I watched all of Mr. Williams video with an open mind. I also watched this video knowing what I know about the petroleum trade.
You and I dont know each other, we don't know what the other knows. What experiences we've had, the jobs we've worked, etc etc.
Understand this, I am not assuming anything about your character, or your intellectual acumen, or your curiousity, nothing like that, at all.
Right now, I just want to address Mr. Williams video. and I'm going to talk about the art of interrogation first. (I beg forgiveness for anyone reading this, that I'm speaking of something that is OF the world) Much has been bandied forth about coercive interrogation techniques, ie.."waterboarding" and other various forms of "torture".
we know that, we've read of it, etc.
The best interrogators never use violent methods. The first thing a really good interrogator does is to know his subject, and his subjects worldview, and in the case of radical jihadis, know their theological views, and their theology, ie...multiple readings of the Koran, knowing the history of the region, being fluent in Pashtun, or whatever Arabic langauge the subject speaks.
Then when your in the room, you just start a conversation, very low key. Once a sort of repoire has been established, you then turn into a listener, and a man who has been held in isolation, his tendency is to crave this interaction, no matter how he views you. When he knows that YOU know, HIS world, he begins to look forward to these "conversations".
That when he starts to "spill".
The only reason I brought that up, is because I know of the "world" that Mr Williams is speaking of....and in the one hour and 15 minutes he spoke, he gave two clues, two hints, that he really doesnt have a handle on what he speaks of.
The first was a statement he made, and I'm paraphrasing, he said the United States "made the decision in the 1960's it was going to control the world through oil".
Just that one statement alone, tipped me off that he didnt have a handle on what he was talking about, and let me explain.
From Sep 1, 1939 until Dec 7, 1941, FDR knew that the US would have to face a war in Europe against Hitler, and possibly the Soviets. (who signed a pact with Hitler, dividing up Poland)
But FDR faced an enormous hurdle, an American public that had no wish to sacrifice blood and treasure in yet another nasty euro war.
The US began to tool up though, a military build-up, "lend lease to the UK".
Hitler, the idiot corporal he was, of course turned on the Soviet Union, and invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Mind you, at that time, all that stood against Hitler was a weakened England, and now a Soviet Union crumbling in face of a massive nazi invasion.
FDR had to act and quickly, the reason being is that if Hitler was smart, he would drive towards the Causcaus oil fields of Russia, and then further south he was making his way towards the Persian Gulf, after all, this new style of warfare, "blitzkrieg" required vast amounts of petroleum, as you know, blitzkrieg involved owning the air, attacking enemy armored and infantry forces by the air, concentrated armor assaults, followed by infantry, it was a new style of warfare.
On 23 June 1941 - one day after Hitler's attack on Russia - Secretary of the Interior and FDR's advisor Harold Ickes wrote a memo for the President in which he pointed out "that there might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia".
Japan, who was allied, quite foolishly with the nazi's, had no national oil supply of their own. (I say "foolishly allied" with the nazi's, because if you look at the geography, what could Germany "do" for the Japanese in a tactical sense?..nothing)
Japan, in its imperial aspirations made a mistake, they invaded Southeast Asia, which gave FDR his opening which was to freeze all Japanese assets in the US, and embargo their oil supply from what was then the Dutch East Indies on July 25th, 1941. at his point allow me to quote what happend next: (for my fingers sake..lol)
From that moment on Japan faced an existential threat from the United States, a threat that could not be averted by peaceful means short of abdicating its status as a great power and visibly losing face - an utter impossibility.
On 24 September 1941 Washington deciphered a message from the Naval Intelligence Headquarters in Tokyo to Japan's consul-general in Honolulu, requesting grid of exact locations of U.S. Navy ships in the harbor. Commanders in Hawaii were not warned. U.S. naval intelligence had cracked the Japanese naval codes one year earlier, enabling FDR to receive translations of all key messages.
On 18 October Harold Ickes noted in his diary: "For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan." Yet Japan had to be made to fire first: on October 22 opinion polls revealed that 74 percent of Americans opposed war with Japan, and only 13 percent supported it.
On November 25, 1941, Secretary of War Stimson wrote in his diary that FDR said an attack was likely within days, and wondered "how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without too much danger to ourselves":
In spite of the risk involved, however, in letting the Japanese fire the first shot, we realized that in order to have the full support of the American people it was desirable to make sure that the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt in anyone's mind as to who were the aggressors.
On November 26 Secretary of State Hull issued a provocatively worded note - an ultimatum, really - demanding the complete withdrawal of all Japanese troops not only from French Indochina but also from China. According to the Army Investigating Board's Pearl Harbor report (1945), U.S. Ambassador to Japan Grew called this "The document that touched the button that started the war." The Japanese reacted on cue: On December 1, final authorization was given by the emperor, after a majority of Japanese leaders advised him the Hull Note would "destroy the fruits of the China incident, endanger Manchukuo and undermine Japanese control of Korea."
Also on November 26 Washington ordered both US aircraft carriers, the Enterprise and the Lexington, out of Pearl Harbor "as soon as possible." This order entailed stripping Pearl Harbor of 50 planes, or 40 percent of its already inadequate fighter protection. On the same day Cordell Hull issued his ultimatum demanding full Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and all China.
On December 1, Office of Naval Intelligence, ONI, 12th Naval District in San Francisco found the Japanese fleet by correlating reports from the four wireless news services and several shipping companies that they were getting signals west of Hawaii. As we now know, the ships of the Japanese carrier fleet engaged in daily radio communication with the high command in Japan, military commands in the Central Pacific, and with each other - as Robert Stinnett conclusively establishedby reading U.S. naval intelligence radio intercepts of the Japanese transmissions. U.S. Navy did not "lose" the carriers.
On 5 December FDR wrote to the Australian Prime Minister that "the next four or five days will decide the matters" with Japan. Later that same day, at a Cabinet meeting, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said, "Well, you know Mr. President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?" "Yes, I know . Well, you tell them what it is Frank," replied Roosevelt. Just as Knox was about to speak Roosevelt appeared to have second thoughts and interrupted him, saying: "We haven't got anything like perfect information as to their apparent destination."
end of quotes, you know what happened next, and even the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor might have been a tactical victory, it was a strategic defeat. The Japanese never got our carriers, and stupidly their pilots FAILED to destroy the true prize at Pearl Harbor, which was the petroleum tank farm containing over 2 million gallons of various fuels, aviation gas, ship fuel, etc. They were idiots, children playing at war, if they had thought it out, the tank farm was target one, followed by a multi-divisional land invasion of the Hawaiian Islands. Think about that. No more Pacific Fleet base at Pearl, it would have tied up numerous divisons stationed on the West Coast in America, to counter what would be the percieved next move of the Japanese, invasion of the US, which they never could have pulled off, but still, we would have had to mount our attack from West Coast Naval ports, and that would have been a huge hill to climb. The President took a gamble, and it paid off, but my point is this, long before the "1960's", we realized on a strategic basis that oil is the THING, not the 1960's, and its not about "controlling people", its about what is called the "vital interests" of the United States.
So just that one sentence from Mr Williams alone, tipped me off, that he wasnt looking DEEPER, that he's an intellectual lightweight looking to sell books, looking for lecture fees. I'm not denigrating the kernel of truth to all this....no, I'm denigrating the messenger, because like the men he professes to expose, HE has an agenda, its not to "help" you or I...think about it. If there is this POWERFUL evil cabal, this gang of elites, whom have put him in "fear of his life", what is he instilling INTO YOU with this "information"?
Fear.
Because what are YOU going to do with this info? You want to revolt? He's already told you how all powerful and wired in these "elites" are, in the name of "truth", so are you ready to die?
Why do you think the Apostle Paul wrote, as swept along by God, in Romans 13, to be in submission to authorities?
what was happening in Israel at that time? Much dissent and foment, the land was held by the empire of Rome, yet there were bands of zealots ready and willing to take on Rome in armed rebellion, and in 66 AD(or 64 I'm going off the top my haid), they started a war against Rome that ended rather badly, Jerusalem razed to the ground, and the last band of zealots taking a last stand at Masada, where over 900 zealots killed themselves the night after the Romans breached the wall.
But what about the followers of Jesus? they werent part of that. Their "revolution" was different, and it turned the world upside down.
I'm not saying to be a fool, or to be unawares, or to be blindly ignorant, or to be unprepared for "times such as this", I'm saying, be cool. Be very wary about who you listen to, and what you take as "truth", or who you "follow", what directions they pull you into, if they pull you into fear, they ARE NOT of God.
Of course, it is wise to prepare, it is wise to perhaps buy silver, in the recognizing that our currency is becoming debased, it is wise to follow Jesus' advice to "sell your cloak, and buy a sword", but it is also wisdom to recognize that wolves will fall into the ranks of the elect, spilling out perverse thoughts, and leading followers astray.
There was one last thing that I wanted to underline, that Mr Williams said that kind of made me think he wasnt "all that". He spoke of a operative who told him that we baited Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait, and I was WAITING for him to bring out the ONE NAME of a person who you can see met with the Iraqi President 4 days before the Iraqi invasion, and that name is April Glaspie, ambassdor to Iraq at the time. Google that name along with Saddam, you'll see. Mr Williams never mentioned that encounter, which was a very very important meeting in the light of history.
Let me finish by saying this, as followers of Jesus, I believe that instead of fixating on "Rome", or worrying about defending the "temple in Jerusalem", our hearts and our souls should be at the "Church in Antioch". Of course I'm speaking in metaphors, the Ekklesia in Antioch was so apostolistically annointed, it takes my breath away in wonder at the Love and the Mercy of God,and the TRUE power of the Holy Spirit, and our Messiah Jesus..
anyway, God bless you, have a good day, in His love, neil (sorry for the long post)
