What do Dick Cheney, Larry Summers, James Wolsey, Rupert Murdoch and Jacob Rothschild all have in common?
Quite an impressive list of power brokers don’t you think? A former Vice-President of the United States, an ex-Treasury Secretary, a former Director of the CIA, a global media mogul, and a member of an old and powerful financial dynasty. What could these guys have in common other than political power and influence?
They are all members of the Advisory Board of Genie Energy, an American company with its head office in Newark, New Jersey. Now…what’s so magnetic about Genie Energy you may ask?
It may have something to do with one of their commercial interests:
“A potentially significant oil and gas resource in Northern Israel pursuant to an exclusive, 3 year petroleum exploration license issued by the government of Israel”
So…perhaps these luminaries share a common fascination and expertise in the exploration & drilling of oil? I have no doubt that they would all look very dashing in overalls, a helmet and goggles…but perhaps there is something else…
As you’ve guessed there is another possibility…particularly since the description on Genie’s website is slightly misleading: the ‘significant oil and gas resource’ referred to isn’t actually located in ‘Northern Israel’. It is situated in an area better known as the Golan Heights - a territory captured from Syria during the 6-day war in 1967. An annexation described by the United Nations as "null and void and without international legal effect" (UN Resolution 497, adopted unanimously on 17th December 1981). In other words, Genie has oil and gas interests on land that the United Nations, with the supposed sanction of the United States, regards as illegally occupied territory.
Maybe that goes some way to explaining why Genie have such well connected paragons of virtue and international law on their Advisory Board. Who better to rub their magic lamp in Washington than a Neoconservative warmonger, a greasy influence peddler, a regime change organizer, an international purveyor of slime and a well-connected inheritor of parasitic spoils?
But that’s not the point of this piece – what I’ve described above is just a symptom of something far more insidious and dangerous: nothing you read about the reasons for our military interventions and alliances in the middle east is remotely near to the truth of why we are there. The ‘good guys’ are not the good guys. The ‘bad guys’ are not the bad guys, and the narratives presented in the mainstream media are not ‘the truth’. Not even close.
You will not read anything in our media about western oil and gas interests in the Golan Heights. Neither will you will read anything about the Qatari pipeline – the US/Saudi backed pipeline designed to transport gas from the Gulf States, through Syria to Europe….gas destined to compete with Russian gas. You will not read anything about Assad’s refusal to allow this pipeline to flow through Syria. You will not find any mention of this in supposed ‘quality’ outlets like the NYT, the WaPo or the FT…and Lucifer will be serving ice-lollies in the seventh ring of Hades before any mention of this appears on CNN.
You will not read about the fact that the overwhelming number of terrorist atrocities have been carried out by Sunnis – you will read that the real devils are Shia states like Iran and Syria. You will not read about the atrocities committed by the terrorists we arm to carry out our proxy war. You will read about the need for our ‘humanitarian intervention’. You will never read about the vast profits made by the military-industrial complex, or their constant need for a bogeyman. You will read about the need to ‘contain’ the evil Vladimir Putin.
I don’t have all the answers. Again - not even close. But this much I do know: You and I are being lied to, and for the most part, we let it happen without kicking up much of a fuss…just like we are supposed to.