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America's First Terror War

From Pirates to Enemy Combatants: R.T. Naylor traces the birth of the American Military-Industrial Complex and illustrates the striking parallels between Thomas Jefferson's naval war on the Barbary Coast states and Bush's War on Terror. Oil Company U?: Ali Tonak takes apart the big merger between British Petroleum and Cal-Berkeley and reveals BP's plot to saturate the Third World with GM crops, all in the name of oil conservation.

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Today's Stories

May 30, 2007

James Ridgeway
The Bi-Partisan Con on Synthetic Fuels

May 29, 2007

Stephen Soldz
Shrinks and the SERE Technique at Guantanamo

Eliza Ernshire
Refugees Forever: Inside Bedawi Camp

Ron Jacobs
The Exit of Cindy Sheehan

Dave Lindorff
Whatever Happened to Signing Statements?

Evelyn Pringle
What Qualifies Bush to Lead Iraq War

Mike Whitney
Bush's New Middle East

David Swanson
How We Got Here: The Democrats and the Antiwar Movement

John Holt
Gating Montana, Part Two: the Feedback Loop

Cynthia McKinney
Dreaming of a True Memorial Day

Martha Rosenberg
Mad Cows, Mad Pigs and the Horse Slaughter Lobby

Website of the Day
The Ruminant


May 28, 2007

Bill Quigley
Katrina Activists: "Less Meeting, More Fighting"

Col. Dan Smith
The Paranoid and the Dead

Cindy Sheehan
Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party

Dr. Susan Block
Dr. Laura's Little Monster

Jeeni Criscenzo
What I Learned About Being a Dickhead

Douglas Valentine
Memorial Day: a Poem

Website of the Day
Peace TV

 

 

May 26 / 27, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
The Greenhousers Strike Back and Out

Michael Donnelly
Green Sabotage as "Terrorism"

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Dramatic Reappearance

Franklin Lamb
Inside Nahr el-Bared: "Another Waco in the Making"

Jean Bricmont
The Moral Collapse of the Moral Left

Gary Leupp
Cheney, Israel and Iran

James Petras
Imperial Rot: The Beginning of the End of the American Empire?

William Peace
Ashley Unlawfully Sterilized

Judith and John Sharpe
The Saga of Our Son, Lt. Commander John Sharpe: Under Investigation for Antiwar Sentiments

Saul Landau
Four Dead in Ohio: From Kent State to Tiannamen Square

Paul Craig Roberts Democracy in Iraq, Tyranny at Home?

Jonathan M. Feldman
Congress and the Iraq War Vote

Dave Lindorff
Democratic Blood Money

Missy Beattie
Congress Plays Dead

Mike Whitney
Swan Song of the Democrats

Badruddin Khan
AIPAC Intervenes on Iran and Congress Folds, Again

Ron Jacobs
The Crime of Silence

Zoe Blunt
The Antidote to Despair

Arjun Chowdhury,
Mark Hoffman
and Kevin Parsneau
The Can-Do Troops and the New Anti-Politics

Heather Gray
The 1969 Riots Against the Chinese in Malaysia: a New Explanation

N. D. Jayaprakash
Disarmament Negotiations: A History and Prospectus

Joe Allen
and Paul D'Amato

Cartoons with Class

Poets' Basement
Gowani, Ford, Anderson and Simon

Website of the Weekend
Addicted to War



May 25, 2007

Robert Jensen
What the Finkelstein Tenure Fight Tells Us About the State of Academia

David Vest
So You Thought They'd End the War

John Stauber
Democratic Spin Won't End the War in Iraq

Evelyn Pringle
Congress Gives War Profiteers Another $100 Billion

Corporate Crime Reporter
Why Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are a Fraud

Susan Rosenthal, MD
What's Missing from the Health Care Debate

Roberto Rodriguez
Us vs. Them in the Immigration Debate

Steve Fournier
Goodie, Goodie Goodling

Patrick McElwee
Venezuela and RCTV: Is Free Speech Really at Stake?

Robert Weissman
Resisting the Commercialization of Public Schools

Website of the Day
New DNC Motto: "We Suck"

 

 


May 24, 2007

Franklin Lamb
Who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon

Corporate Crime Reporter
House Democrats Buckle to Big Oil: Strip Down Price Gouging Bill

Robert Fantina
Giuliani: Righteous, Indignant and Wrong

Norman Solomon
Deadly Illusions, Rest in Peace

Dave Lindorff
Kerrycrats All!: Now It's a Democratic War

Sen. Russell Feingold
We are Moving Backwards on Iraq

Fred Gardner
Doctor of Last Resort

Mike Whitney
Paulson in China

Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury and Mark Hoffman
Becoming Imperialist: a Warning to Iraq War Critics

Caroline Paul
My Brother the "Terrorist": Animal Liberation and Prosecutorial Overkill

Eva Liddell
In Defense of Lying on Job Applications

Website of the Day
Johnny's Jumped the Shark


May 23, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Opium: Iraq's Newest Export

Rev. William Alberts
Faith-Based Imperialism

Joe DeRaymond
Colombia's Civil War and the US

Sudhanva Deshpande
and Vijay Prashad

The Political Economy of a Crisis

Paul Craig Roberts
Republicans in Self-Destruct Mode

Glen Ford
A Less "White" USA

Rannie Amiri
The Great Bank Heist of Tripoli

China Hand
China's Great Wall of Cash?

Zoe Blunt
Tales from the Tree Tops: Veteran Tree Sitter Tells All

Nivien Saleh
Who's to Blame for Iraq?

Website of the Day
Debating the Israel Lobby


May 22, 2007

Robert Fisk
A Front Row Seat for the Bloodbath in Lebanon

Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton's Achilles Heel?

Harvey Wasserman
Drop Dead, New Yorkers: Giuliani and the Toxic Fallout from 9/11

David Mos Masumoto
An Orchard Without Workers

Sonja Karkar
Israeli Forest Named After Australian Prime Minister

Conn Hallinan
The Afghan Quagmire

Dave Lindorff
A Widening Chasm on Impeachment

Jeffrey Kolakowski
Meet Us in Detroit: an Open Letter to John Konyers

Evelyn Pringle
A Misleading Suicide Warning

Jim Baumer
Politics Gary, Indiana-Style

Website of the Day
Should the Democrats Fear Mike Gravel?


May 21, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
The Secret US Plot to Kill Sadr

Nicole Colson
Much Ado About the Fort Dix Pizza Plot

John Ross
Shooting for the Top: Mexico's Drug Gangs Take Aim at Calderon

Stephen Fleischman
Werewolf of Washington: Wolfowitz Comes Full Circle

M. Shahid Alam
Chosenness and Israeli Exceptionalism

Ron Jacobs
Green Mountain Days: Return to Vermont

Peter Rost, MD
Pfizer CFO Resigns

Alan Farago
Can the Everglades Save Florida?

Paul Buchheit
The Dark Side of Democracy Promotion

Website of the Day
Code Monkey: Live!


May 19 / 20, 2007

Andrew Cockburn
Why America Lost the War in Iraq

Uri Avnery
The Next War

Peter Gelderloos
My Arrest in Spain: The Easy Road from Tourism to Terrorism

Saul Landau
Bush's Accomplishments

Robert Fantina
Iraq's History: Lessons for the Present and the Future

Fred Gardner
Hemp vs. Pot, a False Dichotomy

Ralph Nader
Timid Democrats and the Antiwar Movement

Jean Daniels
Waiting for Obama

Reza Fiyouzat
Vietnam Syndrome: Dead or Alive?

Missy Beattie
Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani and Osama's Fatwah

Robert Alvarez
Magical Thinking About Nuclear Waste

Sonja Karkar
The Palestinians of Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Mumia Case on Hold

Jeff Sher
Keep Workers Healthy and Reduce Health Care Cost: Eliminate Co-Pays

Julian C. Holmes
Torture, Maine Style

Clancy Sigal
Red Mutiny: 11 Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin

Prairie Miller
The Murder of Fred Hampton

James Murren
The Dog Ate Karl Rove's Homework: When Turd Blossom Met the Teachers of the Year

Poets' Basement
Davies, Valentine and Engel

Website of the Weekend
Yellowstone's Shame: Harassing Newborn Bison

 

May 18, 2007

Adam Jones
When Does Genocide Purify? Ask the Pope

Sharon Smith
The Death of Triangulation Politics?

Christopher Brauchli
Cheney's Middle East Adventure

Peter Rost, MD
Bribes and Spies in the Drug Industry

Denise Maloney Pictou
The Murder of Our Mother, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash: After 31 Years, It is Time for Justice

David Swanson
Of Snoops and Dupes

Ali Khan
The Lawyers' Mutiny in Pakistan

Susan Rosenthal, M.D.
Cho Seung-Hui Delivers His Message

Samer Assad
Israel and the Refugees: Fifty-Nine Years of Dispossession

CP News Service
Bidding for Extinction: Ivory Trade on eBay Threatens Survival of Elephants

Website of the Day
Another War Criminal Goes to Harvard

 

May 17, 2007

Tariq Ali
The General vs. the Judge

Yifat Susskind
Honor Killings in the New Iraq: The Murder of Du'a Aswad

Dave Zirin
Being Ali or Being Owned: an Open Letter to LeBron James

Brian J. Foley
Hell, No, Harry Won't Go!

W. John Green
The Godfather of Colombia: Uribe and the Para Scandal

Eric Johnson-DeBaufre
Challenges for the New Sanctuary Movement

Badruddin Khan
Rebirthing the Neocons: Bernard Lewis' Latest Call to Arms

Martha Rosenberg
From Cockfighting to Foie Gras: On the Menu and on the Docket

China Hand
Pope Rat in Brazil: "The Amazon Tribes Longed for Christianity!"

Dan Vojir
Falwell's Tinky Winky Legacy: Who Will Battle the Telebubby Threat Now?

Website of the Day
Welcome to the Terrordome


May 16, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Chalabi Speaks

Ashley Dawson
Who's Afraid of Wolfowitz?

Joshua Frank
Obama's Cash Flow: Maverick or Kidder?

Corporate Crime Reporter
Corporate Drug Pushers

Ray McGovern
A Four-Letter Word for Tenet

Glen Ford
Black Labor and the Big Mission

Joe Bageant
The Ghosts of Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson

Sonja Karkar
The 59-Year Catastrophe

Mickey S. Huff
Preaching Hate: Farewell, Falwell

John Chuckman
Falwell's Lone Act of Kindness

Kaz Dziamka
What Ever Happened to Rogerian Argument?

Website of the Day
We're All Going to Hell

 

May 15, 2007

Michael Neumann
Two States, One State and Snake Oil

Patrick Cockburn
An American Nightmare

Ashley Smith
How the US Set Iraq on Fire

Marc Gardner
Parole and the Long-Distance Trucker

Dave Lindorff
and Linn Washington, Jr
Mumia Case Reaches Its Climax

Ben Terrall
Benchmark as Theft: Iraq Oil Workers Strike to Stop Privatization

Ron Jacobs
Cheney Threatens More War

Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Seabrook

Marcus Mabry
Shopping During Katrina

Dr. Susan Block
Cheney and the DC Madam's Cookie Jar

Website of the Day
Save Jean Klock Park from the Mega-Developers!

 

May 14, 2007

Jennifer Roesch
Giuliani Time: the Mussolini of Manhattan

Jeffrey St. Clair
Humans, CO2 and Climate Change

George Bisharat
For Palestinians, Memory Matters

Diane Wachtell
The Real Imus Lesson

Ramzy Baroud
From Palestine to Rotterdam

Rosemary and Walter Brasch
When the National Guard Goes Missing: An Ill Wind and American Policy

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Blair's Exit

Roberto Rodriguez
The Elusive Bars of Justice

Jonathan Culp
Cutting Out Collage: Copyright and Art in Canada

Website of the Day
Uranium Rock


May 12 / 13, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Who are the Merchants of Fear?

Patrick Cockburn
State of Surge

Jeffrey St. Clair
High Line Fever: a Trip Across the Dark Side of Montana

Diane Farsetta
Untold Stories from the Pat Tillman / Jessica Lynch Hearings

Ralph Nader
Strip Mining the Newsroom: Mr. Zell and the Tribune Company

Jean Bricmont
The Great Illusion: Sarkozy and the "Decline" of France

Marcus Breen
Cheering Sarkozy: the US Media and the Rightwing Takeover of France

Joe Bageant
Rising Above Politics

Conn Hallinan
European Missiles and the Camel's Nose

Fred Gardner
The Unreported I-880 Fire

Juan Santos
and Leslie Radford

Public Terror: Escalating the War on Migrants

Eve Bachrach
Inside Colombia's Flower Industry

Missy Comley Beattie
Shame

Ron Jacobs
The Bitterness of Regis Debray

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Sepoy Mutiny After 150 Years

Susie Day
Jesus Christ Weds Pat Robertson

Poets' Basement
Newberry, Engel, Landau, Katz and Davies

Website of the Weekend
The Shipyard: Recycling as Art

May 11, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Blair's Depature: the View from Baghdad

Kathleen Christison
Playing at Peace

Mike Ferner
Collateral Genocide

John Holt
Gating Montana: A Ghastly Disneyland with High Rise Outhouses

Laurie Hasbrook
This Minute and Then the Next: a Plea from an Antiwar Mother

Christopher Brauchli
The Children of Limbo: Will the Pope Finally Set Them Free?

Margaret Kimberley
GOP Openly Embraces Gipper Values: Racism, Violence and Control

Dave Lindorff
Use It or Lose It: The Democrats and the Impeachment Clause

Nicole Colson
Anger Erupts at Conditions in For-Profit Indiana Prison

John V. Walsh
Beware the Do-Gooders in Body Armor

Website of the Day
Take the Terrorist Quiz!

 

May 10, 2007

Tariq Ali
Adieu, Blair, Adieu

Patrick Cockburn
Killing of Teachers Turns Iraqi Sunnis Against al--Qa'ida

Neve Gordon
and Yigal Bronner
In Israel Not All Blood is the Same: The Death of Samir Dari

Marjorie Cohn
Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada Carriles

David Rosen
The New Disappeared: Sex Offenders, Civil Confinement and the Resurrection of "Evil"

Alan Farago
Why the Everglades Have Dried Up: Developers and the South Florida Drought

John Hellman
France: From Pétain to Sarkozy

Kathy Rentenbach
A 100 Days of Rafael Correa

BANCO
The Stage is Set for Sentencing Another Innocent Black Man

Richard Rhames
Is Paris Burning?

Website of the Day
Tame the Corporation


May 9, 2007

Jeff Leys
Iraq and Afghanistan Supplemental Spending, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign Minister on Iran and Iraq

Glen Ford
No Black Plan for America's Cities

Paula Rothenberg
Feminism Then and Now

Kathryn Weber
A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein

John Chuckman
The Likely Historical Significance of the War in Iraq

Jordan Flaherty
Looking for Justice in Jena, Louisiana

Dave Lindorff
Pelosi's Toothless Threat to Sue Bush

Stephen Lendman
Criminalizing Speech: the War on Free Expression in a Post-9/11 World

Website of the Day
"Fifth and Market": a Short Film About the Iraq War

 

 

May 8, 2007

Dave Lindorff
The Great Oil Robbery

Patrick Cockburn
The Horrific Stoning Death of a Yazidi Girl Sparks Waves of Revenge Killings

Corporate Crime Reporter
Snuff Politics: Democrats Escalate Attack on Single Payer

Ralph Nader
The People's Crusade of Mike Gravel

Malini Johar Schueller
Decoding Harlan Ullman: Shock and Awe as Sexual Fantasy

Juan Santos
The Hate Equation: Targeting Migrant Children in LA

Dave Zirin
Jason Whitlock, the Clarence Thomas of Sportswriters?

Joshua Frank
The Price of Fire in Latin America

Evelyn Pringle
Serotonin Syndrome

Eamonn McCann
Irish Peace Dividend for Discredited Premiers

Website of the Day
The Pagan Science Monitor

 

 

May 7, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
The Great Wall of Baghdad Rises

Monica Benderman
Land of Opportunity

Greg Moses
Hutto Prison Rebuffs UN Rapporteur

Rannie Amiri
The Sham at Sheikh: Iraq Regional Conference a Flop

Fitrakis / Wasserman
Media Silence on Kent State Revelations

Fred Wilhelms
Another Royalty Forfeiture From SoundExchange: And This Time It's Secret!

Ramzy Baroud
The Hourglass of Blood: Darfur Revisited

Bruce K. Gagnon
The Democrats Don't Own the Antiwar Movement

T. W. Croft
Home Movies from a Weekend in Paris--And Related Dreamscapes

Sonja Karkar
Prizes for Supporting Israel?

Website of the Day
Posada Carriles: the Declassified Record



May 5 / 6, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Trying to Catch Up with the Voters

William Blum
How America Has Changed Iraq

Uri Avnery
Exercise in Escapism

Franklin Lamb
Harvard's Twisted Report on Israel's Invasion of Lebanon

Fred Gardner
Elective Surgeries Kill

Lawrence R. Velvel
The American Moral Meltdown Accelerates

Missy Beattie
Lying and Dying: The Moral Sensibility of Military Recruiters

Robert Fantina
Bush's Veto: Hypocritical Words and Actions

Carla Blank
American Massacres and the Media

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Long Ordeal of Harold Wilson

Stephen F. Jackson
Taking It to Drummond: Paramilitaries and Mining Companies in Colombia

P. Sainath
The Jailing of Indian Farmers

Anthony Papa
Time to End New York's War on Itself

James T. Phillips
Blather Cancer

John Ross
Last Days of the Willie Loman of the EZLN

Stephen Lendman
Chavez's Oil Policy Sparks Panic at Wall Street Journal

Ben Terrall
Iggy Pop at 60

CounterPunch Newswire
Advice from a Geezer Assassin

Poets' Basement
Valentine, Engel and Davies

Website of the Weekend
Mountain Justice Summer

 

May 4, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
How the Surge is Failing

Col. Dan Smith
From Watergate to Gonzogate

Norman Solomon
FOX on Wall Street

Azmi Bishara
Why is Israel After Me?

Ron Jacobs
Sitting in on Senator Kohl and the War

Dave Lindorff
Clinton and Byrd are Calling for Revocation of the Wrong AUMF

Kevin Zeese
The Democrats Cave to Bush

Bob Fitrakis
Why Four Died in Ohio: Kent State, Gov. Rhodes and the FBI

Janet Kauffman
"Stop the Mudness!" Bare Earth is Scorched Earth

Website of the Day
Let Us Gather in Missouri!

 

May 3, 2007

Jeff Halper
The Livni-Rice Plan for the Middle East: a Just Peace or Apartheid?

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Best and Brightest: From Dr. Keroack to Bernard Kerik

Dave Zirin
Talking Sports from Death Row: an Interview with Kevin Cooper

Corporate Crime Reporter
Big Pharma Gets Its Hooks into Seton Hall Law School

Robert Fisk
Olmert Comes Undone

Mike Ferner
Bush Veto, Right for the Wrong Reasons?

Mike Whitney
A Stock Market Post-Mortem

Pham Binh
The Democrats and War Funding

Dave Lindorff
Kucinich's Impeachment Train: Look Who Just Stepped Aboard

Michael A. Johnson
Tenet on 60 Minutes

Website of the Day
Olivia Wilde: the Interview

 

May 2, 2007

Saul Landau
Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His TV Show?

Dr. Susan Block
Hookergate II: Madame Julia's Big Black Book of Cheesy Republican Sex Acts

Carla Blank
Historical Amnesia: Worst U.S. Massacre?

Margaret Kimberly
The Candor of Mike Gravel: "These People Frighten Me"

Kevin Zeese
Durbin Gives Edwards More to Apologize For

Carlos Villareal
How "Law and Order" Covers for Bigotry in the Immigration Debate

Michael Dickinson
Trouble in Turkey: Criminalizing Political Art

Tim Shorrock
A Raw Deal Between Washington and Seoul: Corporate Interventionism as Trade Policy

Alevtina Rea
The Myth-Makers of Estonia

William S. Lind
General Incompetence: Col. Yingling and the Military Brass

Website of the Day
Good News: Rost's "ZubeGate Exposé Prompts Congressional Inquiry


May 1, 2007

Andrew Cockburn
How Rumsfeld Micromanaged Torture

Fred Gardner
Affirmative Abstinence: Adios, Randall Tobias, the Man Who Turned His Wife's Suicide into a Sales Pitch for Prozac

Chase Madar
Are Working Class Jobs Bad for Your Health?

Ralph Nader
Cheney and the BYU 25: Faith, Accountability and Protest in Utah

John V. Walsh
Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base

Joshua Frank
Obama, Incorporated

Leslie Radford
The Migrant Trap and the Migrant's Way Out

Shaun Harkin
An Interview with Nativo López on Immigration Bills and Protests

Dave Lindorff
Murtha Talks Impeachment

Peter Rost, MD
Inspector General Requests Meeting with Pfizer Whistleblower

Peter Linebaugh
May Day and Magna Carta

Website of the Day
Impeachment? Why Bother?

 

 

 

 

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May 30, 2007

From I.G. Farben to Barack Obama

The Long Con on Synthetic Fuels

By JAMES RIDGEWAY

Global warming is well on its way to being a godsend for the coal industry. Lobbyists are busily trying to turn dirty coal into a pleasing green alternative promoted by such Democratic luminaries as Presidential hopeful Barack Obama and former House Speaker turned lobbyist Dick Gephardt. In the background, always ready to help, is veteran infighter former Senate Majority leader West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd.

Members of Congress are falling all over themselves writing legislation that would pump millions of taxpayer dollars into schemes that promise to turn coal into synthetic gas, develop oil shale, and the most popular at the moment, plans to transform coal into a liquid oil.

If any of this were to happen, huge hunks of the fragile western plains would be transformed into modern mining camps, wrecking fragile ecosystems, exhausting and polluting water supplies. Manufacture of synthetic fuels would subject workers, and the general nearby populations to cancer causing chemicals.

There's nothing new about synthetic fuels made from coal. In the 19th century street lamps in cities were lit with gas made from coal.In 1909, a key date in the development of this business, Friedrich Bergius,a German scientist,invented a way to produce synthetic gasoline from coal and hydrogen under high pressure by means of a process called hydrogenation. During World War I, Bergius tried without success to adapt his process to large scale production. Carl Bosch, the chairman of the I.G. Farben chemical combine, then in its infancy, thought the Bergius process held great possibilities for the Germany-a country with little or no oil of its own.

Short on fuel, Germany had been strangled during World War I by the British fleet By 1924 Germany was secretely rearming in violation of the Versailles treaty, and the new mechanized army needed a sure source of gasoline.

But turning coal into gasoline would be expensive and Bosch sought to involve Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon's predecessor), He thought Standard would help foot the bill. Standard's top officers were invited to Germany to see for themselves what Boschs's men were doing. They were duly alarmed and came home worried Bosch's synthetic fuel might overwhelm Standard's oil wells and cripple the most powerful oil company in the world with.

Bosch, of course, was delighted at the Americans's fright. Throwing caution to the winds, he plunged ahead, pumping million of dollars into mass production, sure the Americans would have no choice but to join him. His goal was 100,000 tons of coal gasoline a year.

Soon, Standard and IG Farben came to terms. The two companies cut a deal, setting up a cartel through which IG Farben agreed to stay out of the oil business and Standard agreed to keep clear of the chemical business.

Standard, however, soon lost interest--in part because of the depression, and in part because of big new finds in Texas that promised a flood of oil..

Nothing much happened until World War II when Hitler, another keen proponent of liquid coal, got behind synthetic fuel and by 1943 synthetics accounted for half of all German fuel,with the air force being one of the biggest users. The Luftwaffe controlled the skies over Europe during the early stages of the war. One of the liquefaction plants was located in Silesia where there were ample supplies of coal, water and slave labor. It was called I.G. Auschwitz. Finally the US Air Force destroyed the IG synthetic plants.At Nuremburg the IG Farben executives either got off or received light sentences.

Following the energy crisis of the 1970s, American oil companies renewed their interests in coal, buying up existing coal companies and getting control of reserves.Their emphasis was more on gasification than liquefaction since the supposed need at the time was to find a substitute for dwindling supplies of natural gas. In fact there was plenty of natural gas,and after first Carter, then Reagan, deregulated prices, the oil companies could make enough profit from selling real gas and didn't need the synthetics. Once again synthetics slipped into the background. Oil companies cut back or ditched their coal holdings.

Now the cycle begins all over again. The energy industry sees sufficiently high prices to once again develop synthetics. But, as always, this will only happen if the politicians and taxpayers are dumb enough to pay for it.

James Ridgeway is the author of 5 Unanswered Questions About 9/11, It's All For Sale: The Control of Global Resources and A Guide to Environmental Bad Guys, co-written with Jeffrey St. Clair. Ridgeway can be reached through his website.

 

 

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"The Case Against Israel"
Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz

WHAT'S INSIDE
Grand Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror

by Jeffrey St. Clair

 

 

 


The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn


Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont

 

 


CITY BEAUTIFUL
By Tennessee Reed

 


Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh

 

The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"