Was the Gulf Oil Spill an Act of War? You Betcha

Speculation has been
running rampant among certain
sectors of the web-world lately about the true origins of the massive
oil spill
that has engulfed the Gulf and threatens marine, plant, animal, and
human health
in a region already beset by natural disasters and
toxic
industries. Unwilling to accept the mainstream media version of the
story
(namely that it was the result of off-shore drilling activities) and
suspicious
of the timing of the calamity (namely that it occurred right on the cusp
of Earth Day and during a period
of political
contentiousness over drilling), this faction has surmised that the
"trigger
event" in this instance may have been (choose your favorite) either: an
attack
by the North Koreans; an act of homegrown eco-terrorism by leftwing
environmentalists; or something to do with Venezuela, China,
and/or other Communist (machi)nations. With
little more than a hint from an online Russian source, the theory of a
North Korean attack in particular
has been gaining
virulence among certain fox-trotters.

Here's a great
overview of the argument from the self-avowedly conservative Dakota
Voice:

"Rush Limbaugh pointed
out that the explosion occurred on April 21st, the day before 'Earth
Day.' He also reminded us that Al Gore had previously encouraged
environmental
nutjobs to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of coal
plants
that don't have carbon capture technology. 'Eco-terrorists' exist and
have done
millions of dollars worth of criminal damage. Fire is one of the main
tools of their evil trade. I'm
not claiming the Deep Horizon was bombed by eco-terrorists, although I
don't
believe it's out of the realm of possibility. But, it would take some
serious
money and ability to pull off an attack like that, so I would tend to
think
much bigger than college hippie eco-wackos with some money-backing -- a
foreign
government, perhaps. Of course, before I could finish writing my
thoughts here,
I just heard Michael Savage posing the same questions. He also said
there is a
theory on a Russian website that claims North
Korea is behind this. The article
claims that North
Korea torpedoed the Deepwater Horizon, which
was apparently built and financed by South Korea.
Torpedoes would make sense for the results we see.... There are a number
of
international 'suspects' who might want to do something like this. They
range
from Muslim terrorists to the Red Chinese, Venezuela
and beyond. Remember that China
and Russia are
drilling out there, as well, and they would benefit from America
cutting back on our own drilling."

The article
at
the root of this savagery appears on the site WhatDoesItMean.com,
and is
titled "US Orders Media Blackout Over North Korean Torpedoing of Gulf of
Mexico
Oil Rig" -- which pretty much eliminates any suspense about the gist of
it. The
piece is attributed to one "Sorcha Faal," who either exists or does not
depending upon whether you believe the link
arguing a bit too
strenuously that she in fact does. The article cites as its source,
without
further attribution, "a grim report circulating in the Kremlin today
written by
Russia's Northern Fleet," and argues that "the reason for North
Korea attacking the Deepwater Horizon, these reports say, was to present
US President Obama with an 'impossible
dilemma' prior to the opening of the United Nations Review
Conference of
the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
set to
begin May 3rd in New York. This 'impossible dilemma' facing Obama
is indeed real as the decision he
is faced with is either to allow the continuation of this massive oil
leak
catastrophe to continue for months, or immediately stop it by the only
known
and proven means possible, the detonation of a thermonuclear device."

In other words, all of this was designed to force
Obama to
use a nuclear device to seal the leak ahead of an upcoming conference on
nonproliferation. Ingenious! James Bond is alive and well, apparently.
Missing
from the calculus (along with good sense, credibility, and
verifiability) is
any explanation of why the logic of this scenario will automatically
result in
Obama deploying a nuke, and what exactly would be gained by him doing so
except
(by implication) making the U.S. look like hypocrites at the negotiating
table.
Those dastardly cowards! Everyone knows that we don't need any help from
foreign entities to hypocritically attempt to force others to hold to
international standards that we will ourselves proceed to flagrantly
ignore. I
mean, duh.

Hey, I'm all for a good conspiracy
theory as
much as the next guy/gal. We certainly ought to question the "consensus
reality" version of any major event communicated back to us by the
corporate
media. And we can logically surmise that the government keeps us on a
"need to
know" basis under the rubric of a closely-held "national security"
ethos. So
there's always reason to dig deeper, ask hard questions, check with
non-U.S
sources, and formulate one's opinion independent of the herd. But in
this case,
the impetus for the tale is so vague and thinly rendered that it strains
the
limits of credulity, yet it still seems to be gaining
traction each day. In
fact, there are even more solid reasons to suspect that this miserable
episode
-- which will inflict more suffering on an already-battered region --
was contributed
to by the activities of a certain homegrown corporation and not any
eco-nuts or
commies. While the premise is thus wholly wrong, the conclusion that
this was a
putative act of war might actually hold water. To wit:

Oil and War: Are
there any two concepts in the realm of geopolitics more closely
associated than
resources and warfare? Oil in particular, as the primary lubricant of
the
global economy, earns special status as a sine
qua non of our profligate lifestyles and simultaneously as an overt
security interest that triggers our military mobilizations. We know
about Iraq
of course, and Afghanistan to a lesser extent for its strategic
pipelining
location, but don't overlook places such as Venezuela, Central Africa,
and the
Caribbean shelf around countries like Haiti as potential sites of future
conflict over Black Gold. Indeed, it might be said that wherever there's
oil,
there's war -- or at least the seeds of conflict over a dwindling
commodity
that draws the interest of governments and corporations alike. The past
decade
has shown, and our national security documents reflect, that the U.S.
will essentially do anything in its power to control as much of the
world's
remaining oil supplies as it possibly can, either through direct
intervention
or by proxy. There's nothing light or sweet about any of this; it is
almost
wholly crude.

Drilling and the 'War
on Terra': Without overly editorializing the point, since at least
the advent
of industrialization it appears that humanity has made a Faustian
bargain that
renders us the enemies of the earth in order to survive. Notions of
complementarity and sustainability have been supplanted by consumption
and
separation instead. The cruel joke is that our willingness to
continually flout
nature's laws leaves us in a perpetual state of scarcity and requires a
regular
doubling-down on the very same logic that made things scarce in the
first
place. Thus, in order to extend the life of the petroleum economy and
provide
the massive energy inputs that we rely upon, we have to drill deeper and
deeper
to procure the substance at ever-increasing energy costs in the process.
This
literal sense of "diminishing returns" is compounded by the attendant
toll
exacted on our collective health via fossil fuels, as well as the
concomitant
stratification of wealth and power that subverts any pretense we still
hold of
democracy. Massive spills and other calamities are part and parcel of
this
normalization of a warlike attitude toward nature (and thus ourselves),
and are
blithely considered little more than business as usual by the ruling
elites, as
intimated in an article
on care2.com: "All this is the result of dangerous and unnecessary
offshore
drilling, yet in a statement Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
said
the explosion was no reason to give up plans to expand offshore
drilling. 'In
all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I
doubt it
will be the last,' Gibbs told reporters."

Halliburton IS the
War Machine: Finally, we come to the most likely culprit in all of
this,
and a sure sign that indeed this is an act of war. Wherever Halliburton
goes,
so goes the war machine, and vice versa. From no-bid and no-account
contracts
in Iraq (and
post-Katrina New Orleans, by the
way) to a massive corporate presence in the Gulf region, these folks
seem to
have an acute capacity for making a buck on cataclysms of all sorts.
Perhaps
more to the point, they appear to be at the nexus of most disaster
zones,
including the erstwhile Bush Presidency and now the Deepwater Horizon
Oil
Spill. As a recent
article in the Huffington Post notes:

"Giant oil-services provider Halliburton may be a
primary
suspect in the investigation into the oil rig explosion that has
devastated the
Gulf Coast,
the Wall Street Journal reports. Though the
investigation into the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon site is
still
in its early stages, drilling experts agree that blame probably lies
with flaws
in the 'cementing' process -- that is, plugging holes in the pipeline
seal by
pumping cement into it from the rig. Halliburton was in charge of
cementing for
Deepwater Horizon."

The Los Angeles Times
subsequently
reported that members of Congress have called on Halliburton "to
provide
all documents relating to 'the possibility or risk of an explosion or
blowout
at the Deepwater Horizon rig and the status, adequacy, quality,
monitoring, and
inspection of the cementing work' by May 7." A YouTube
video (which is
actually mostly audio) more bluntly asserts that "Halliburton Caused Oil
Spill," and notes the fact -- confirmed by Halliburton's own press
release -- that its employees had worked on the final cementing
"approximately 20 hours prior to the incident." Interestingly, one
commenter on
the YouTube video notes how "that would conveniently explain the North
Korean
story; [Halliburton] may have leaked this story to the press to divert
attention away from alleged negligence." Wouldn't that just be the
ultimate?
Halliburton spawns the calamity but pins it on North
Korea, and then the nation goes to war
whereby Halliburton "cleans up" through billions in war-servicing
contracts.
It's almost too perfect, and might be funny if it didn't seem so
plausible.
(The only thing funnier is picturing Dick Cheney in the role of Exxon
Valdez fall guy Joseph Hazelwood.)

But hey, there's no need to get conspiratorial
about all of
this. And what's happening in the Gulf -- now spreading into the
Atlantic
-- isn't funny at all. Indeed, war hardly ever is, and that's what we've
got on
our collective hands here, in one form or another. As Isaac Asimov once
said, "It
is not only the living who are killed in war." Cherished ideals, future
generations, hopefulness, the earth itself -- all are among war's many
casualties. The sooner we recognize the sense of pervasive warfare in
our
midst, embedded in the flow of our everyday lives, the sooner we can
intentionally turn that essential corner toward peace, as Martin Luther
King,
Jr. alluded to in his Nobel speech: "I refuse to accept the idea that
man is
mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the
unfolding
events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is
so
tragically bound to the starless midnight
of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can
never
become a reality." Waking up to war may in fact be the first genuine
step
toward peace, both among ourselves and with the environment.