How To Sell a War

The Rendon Group deploys ‘perception management’ in the war on Iraq

By Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

“I am not a national security strategist or a military tactician,” Rendon said. “I am a politician, and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager.” He reminded the Air Force cadets that when victorious troops rolled into Kuwait City at the end of the first war in the Persian Gulf, they were greeted by hundreds of Kuwaitis waving small American flags. The scene, flashed around the world on television screens, sent the message that U.S. Marines were being welcomed in Kuwait as liberating heroes.

“Did you ever stop to wonder,” Rendon asked, “how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American, and for that matter, the flags of other coalition countries?” He paused for effect. “Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs then.”

Of course, we have no way of knowing whether Rendon or any other PR specialist helped influence the toppling of Saddam’s statue or other specific images that the public saw during the war in Iraq. Public relations firms often do their work behind the scenes, and Rendon—with whom the Pentagon signed a new agreement in February 2002—is usually reticent about his work. But his description of himself as a “perception manager” echoes the language of Pentagon planners, who define “perception management” as “actions to convey and (or) deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning. … In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover, and deception, and psyops [psychological operations].”"
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Peak Oil is Here

PARIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Peak oil is not the result of geological constraints though of course they play a part. It is not the absence of hydrocarbons on the planet, we still have loads. Peak oil is not the failure of Middle Eastern countries to pump lots of oil. Peak oil is also not the failure of individual consumers like you and me. Peak oil is the failure of the modern economic system we know as “free markets” or “neo-liberalism.”
Resource Investor

"After the CEO of Total (the French oil major) last week, two more CEOs of an oil major came out this Thursday to give stark warnings that mean that peak oil is happening right now. In addition, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (the IEA), one of the main cheerleaders of the "there's more than enough oil" camp until now, is giving an extraordinarily pessimistic interview in the Financial Times, following the recent publication of their latest World Energy Outlook. "

"Where is the oil going to come from?" This is the CEO of the third biggest oil major in the USA, admitting that we no longer know where we can get access to oil. And he's repeating exactly what Christophe de Margerie, the boss of energy giant Total said a few days before: that IEA's projections, that everybody uses, are completely absurd"
Energy Bulletin

US military is completely addicted to oil. Unsurprisingly, its oil consumption for aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities makes the Pentagon the single largest oil consumer in the world. By the way, according to the 2006 CIA World Factbook rankings there are only 35 countries (out of 210) in the world that consume more oil per day than the Pentagon. Energy Bulletin

Energy Statistics > Oil > Consumption (most recent) by country
Energy Statistics > Oil imports > Net (most recent) by country
Energy Statistics > Oil imports > Net (per capita) (most recent) by country

"In an economic forecast released today, the European Union (EU)' s executive arm revised down its projections for the economic growth in both the EU and the euro zone in the next two years, citing the recent turbulence on the financial market, triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States this summer, and rising oil prices, which were approaching 100 U.S. dollars per barrel, a level ever unimaginable."