iraq in the months before he was killed. Over the eight months that the Philly-area firefighter served in Iraq, his opinion of the mission changed radically.

As described by his brother, John Kulick's emails tell the story of a patriotic American who was betrayed -- by his own government. Because it was John Kulick's government that -- after spending more than $100 billion on Iraq -- sent him into hostile territory without the proper armor. And it was John Kulick's government that sent him into a war that lacked a strategy, and that, as a result, not only eliminated the enemy but was waged in a way that created new enemies every day.

Jim Kulick said his brother's emails showed a man who was becoming more and more worried. John Kulick said the insurgents were using increasingly sophisticated IEDs -- improvised explosive devices -- and were firing rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs, into their camp. "They had to hide under their cots -- there was nothing they could do," Kulick's brother said. "The Humvees weren't armored, or lightly armored -- they were basically useless. At first they were sending them out in pickup trucks. They weren't really equipped to fight this war."

(Note from your frienly blogger... Does the gentle reader know about "psychological armor"? Oh yes, the US government made Humvees to LOOK and FEEL armored but they DID NOT want armor on them. Off to war we go in psychological armor. Why? Well, that is for us to figure out isn't it? Click Google and try these keywords: "psychological armor" and "Humvee". You will find this article and many others: http://www.rense.com/general66/pssyh.htm)

Kulick told his family that troops were taking police vests that had been donated to them and putting them on the floor of the Humvees instead of wearing them. Jim Kulick noted that at the same time his brother was reporting this, two of his friends who are area police officers serving in Iraq told him they had needed to bring their own sidearms. In his emails, John Kulick had begun to describe the war as "a quagmire."

As disturbing as those reports were, what Kulick had to say about the conduct of the war was even more troubling. He told his family that the Iraqi police "were corrupt and inept and there was no way they could ever train them to the degree where they could keep order." And when his unit went out after insurgents, far too many innocent iraqis were killed in the crossfire. And, Kulick reported home, "the more hate that created." When the Americans left an area, the insurgents came back the next day.

Eventually, when Kulick saw Iraqi citizens kneeling in the street in prayer, his interpreter would tell him they were praying for the Americans to leave. "They would rather live with evil they knew rather than live with us," Kulick said in his emails. "We were killing them as much as the insurgents were."


Kulick and his fellow Guardsmen were riding in a Humvee, reportedly armored, on night patrol on Aug. 9 when a large bomb -- containing as much as 25 to 30 pounds of explosives -- that was hidden in a drainage culvert under the roadway exploded and killed them. Just hours earlier, Kulick had called his father to tell him where his will was located and that he would want a full military funeral.

It's too early to say whether the tumultuous events of the last few weeks -- the deaths of so many Guardsmen from Pennsylvania and Ohio, the groundswell of support for grieving anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan -- will be remember as a turning point. Jim Kulick said this morning that the U.S. needs to set a timetable for getting out, and host Smerconish -- a political conservative who supported the war from early on -- was surprisingly sympathetic. Said Smerconish: "We're adrift."

Yesterday, John Kulick received the type of funeral he had asked for. His flag-draped funeral procession along York Road in Montgomery County drew firefighters from 61 local departments, and featured all the pomp and circumstance that is appropriate for a true hero like John Kulick.

But today, the cameras are gone, and flags are folded up -- and Kulick's family will continue to live with the loss. Jim Kulick said his family is "devastated" by what happened in Iraq.

None worse than his 9-year-old daughter. "Amanda is in denial," Jim Kulick said. "She said her father promised her he would come back from the war, and she still believes that."

Amanda Kulick doesn't understand what happened to her father.

Neither do we.

Original article is here:
www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002316.html
===========
Dear American: Is Kulick lying when he says: "We were killing them as much as the insurgents were."?

No.

And wouldn't that create a bit of a rebellion if a muslim country were to invade the USA killing MOSTLY women and children?

Sure.

We would rebel. And the Iraqis are rebelling as people do under those conditions. And they are targeting the country that looks different, has a diffent God, sets up military bases nearby oil rigs and ports, and steals UNMETERED oil. Yes, we don't even meter the oil we steal. By the way, no-bid contracts for stealing Iraqi oil are going to Dick Cheney's company Haliburton right now today.

This is too rich and dark to simply label "irony".

It is like trying to prove that the sun has risen by pointing at the sun and saying "look". I just can't believe the ignorance out there.

Please send this message out to your Made in China American flag waving, war supporting, non-thinking couch potato US citizens and tell them that the guy who wrote this voted for Bush II in his first election, he calls himself a former Republican with even some sympathy for the Christian Right. But now he is standing up against the tyranny of his President in the same way that we all wished that the Democrats would have stood up against Bill Clinton.

Should "We the people" remain divided when it only serves this false, two-party theater rulership over us? Let's join and listen to the little independent. We can turn off our news channels and wise up a bit to save our lives, can't we?

The Russian Peak Oil Scenario, Part 1

The Legendary Dave Howell interviews Tate Ulsaker


Recently, I was honored to meet another giant of the Peak Oil truth movement right here in Moscow.

David Howell, co-authored the classic “Energy for Survival: The Alternative to Extinction” way back in 1974, during the early days of our now rapidly escalating energy crisis.

A quick Google search will pull up thousands of references to David Howell’s book, still being quoted and referenced by organizations like: http://www.urbanecology.org.au/ and http://www.co2andclimate.org/.

Local bookstores might not stock it as often as they used to but you can buy it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. My copy should be coming to me by mail in a few days.

I have not yet read the book, but I did meet with Dave Howell. It seems to me that Dave’s views basically parallel the current leaders like Kunstler, Campbell, Heinberg and others. Basically, we all realize that we are face-to-face with a multi-headed dragon that humankind has never dealt with before.

Since the publication of Dave’s book 30+ years ago, he has watched with concern as generations of presidents and peoples in the US and the world have chosen lifestyles and policies, totally ignoring the message within his book which is prominently displayed on the front cover with that ominous title: “Energy for Survival: The Alternative to Extinction”. The message can’t get any more succinct and it can’t be any more right. Paradoxically, it can’t get any more ignored. To our peril, we have lost our chance to avoid a face-to-face confrontation with the multi-headed dragon called Peak Oil. But we did not lose our chance to survive.

Survival was precisely the topic of interest discussed between Dave and me. The following discussion takes the form of an interview. Dave suggested interviewing me on the subject of avoiding the coming collapse and we focused upon Russia as a post collapse survivor nation.

Dave and I were introduced with help from a moderator of EnergyResources (ER), a popular newsgroup at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/, where we both have contributed opinions.

The following 17 questions were provided to me by Dave via email. Subsequently, we met over a beer and talked for several refills worth of issues. I am humbled that he would interview me on a subject that he knows so well. The following is not an actual dialogue but a set of questions concerning Peak Oil today and how it will likely impact Russia VS the rest of the world.

Dave Howell (DH): Tate, I’m bringing up the oil-peak question and post-oil-peak possibilities with increasing frequency among my students. Most of the stuff that I read; e.g., on the Energy Resources (ER) site, is focused on the impacts on America, so I’ve got some pretty good ideas of what life is going to be like there. What I can’t give my students any guidance on is what they can expect.

You’re in the business of consulting with and giving advice to many of Russia’s largest and most influential Western businesses, and to do that you have to have your ear pretty close to the ground. I know that you are also very much up-to-speed on the issue of peak oil and on the nearing global warming crisis. And of course as a Russian ex-pat you have more than a passing interest in the art of survival here. So from your unique vantage point, your educated guesses would be very helpful in providing me – and my students – with some broad guidance about how these upcoming developments are going to uniquely affect Russia. So I’m very grateful for your taking your time to think about some of these questions.

Tate Ulsaker (TU): Questions from you Dave give me reason to reflect. You have been aware of Peak Oil for decades and you have a lot to teach others. I will try to support that effort with your students.

DH question 1: Somebody on the EnergyResources site recently speculated, “Perhaps the greatest threats to the U.S. in the coming decades are Europe and Russia.” Do you agree with this?

TU: Dave, I don’t agree at all. It seems to me that Russia is not threatened nor does Russia have any advantages in threatening the United States. Besides, no nation on earth is doing more to destroy the United States than the United States. Our currency markets have nowhere to go but Weimar, we produce almost nothing of exportable value any more, our borders are wide open even as we wage expensive resource wars with expensive resources and we have built economic bubble upon bubble. There is no way out of our mess from this point except through collapse of our currency, stocks, housing, and industry. Eventually, society and civilization as we know it will follow. This process has already begun. I believe that we have reached Peak Oil or will reach it this year. Russia and the rest of the world know what to expect from a US collapse so they will benefit by simply waiting for opportunities on the geopolitical and economic landscape as the US falls into the junk heap of post-empire status.

DH question 2: But some people believe that Russia is a threat to America still. If that were true then where exactly could that threat potentially come from? Energy? Military? Social? Competition for resources?

TU: Well, that is a good point on a few levels. Political minds in the United States these days believe that a sovereign country is “threatening” the viability of the United States whenever that country refuses to sell raw energy resources at the volumes and price levels so required for United States global hegemony. Americans are right to fear collapse, but the only real solution is to eliminate the need to steal resources from weaker countries through unfair political, economic and military pressures.

I am just now discovering that resource wars are nothing new. Resource acquisition, I am finding, has always been a central part of any war strategy, regardless of the official reason for waging war. Many times, resource acquisition is the primary purpose for waging war in the first place. The history books print the officially stated reasons that one side will declare war on the other side. Many times, this is necessary to garner public support for an unjust resource war that would otherwise fail to win moral support for the many sacrifices to be made. And who benefits?

Most Americans are only aware of the good side of US policy but they discount or fail to consider the dark side of US policy that arguably began with wiping out American Indians using small pox-laden blankets and extended from there to every corner of the globe until we find ourselves now spraying thousands of tons of radioactive depleted uranium into the Iraqi cities, food supply and water supply. The official reasons for waging war change through time but the central purpose seems to be largely about resource acquisition. Americans have stopped asking the question “who benefits?” They have stopped thinking for themselves and are therefore easily misled into wars that don’t make any sense upon even cursory analysis.

So on that level, yes, Russia can easily be painted as a threat to the American people because Russia may be in a position to deny America oil in the very near future as demand outstrips supply. America is not a good partner for Russia because America has nothing to give Russia in return for petroleum. After the dollar collapse, the US is finished except for nuclear weapons, bravado, and misguided policies.

So, back to your question about a potential threat from Russia against the US. The biggest threat coming from Russia would be if Russia would simply curtail sales to the US in preference for a more sane policy of internal economic and social development.

If president Putin were drunk enough to listen to my advice about all this, and if I was not in fear of losing my life for inadvertently insulting him, here is what I would say:

“Mr. President, do what is best for Russia because what is sane for Russia is sane for the world. Go ahead and start decreasing US access to your oil. Why sell a finite and dwindling and much demanded resource prior to the biggest bull market in the history of mankind?”

“Russia is the world’s only energy exporter with a military power of significance. The US is not your master. The US is on the verge of the post-imperialist junkyard and blind to that impending certain fate. Your country has the potential to do what the United States failed to do in 1973.

“Mr. President, we Americans have failed to develop a sustainable society and so our leaders are driven mad to secure ever-dwindling supplies just to prolong the coming collapse. Their choices are limited to resource wars today because their vision was limited to a mindless petro-growth 30-years ago. Russia can either follow the path of the United States towards guaranteed collapse or Russia can find her own path towards possible peace and prosperity.

“With Peak Oil’s evident arrival in 2005, America is poised for a mighty collapse on a level commensurate with her status as the world’s sole superpower. Until now, the world has been foolishly following in the unwise footsteps of America towards greater industrialization and increased dependency on the dwindling supplies of petroleum products. Resource wars are no solution, but they tempt leaders to engage in contests that waste the very resources being sought in the first place.

“The direction of the world is clearly undesirable, but Russia has a different possible destiny. Perhaps using the collapse of America as a tool for social change, Russia might implement programs that depopulate mega-cities, empower vast agricultural zones with a fair homesteading act and new regional powers.

“No country on earth has the combination of land, energy, educated peoples and political will to do what Russia can do right now at this critical juncture of civilization. Mr. President, you have a chance to break away from this highway to destruction and to chart your own path towards a secure future for your people.

“If successful, your legendary status would be sealed in history as a pivotal figure of hope for all mankind, of no less stature and respect than India’s Ghandi.

“With your political will, the coming crash of America will spark a move inward for Russia, rather than outward to additional resource contests involving China, India, Europe and others. Let the nations of the world continue trading the blood of their peoples for dwindling resources if that is their desire. Russia can begin building a nation that will last far beyond these temporary resource wars.

“And with each success, Mr. Putin, please don’t forget to seal your borders...”

(at this point I would raise my 100 grams of vodka up with a gesture to make a toast)

“…because a sustainable Russia with a prosperous, peaceful, self-governed, expansive, organically producing series of agricultural communities will be the desire of everyone in the world in the post-petroleum stone age.”

(Then, following the distinctive clink of our respective shot glasses, we steep our glasses upward and gulp down the fuel while exhaling through our teeth… Then I look up and to my surprise, I see that I have been given space to add one more memorable phrase. I seize the moment.)

“…and Russia will be the desired place of everyone in the post petroleum world by the same token as your would be partner, America, was the desire during the age of oil.”

(And then I woke up from that strange dream with a blazing hangover and I wondered what am I doing on the floor by the computer at 3:00 AM?)

DH question 3: What do you think is the future for ex-pat Americans here?

TU: I will answer a bit later Dave. I think my wife has some remedies for this hangover in the kitchen.

***

Question:

How do you celebrate the end of an era? The end of civilization? The end of modern comforts and 50-years of relative peace and prosperity?

Answer:

I don't know. But if you are in Russia, you can celebrate it in the traditional ways: Vodka, banya, music, friends, a free spirit, a few laughs, an empty stare and general acceptance of difficulties endured in the past and yet to come.

Today, we substitute the vodka for imported beers and everything else remains the same. With torched industrial farm products over hot coals, we drink our liquid bread and endure the non-service of a resort 2 ours by a hardwood benched train outside of Moscow. The word "comfort" is a relative term to Russians, but consuming energy is not a new experience. Russians have not managed to connect a great deal of comfort to the burning of fossil fuels, and maybe that is all the better for them. Therefore, consuming Peak Oil products is a sufficient enough way to celebrate in Russia what the death of what consumerism means elsewhere.

And what celebration in Russia would be complete without a salute to the electric Russian banya?

The Russian banya is not just a room, it is an experience. It is a system of health rejuvenation. It seems like a disaster to the untrained eye, but look carefully, the Russian banya is pure craftsmanship.

First, you heat a pile of rocks with electricity (in the city) or coal (in the country) until the rocks approximate the glow of molten lava.

When the thermometer in the room hits 100 degrees Celsius, which is the boiling temperature of water, then you dump a few buckets of cold water over the rocks and endure the searing pain of volcanic steam the fills your lungs with a bottle of menthol extract which was designed to last for a week in the public house.

To calm the menthol effect, beer adds some of that rustic smell and balances the percent of menthol in the air with a caramel flavor even as the menthol continues to hit the naked eyeball like fresh-squeezed onion juice.

By some miracle, electric currents never seem to shock the person pouring all of these liquids over the temporarily cooled rocks. We are left to conclude that Russian electricians are genius enough to idiot-proof the wiring which leads to the molten rocks, or perhaps a more likely explanation is that all Russian banyas sit on top of a lava flow and no electricity is needed.

The cooled rocks turn back to lava in about 10-seconds, igniting our lungs with more menthol. The steam brings our skin into close contact with the wet variant of the 100 degrees boiling point of water that dry heat fails to deliver.

Since this is a farewell party to Peak Oil in Russia, comfort doesn't matter, even as we burn fossil fuel to American standards. None of that matters because one shouldn't concentrate too hard on philosophy at a farewell party. Or a funeral. Or the most enduring collapse of written history.

This is a time to enjoy the moment of having our bones begin to store up heat like lava rocks and we are forced by survival to consider a fast exit from this banya within 10 seconds of reaching our own individual boiling points. And we imagine for a moment what would happen if someone locked the door from the outside.

For some unknown reason, all Russian banya doors open from the inside out, tempting the murder alibis of: "Oh, he just had too much vodka with his shashlik and fell asleep. I was watching TV at the time. It was loud."

But what is on the outside of every respectable Russian banya door?

Ice cold snow or ice if in the countryside.

But we are in a city-version. So we celebrate a relief from our heated bones by jumping into an ice pool just two steps from the banya door.

Kerrrrpluuuuush! Water everywhere.

A funny thing happens if you jump into the pool for just 5 seconds and get out: Your pores close.

Here is a great secret of the Russian banya: People who jump in for 5 seconds stay warm for the rest of the evening. People who stay longer, may wish to return to the banya and start the whole process of pain all over again. You control your evening by controlling your time in the ice pool.

So how do you celebrate the farewell of Peak Oil, 50-years of relative peace? The era of relative peace and plenty? The golden age of "civilization" (in quotes)? The beginning of a massive population correction and an unprecedented string of global resource wars?

Well, such a celebration should be taken seriously.

In Russia, I don't believe that anyone will complain if we celebrate the passing of peak oil by using energy in a way the ridicules comfort and celebrates a friendly experience. What it all means was not even a topic of conversation on that particular weekend in mid-August 2005.