Fidel: The United Nations, Impunity And War

Resolution 1929 of the United Nations Security Council on June 9, 2010 
sealed the fate of imperialism.

I'm not sure how many noticed that among other absurdities, the Secretary 
General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, fulfilling orders from above, 
committed the blunder of appointing Alvaro Uribe (when he was about to 
complete his mandate) as vice president of the commission to investigate the 
Israeli attack on the humanitarian fleet carrying essential food to the 
besieged population in the Gaza Strip. The attack occurred in international 
waters and at a considerable distance from the coast.

That decision gave Uribe, accused of war crimes, total impunity: as if a 
country full of mass graves of the bodies of murdered people, some with as 
many as 2,000 victims; and seven US military bases, plus the rest of the 
Colombian military bases at its service, had nothing to do with terrorism 
and genocide.

On the other hand, on June 10, 2010, Cuban journalist and director of the 
Mesa Redonda national television program Randy Alonso wrote an article 
entitled El llamado Gobierno Mundial se reunió en Barcelona (The so-called 
world government meets in Barcelona), published on the CubaDebate website.

The article states:

"They arrived at the pleasant Hotel Dolce in cars with darkened windows or 
by helicopters.

"They were more than 100 economic, financial, political and media leaders 
from North America and Europe, who came for the annual meeting of the 
Bilderberg Club, a sort of shadow world government."

Like Alonso, other honest writers were following the news that managed to 
leak out from the strange encounter. Someone much more informed than they 
has been on the trail of these events for many years.

"The exclusive Club, which met in Sitges, was formed in 1954 after the idea 
of advisor and political analyst Joseph Retinger. Its initial driving forces 
were US tycoon David Rockefeller, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and 
Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland. Its founding purpose was to combat 
the growing `anti-Americanism' that existed in Europe at the time and to 
confront the Soviet Union and communism that was gaining strength in the Old 
Continent.

"Their first meeting was held at the Hotel Bilderberg in Osterbeck, 
Netherlands, May 29 and 30, 1954; hence the name of the group, which has 
since met annually with the exception of 1976.

"There is a core of permanent members who are the 39 members of the Steering 
Committee, the rest are guests.

"[.] the organization demands that nobody 'gives interviews,' nor reveals 
anything that an individual participant has said. The essential requirement 
is an excellent command of English [...]; there are no translators present.

"No one knows for sure the real scope of the group. Specialists of the body 
say that it is no accident that it always meets shortly before the G-8 
(previously G-7) and that it seeks a new world order with a single 
government, military, economy and ideology.

"In a Newsweek magazine article, David Rockefeller said, 'Somebody has to 
take governments' place, and business seems to me to be a logical entity to 
do it.'

"[.] banker James P. Warburg said, 'Like it or not we shall have a world 
government. The only question is whether it will be achieved by consent or 
by conquest.'

"'Ten months prior, they knew the exact date of the invasion of Iraq, along 
with what was going to happen with the real estate bubble. With information 
like that you can make a lot of money in all types of markets. What we're 
talking about are clubs of power and information.'

"According to analysts, one of the issues that most worries the Club is the 
'economic threat' represented by China and its repercussions on North 
American and European societies.

"Some specialists have demonstrated the influence of the Club on the elite 
with the fact that Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Barack 
Obama were all invited to the Club before being elected to the highest 
position of government in Great Britain and the United States. Obama 
attended their meeting in June 2008 in Virginia, five months before winning 
the presidency; a victory that was predicted at the 2007 meeting." "Despite 
all this secrecy, the press has revealed a few names here and there. Among 
those who attended the meeting in Sitges were important businesspeople such 
as the presidents of Fiat, Coca Cola, France Telecom, Telefónica de España, 
Suez, Siemens, Shell, Novartis and Airbus.

"Financial and economic gurus also attended meetings such as the famous 
speculator George Soros; economic advisors to Obama, Paul Volcker and Larry 
Summers; the flamboyant British Secretary to the Treasury George Osborne; 
the former president of Goldman Sachs and British Petroleum, Peter Shilton 
[.]; World Bank President Robert Zoellic; IMF Managing Director Dominique 
Strauss-Kahn; Director General of the World Trade Organization Pascal Lamy; 
the president of the European Central Bank, Jean Claude Trichet; the 
president of the European Investment Bank, Philippe Maystadt."

Have any of our readers heard about this? Has any major outlet of the 
written or spoken media ever mentioned it? Is this the freedom of the press 
that they talk about so much in the West? Can any of them deny that these 
systematic meetings of the world's most powerful financiers take place every 
year with the exception of the one year previously mentioned?

"The military sent some of its hawks -Randy continues-: the former Defense 
Secretary to Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; NATO 
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his predecessor Jaap de Hoop 
Scheffer."

"Digital technology magnate Bill Gates was the only participant who spoke to 
the press before the meeting. 'I'm one of those who will be present,' he 
said and added that the meeting will feature several financial debates.

"News speculators reported that the shadow powers analyzed the future of the 
Euro and strategies to save it, the current state of the European economy, 
and the trajectory of the crisis. They hoped to prolong the life of the 
patient using the religion of the marketplace and drastic social cuts.

"The general coordinator of the United Left, Cayo Lara, clearly defined the 
world that is imposed on us by the Bilderberg Club. 'We are in an upside 
down world where democracies are controlled, guided and pressured by the 
dictatorships of the financial powers.'

"The most alarming piece of information revealed by the Spanish newspaper 
Público is the consensus by the members of the Club in favor of a US attack 
against Iran [.] Remember that the Club members knew the exact date of the 
2003 Iraq Invasion ten months before it happened."

When added to all the evidence presented in recent Reflections, would it be 
whimsical to suggest that the war against Iran has already been decided on 
in the Empire's highest circles of power? And that only an extraordinary 
effort by world opinion would be able to prevent war from detonating in the 
immediate future? Who is hiding the truth? Who is lying? Can any of the 
above be denied?

Fidel Castro Ruz
August 15, 2010
8:25 AM

Will Israel attack Lebanon to steal its gas?

by Alfredo Jalife-Rahme

Voltairenet - 22 AUGUST 2010

The existence of vast gas and oil reserves off the coasts of Cyprus, Lebanon, Gaza ... and Israel is no longer a secret. Considering the appetites and methods of the Tel Aviv Government, the possibility of sharing that common wealth appears to be remote. According to Mexican geo-political expert, Alfredo Jalife-Rahme, the question is to know whether Israel will simply resort to stealing the reservers of its neighbours by siphoning them via sophisticated technology, or whether it will seize them by force.

Various qualified analysts had noted that Israel’s war against Gaza - ruled by the Islamic-Sunni group Hamas - bore a direct relation to the extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline on the Mediterranean Sea.

While having a total of 400 nuclear bombs and the best air force in the Middle East - following its recent defeats in Southern Lebanon at the hands of the Islamic Shiite guerrilla of Hezbollah and in Gaza against Hama, it can no longer be said that it still possesses the best army in the region -, Israel is plagued with two critical weaknesses:

 1. Water (hence its reluctance to return to Syria the occupied territories in the Golan Heights, bordering on the Lake of Galilee); and
 2. Oil: Israel imports over 300 000 barrels daily (most of that oil comes from Egypt), while its gas production is barely sufficient to cover domestic consumption.

We have just wound up a one-month tour of Greece, Lebanon and Turkey, where we measured the strategic importance of the gas reserves both for Gaza and Lebanon, which lie in waters shared by Israel and Cyprus (divided between Greeks and Turks).

On 28 June, Naharnet, a Lebanon-based pro-western Web portal, aptly commented that the vast gas reserves spread over Lebanese and Israeli waters could represent a huge financial manna, but they may also be the cause for a new Israeli war against its weak neighbor to the North.

The crux of the matter is that both Lebanon and Israel largely depend on hydrocarbon imports.

In the case of Lebanon, the situation is more severe since it has a run-down electric grid, which has not been repaired or improved since the country’s 15-year civil war.

To Israel’s like or dislike, it is none other than the Shiite Hezbollah guerrilla in Lebanon that, in the face of Israel’s cupidity, has risen to the defense of Lebanon’s gas. Within the vast Lebanese mosaic, no one except Hezbollah has thus far taken a public stand on a matter of such crucial importance since it could either generate large political and financial benefits or lead instead to an Israeli war against Lebanon (and not the other way round).

Not without precedents or historical justifications, Hezbollah accuses Israel of planning the "theft" of natural gas from Lebanese territorial waters. The Shiites from Southern Lebanon have already had ample experience with Israel’s plunder of waters from the Litani River.

Israel, on its part, argues that its oil and gas fields do not reach Lebanese waters.

The problem lies in the fact that territorial limits - and maritime borders by extension - have as yet to be demarcated since the two countries are technically at war.

Israel has taken the lead - thanks to its large technological advancement and the collusion of the Anglo-American oil and gas companies - in the development of the Tamar and Dalit oil fields, whose huge reserves triggered a stock market surge in Tel Aviv, precisely the exact same day that the extremist Netanyahu-Lieberman regime was facing widespread condemnation for its act of homicidal piracy in international waters against a humanitarian Turkish vessel that was headed for Gaza (the largest open air prison in the world).

The discovery of the Tamar and Dalit fields is a huge find: 160 billion of cubic meters that can meet Israel’s needs for two decades.

Texas’ Nobel Energy gas and oil company, which is part of a consortium in charge of exploring the gas reserves supposedly located in the Israeli zone of the Mediterranean Sea, has predicted that due to the discovery of a third field - symbolically named Leviathan (with 450 billion cubic meters; nearly three fold the Tamar and Dalit reserves) -, Israel could become a rich European and Asian supplier.

For the time being, Lebanese parliament leader and Hezbollah supporter Nabih Berri argued that Israel is becoming an “oil emirate” by exploiting gas that doesn’t belong to it while denying that the fields, as can be seen on the map, actually extend to Lebanese territorial waters. Is Lebanon doomed to repeat, with regard to Israel, Mexico’s own tragic experience vis-à-vis the United States in connection with its own “trans-border” reserves, which are unilaterally and continuously being exploited by Texan gas and oil companies thanks to their thieving siphoning technology?

Officials with Israel’s National Infrastructure - along with Texas’ Noble Energy and Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services, as was to be expected - assert that the three newly discovered fields are located within the Israeli “economic zone”. What amazing precision on the part of divine geography!

On 4 June 2010, Hezbollah-friendly outlets lambasted "Israel [which was] about to legalize the theft of Lebanese gas" by means of a legislative amendment. The information quoted Israeli TV reports according to which the Netanyahu-Lieberman duo “considers the discovery of natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea as an Israeli find, over which nobody else can lay claim (super sic!).” Good Heavens! So, where does international law hide when the siphoning of other people’s property occurs at the hands of Anglo-American transnational companies, which are equipped with far more advanced technology than the affected - not to say plundered - nations?

Even worse, according to the aforementioned Israeli TV channel, “the Government’s executive committee and Parliament are jointly working on a law that will leave no room for any Lebanese rights.” And if need be, the Israeli army is always at hand to unilaterally enforce the new dispossession bill.

Aside from Israel’s legendary plunder of all territorial space, in defiance of established “maps” and/or laws, the Lebanese political class - caught up in sterile conflicts over the identity of the lucky oil and gas explorer and producer - let a crucial decade slip through its fingers: a territorial and time gap that has been exploited by Israel.

Last October, Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services announced the likely existence of reserves both in Lebanon and in Cyprus. In this specific case, it would seem that the reserves will be shared by both neighboring countries. Geography has different tricks up its sleeve when it comes to sovereignty!

For Lebanon, any type of gas or oil find would be a blessing, helping it to slash its huge 52 billion-dollar debt, one of the largest in the world (147 percent) proportionally to its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of some 33 billion dollars.

But, we need not overestimate the Lebanese debt, which - though undoubtedly huge - is being cushioned through large banking deposits up to 110 billion dollars, making it easier to manage.

In any event, the new oil and gas discovery in Lebanon - be it sovereign or shared with Israel and/or Cyprus - would translate into a fabulous one trillion dollars, equivalent to Mexico’s GDP, but with the significant difference that the country of the millenary cedars has only 4 million inhabitants.

Osama Habib, a journalist with Lebanon’s The Daily Star stated, on 28 June 2010, that “the wealth of Lebanon’s oil and gas is a mixed blessing” which generates both “encouragement and anguish” (in view of its geo-political consequences) and exposes the primary struggle smouldering among politicians over the control of the hydrocarbon sector.

According to experts, it would take 15 years of exploration activity in Lebanese waters to get to the production stage, but the largest risk comes from the insatiable appetite of Israel, which would be capable, for the nth time, of unleashing a new war to get hold of the gas in Gaza and the hydrocarbon reserves in Lebanon and Cyprus.