Analysis of emperor Obama's old new clothes - the US energy wars and shale gas scams

It really is a pity that children are not allowed to U.N. meetings, so that during Obama's address to the General Assembly last week someone could have shouted out: "The King is naked!". For even though in its intention his speech was supposed to be a finely-weaved cloth depicting utopian motifs of US-led knights in shining UN armour fighting for human progress, democracy, peace and prosperity around the globe, there were so many holes in this spin-doctor-fabricated material, that the bare flesh of the real US Foreign policy agendas was impossible to conceal.

Everyone present along with the loyal mainstream media carried on with the pretence, purposefully ignoring faulty lines and gaping holes, while praising the smoothness of the yarn (The Guardian: "Obama sought to strike a delicate balance at the UNGA") and spotlighting new haute-couture patterns of justifying war (BBC: "The phrase that will linger is "the network of death") soon to be seen in all high-street media narratives.

Conveniently, most MSM journalists chose to ignore the ironic twists in the weaving of Obama's advisors: "Hundreds of millions of human beings have been freed from the prison of poverty" (yes, except 67% of Detroit families and 46.5 million people in the whole of the US); "I often tell young people in the United States that this is the best time in human history to be born (the U.S. infant mortality rate is fourth highest among 29 of the world's most developed nations), for you are more likely than ever before to be literate (32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population), to be healthy (US has the most-expensive and least effective health-care system compared with 10 other western, leading industrialised nations), and to be free to pursue your dreams (The American Myth of Social Mobility)."

"We come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope", said the 2009 Noble Peace Laureate, who only a day before started bombing the 7th predominantly Muslim country after Afganistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Iraq. Hours before the U.S. launched airstrikes and cruise missiles into Syria, a senior administration official had told the Guardian that "neither of the two groups targeted in the Monday night strikes - the Islamic State militant group or the Al-Qaeda splinter group Khorasan - posed an imminent threat to the U.S." In fact, Khorasan Group is a fake terror threat to justify bombing Syria.

As Obama was rallying the world on the path of war (which by then he had already started), not one person stood up to ask what possible legal authority he has to bomb Syria. During the following days all mainstream media outlets which in recent months have been so outspoken about international law and the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state towards which Russian aggression was allegedly directed, were now not only silent about the lack of UN or Congressional authorisation for the Syrian war, they were obligingly spreading all the war propaganda they were fed by the authorities. (Note: War propaganda is a war crime according to the Nuremberg Principles: Crime against the Peace. By upholding US foreign policy, MSM is complicit in war crimes.)

Setting aside the tragedy of the Middle Eastern conflict and focusing on Europe, as the Emperor was showcasing his supposedly humanitarian robes, there were so many holes of lies, hypocrisy and double standards in them, only fierce defenders of the Empire or Obama's useful idiots would carry on with the pretence that the naked ugly flesh of US foreign policy is not flashing in front of everyone's eyes. Presumably, because the majority of Brits and Europeans still believe that their own prosperity and progress is dependent on US global dominance, Obama's speech resonated with their beliefs and values irrespective of its falseness. Because when one looks at the facts of what the US has been doing in the UK and Europe in recent years, it becomes clear that the real aggression is not coming from Russia, but from across the Atlantic - seeding corrupt and undemocratic practices into European politics, as well as endangering the environment, undermining people's rights and powers and even encouraging the spilling of blood (as in Ukraine). The only people who are benefiting from these practices are multinationals and corrupt politicians that work together in alliance to preserve the existing world order, which has been benefiting them and which is currently under threat.

According to Foreign Policy magazine, "American Leadership in the world is imperilled": there's more economic growth occurring in the developing world (see below); military spending of developing countries is increasing (reducing the relative military power of the US) and the total federal debt is $13 trillion, which is 3/4th of GDP. It's the latter, which is the biggest problem that the US faces at the moment: "among allies, adversaries, and swing states alike, U.S. fiscal policy is increasingly calling into question America's ability to lead globally."

© PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS

GDPs OF G-7 AND E-7 COUNTRIES

Foreign Policy listed measures that the US has to take in order to remain a global power - fiscal deficit could be reduced by increasing the retirement age, investing in infrastructure, reforming corporate tax law to encourage bringing profits home, enhancing productivity through reforming health-care and education, and focusing on technological superiority in military spending. Aside from these domestic-focused solutions, it also stressed the importance of attracting talent from around the world and capitalising on America's energy boom.

Less than a decade ago, the US was totally dependent on energy imported from abroad, especially from the Middle East. It was all reversed since 2007, when a combination of fracking and horizontal drilling have generated a surge in US oil and natural gas production, helping the US to overtake Russia as the world's leading producer of oil and gas in 2013 and even giving hope that it will overcome Saudi Arabia as the world's largest crude oil producer by 2015. This economic boost from the "North American energy revolution" has made the US relatively energy independent and in turn 'stimulated energy-heavy petrochemical production, created 2 million jobs in shale gas industry', supposedly reduced carbon dioxide emissions and, most importantly, transformed US foreign policy.

It all started with Hilary Clinton, who during her leadership at the State Department has worked closely with energy companies to spread fracking around the globe - sold as a broader push to fight climate change and boost energy supply, but also to weaken power adversaries, who challenge the US in the global energy market, such as Russia, China, Syria and Iran and to benefit US firms, which with the help of American officials, would get high concessions on shale gas overseas.

In early 2009, when Clinton was sworn as Secretary of State, she instructed lawyer David Goldwyn to 'elevate energy diplomacy as the key function of US foreign policy'. By 2010, Goldwyn unveiled the Global Shale Gas Initiative, which aimed 'to help other nations develop their shale potential', in a way which is 'as environmental friendly as possible'. However, when the Initiative was launched, environmental groups were barely consulted and it was the United States Energy Association, a trade organization representing Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and Conoco-Phillips, that played the key role.

By early 2011, the State Department decided to launch a new bureau to integrate energy into every aspect of foreign policy, an idea heavily inspired by Chevron executive Jan Kalicki's book Energy and Security: Toward a New Foreign Policy Strategy. The new Bureau of Energy Resources, with 63 employees and a multimillion-dollar budget (coming out of taxpayers' pockets) started its work in late 2011. One of the strategies was for US embassies to 'pursue more outreach to private-sector energy firms' (some of these firms happened to support Hilary Clinton's and Obama's political campaigns, e.g. Chevron). From then on US officials and oil giants were working together, as if they are part of the same multinational company pursuing the same business plan.

Europe was one of the top targets of this new US energy-focused foreign policy/business plan and Clinton personally flew to various countries like Bulgaria to promote the fracking industry. Lobbyists circulated a report that the European Union could save 900 billion euros if it invested in gas rather than renewable energy to meet its 2050 climate targets. At the same time shale gas was advertised as the fuel of choice for slashing carbon emissions. Environmentalists argued that fracking can do little to ease global warming, given that wells and pipelines leak large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Also anyone concerned with the environment was upset that investing in fracking could crowd out investment in renewables. At the same time growing evidence was emerging that fracking was linked to groundwater contamination and earthquakes.

Despite these counter-currents, '2012 was a busy year for a State Department, which hosted fracking conferences from Thailand to Botswana, while American foreign diplomats and officials helped US oil giants to snap up shale gas leases around the globe. Chevron had the largest share of shale concessions in Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, and South Africa, as well as in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland, which had granted more than 100 shale concessions covering nearly a third of its territory.'

© Mother Jones

Number of Shale gas drilling concessions/License permits

However, this US foreign policy/business plan didn't unfold smoothly : new research from the U.S. Geological Survey suggested that the EIA assessments had grossly overestimated shale deposits in Poland by 99% and one industry study estimated that drilling shale gas in Poland would cost three times as much as in the US. There was a further controversy with regards to rights to underground resources in Eastern Europe.

Facing these obstacles, the US State Department and Oil behemoths started a lobbying blitz around the EU: lawmakers were sent industry-funded studies, fake grassroots organisations were set up, regulators were wined and dined at conferences and extravagant functions. All of it came with a warning that failure to develop shale gas "will have damaging consequences on European energy security and prosperity".

At one time of this European lobbying bonanza, Covington & Burling, a major Washington law firm, hired several former senior E.U. policymakers - including a top energy official who, according to the New York Times , arrived with a not-yet-public draft of the European Commission's fracking regulations. Not only American law firms were fostering corruption by rewarding recruited European politicians, including top officials from the three main governing bodies - the European Commission, Parliament and Council - with fat pay-checks, but they also made every effort to keep their lobbying practices as opaque as possible, citing lawyer-confidentiality to evade government-backed but voluntary disclosure efforts. This lack of transparency left many of their lobbying results outside of public scrutiny, undermining democracy in Europe, yet bringing profits to multinational clients.

Between January and October 2012 Goldwyn from the US Shale Gas Initiative organised Chevron-funded fracking workshops in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine. All of these countries, except Bulgaria, which saw wide-spread anti-fracking protests, would later grant Chevron major shale concessions. In Romania the US State Department got involved in direct negotiations - the US Ambassador led negotiations between 'upset' Chevron officials and the Romanian government, which resulted in a 30 year deal with Chevron.

When Chevron started installing its first Romanian rig in late 2013, local residents blockaded the planned drilling sites. Soon, anti-fracking protests were starting across Europe, from Poland to the United Kingdom, but Chevron didn't back down - along with other American energy firms, it lobbied to "insert language in a proposed U.S.-E.U. trade agreement, aka TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), allowing U.S. companies to haul European governments before international arbitration panels for any actions threatening their investments, in order protect shareholders against "arbitrary" and "unfair" treatment by local authorities."

Despite the public outcry in Europe, the State Department, working alongside energy multinationals, as if 'they were all branches of the same company', has stayed on its course of making Europe more dependent on the North American energy platform. One of the biggest obstacles to this goal was and is Russia, as it supplies 30% of Europe's natural gas. Part of the campaign to promote a US-led fracking revolution in Europe is the media's demonisation of Russia, in order to scare Europeans away from their Russian gas consumption.

Unfortunately, Ukraine was bound to be the centre of this battle as it depends on Russian gas almost entirely while being one of the main gas transit countries in Europe. An insider report called "Occasional Paper 291. Ukraine's Energy Policy and US Strategic Policy in Eurasia" stated the following as 'the problem':

"Twelve years after achieving independence, Ukraine seems unable to find a way to break away from its energy dependency on Russia, or to find viable ways of managing it. Ukraine's current energy situation and its handling also have important negative implications for US strategy in the region... Ukraine's lack of clear energy policy strategy complicates the US strategy of supporting multiple pipeline routes on the east-West axis as a way of helping to promote a more pluralistic system in the region as an alternative to continued Russian hegemony."

If only Obama's speeches were as honest.

© RIA Novosti

On 5th November 2013, it looked like Ukraine's future independence from Russian gas was certain - Ukraine and Chevron finally signed a 50-year lease deal, following a January 2013 deal with Royal Dutch Shell. Ukraine President Yanukovich seemed optimistic about these new partnerships, stating on his website that they "will let Ukraine satisfy its gas needs completely and, under the optimistic scenario, export energy resources by 2020". Quite a few bottles of champagne must have popped on that day, as the US had been trying to wean Ukraine off Russian gas for quite a few years. As early as 2004, the Bush administration had spent $65 million 'to aid political organisations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won last month's disputed runoff election.' It was during Yushchenko's presidency (2005-2010), that Ukraine and Russia had many 'gas rows', which at one time in 2009 left as many as 18 European countries cut off from Russian gas. In response, Gazprom, Russia's state-run energy company, proposed the building of a new $21.6 billion pipeline called South Stream as a way to circumvent Ukraine and ensure an uninterrupted, diversified flow to Europe. Italy and seven other countries have joined the venture.

As the project would not be complete until 2018, the US still had time to challenge Russia in the European energy market and Chevron's deal with Ukraine was an attempt to do just that. As usual, the US supplemented its business plan with a powerful PR campaign - a couple of months prior to the signing of the Chevron-Ukraine deal, the US (Chevron) and Dutch (Shell) Embassies, along with George Soros' International Renaissance Foundation 'announced' the set-up of an "NGO" - an online anti-Russian pro-western media outlet called Hromadske TV, which, again totally incidentally (no doubt!) was launched on 22 November 2013, one day after Yanukovich abandoned an agreement with the EU in favour of Putin's sudden offer of a 30% cheaper gas bill and a $15 billion aid package.

© Unknown

US/Dutch/Soros-sponsored Hromadske TV cashflow

It was this US/Dutch/Soros-sponsored Hromadske TV, which became the main driving vehicle behind the Euromaidan protests, which were initiated by its editor-in-chief Mustafa Nayem, who used Facebook to rally the Ukrainians to gather on Independence Square in Kiev to protest Yanukovich's decision. The narrative that was spun by Hromadske TV, opposition-owned Ukrainian TV and western media was that Euromaidan was 'a true people's movement, fueled by Ukranian citizens' desire for a better government and closer ties with the EU.' Somehow, not that many western journalists were concerned about the fact that the man who rallied people on Maidan was funded by US and Dutch Embassies, as well as by George Soros.

While publicly US officials were professing 'the right of Ukrainian people to self-determination, freedom and democracy', behind the scenes they were choosing leaders themselves, not with Ukrainian people's interests, but with US interests in mind. In a private leaked telephone conversation US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland told US ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt that "I don't think [opposition leader] Klitsch should go into the government" (Klitshchko didn't and successfully ran for the Mayor of Kiev instead). "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience." (Yatsenyuk became the interim prime minister. Also completely incidentally his foundation Open Ukraine has a revealing list of Russia-hating sponsors , including NATO Information and Documentation Centre and State Department of the United States of America)

In the same conversation, Nuland, who is married to neo-con foreign policy pundit Robert Kagan who pushed for the Iraq war, gave the most accurate definition of the UN's role in this world: "He's [Jeff Feltman, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs] now gotten both [UN official Robert] Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, Fuck the EU." I think the UN should change their website's banner from Welcome to the United Nations. It's your world. to 'Welcome to the United Nations. It's a US world, and we are here to glue it.' Also 'Fuck the EU" is possibly the most succinct summary of US relations with Europe in recent years. It would add a touch of truthfulness, if they would add it as a postscript to Obama's speech at the UNGA.

There is a difference between a people's revolution and an orchestrated coup, there is a difference between allowing people to choose their leaders democratically, irrespective of whether they are pro-western or pro-Russian, and actually installing a government, which the US has done in Kiev after the coup. One can only feel sorry for the poor Ukrainian people, who truly believed in what they were demonstrating against. Paul Craig Roberts summarised the coup and the protests that followed:

"The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on Ukraine's border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country. The sincere idealistic protesters who took to the streets without being paid were the gullible dupes of the plot to destroy their country."

The main looters set to benefit from the takeover of power were some high profile American politicians and their friends and family and they were unashamedly supporting the protests to ensure that they would get their licence to loot. "We stand ready to assist you," US Vice President Joe Biden promised to protesters, "Imagine where you'd be today if you were able to tell Russia: 'Keep your gas.' It would be a very different world." Biden certainly had imagined where he and his family would be in a Ukraine without Russian gas - his son Hunter has since joined the board of the biggest Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holding.

Biden was not the only well-connected American to join the gas company. Devon Archer, a wealthy investor and Democratic campaign fundraiser with long ties to US Secretary of State John Kerry, upon joining the board of directors rejoiced that Burisma Holdings reminded him of "Exxon in its early days." The company's portfolio of licenses is well-diversified across all three of Ukraine's key hydrocarbon basins - Dnieper-Donets, Carpathian and Azov-Kuban, and its fields are fully connected to the major gas pipelines in the country.

Crimea's referendum and re-unification with Russia took everyone by surprise and it was a major blow for companies like Chevron, Shell, ExxonMobil, Repsol and Petrochina, which had already invested money into developing Crimean offshore assets - LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) reserves in Crimea. If one looks at some of the targets of the U.S. sanctions against Russia or Russian-linked companies, two of them were directly aimed at slowing down or stopping South Stream :

"The first South Stream-related company the U.S. targeted was Stroytransgaz, which is building the Bulgarian section. Putin ally and billionaire Gennady Timchenko owns it and he's already on the sanctions list. So Stroytransgaz had to stop construction or risk exposing other companies on the project to the sanctions. The second entity in the sanctions crosshairs was a Crimean company called Chernomorneftgaz. After joining Russia, the Crimean parliament voted to take over the company, which belonged to the Ukrainian government. And guess what that company owned? The rights to the exclusive maritime economic zone in the Black Sea. That's important because Russia routed the pipeline on a longer path through the Black Sea that cut out Ukraine. It avoided the Crimean waters, going instead via Turkey's."

Only a fool would believe that Putin has supported the referendum in Crimea in order to 'protect interests of Russian people', just as only a fool would believe that the US and EU are concerned about the Ukrainian people, democracy and freedom. Both sides are manipulating popular sentiments to achieve their own geopolitical and economic goal: a battle for energy dominance in Europe. What happened in Crimea was a mirror situation of what happened in Kiev - the people of Kiev, demonstrating on maidan, wanted to be closer to the EU and US, while people of Crimea have been trying for a long time to rejoin Russia, both the US and Russia have used the situation to their economic and political advantage, while citing humanitarian causes.

The major difference was that in Crimea only one soldier was killed by accident, while in Kiev snipers shot nearly 100 people from maidan-controlled buildings, after which power was taken by force. It looked like a popular technique the US used during many staged coups, described succinctly in Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine ": expose people to shocking events, grab power and quickly carry out all the planned economic and political changes before people come back to their senses. Another major difference is that while the majority of Crimeans are happy to be with Russia, the post-coup protests, which flared up in the Eastern regions of Ukraine, showed that significant parts of the Donbass population were not happy to break ties with Russia (the majority being ethnic Russians themselves).

When self defence forces set their base in Slavyansk, right in the heart of the Uzovka shale gas field, where Shell and Burisma were going to start fracking, US officials showed how far they were prepared to go in order to fight for the business interests of their oil and gas giants' associates. On Monday April 14th, Reuters published a White House's confirmation that CIA Director John Brennan had been in Kiev the weekend before. The following day, Kiev announced the beginning of a so called 'anti-terrorist operation' in Donbass. One of the fierce supporters of this operation was Poland, which again was not surprising at all, given that one of Burisma's directors alongside Biden and Archer, was and is the ex-president of Poland - Alexander Kwasnevski.

The Senate Bill 2277, which was introduced on May 1st, 2014, "to prevent further Russian aggression toward Ukraine", directed the US Agency for International Development to begin guaranteeing the fracking of oil and gas in Ukraine, while Kiev troops were marching into Donbass to 'basically protect the fracking equipment'. One thing that Obama is very talented at is acting - it's remarkable that during his UNGA speech, he managed to keep a straight face, when he was mouthing these lies and hypocrisies:

"This is the international community that America seeks: one where nations do not covet the land or resources of other nations, but one in which we carry out the founding purpose of this institution and where we all take responsibility. A world in which the rules established out of the horrors of war can help us resolve conflicts peacefully and prevent the kind of wars that our forefathers fought. A world where human beings can live with dignity and meet their basic needs whether they live in New York or Nairobi, in Peshawar or Damascus."

The civil war that broke out in Ukraine and which, as shown above, is a part of the US global energy war, has claimed 4,000 civilian lives, left more than a million Ukrainians displaced and led to a humanitarian crisis. In addition to that, when fracking goes ahead in Ukraine, Ukrainians can in addition expect - 'earthquakes, floods, groundwater pollution, and pestilence of marine animals, birds, and fish, streams of water boiling with methane, and poisoned drinking water and air'.

Furthermore :

"so far there is no information about the means of disposing of thousands of cubic meters of fracturing fluid from several thousand wells, which will produce shale gas. Are they really going to be buried in the ground or discharged into water bodies? The experience of foreign companies in third world countries (Ukraine cannot even claim to be the one of them) shows that they are capable of environmental crimes (Ecuador, Nigeria, etc.) " [see here]

This is particularly the case for Chevron and Shell, both of which have been implicated in major human rights violations in Nigeria. Chevron has been accused of recruiting and supplying Nigerian military forces involved in massacres of environmental protesters in the oil-rich Niger Delta, and Shell has faced charges of complicity in torture and other human rights abuses against the Ogoni people of southern Nigeria.[see here]

Obama's statement: "America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy." is a lie. The truth, instead, can be found in gas industry media, where they do not attempt to veil American business interests with humanitarian concerns for Ukrainian people and other jingoistic moral narratives:

"American companies can directly invest in Ukraine, bringing their technology with them. Ukrainian companies can hire experienced American drillers, they can license American drilling and seismic imaging technology, and they can import sophisticated U.S. drilling equipment... U.S. government can encourage these developments through government-sponsored engagement programs like the State Department's Unconventional Gas Technical Engagement Program ... can speed this investment with financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Once a new parliament is elected in October, the Ukrainian government should do everything they can to promote private investment in production; this would include lowering these taxes and providing new incentives to energy investment. One particular tax incentive they could offer would be to create a value-added tax (VAT) break for the import of sophisticated drilling equipment, modelled on a recently-initiated VAT break for imports of military equipment. It is important that Ukraine not only has strong laws and a good regulatory environment, but that it also has an open and transparent civil service, in order to prevent the corruption that was rampant under the old regime from becoming rooted into the new one. To prevent that, the U.S. and European governments should promote transparency within the government by encouraging engagement between American civil servants with the new members of the civil service of the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry."

These are the people, who will benefit from "US support for Ukrainian democracy and economy": American companies, American drillers, American drilling and seismic imaging technology specialists, manufacturers of US drilling equipment, US banks and American civil service. The people of Ukraine will not benefit, because the 'shale gas revolution' is a sham. Even Forbes, which in March claimed that "What Ukraine needs is an American style shale-gas revolution" by September published an article that the shale gas bubble is bound to burst. The only reason that most people still believe that shale gas can increase exports, boost employment and increase GDP, along with cutting down on greenhouse emissions, is because most of the information about natural gas supplies and how it can be exploited comes from 'people with a vested interest in selling the dream of a "Shale Gale"'.

Most of the revenue in the fracking business comes from the selling of leases, something that in the financial industry would be seen as a variation of "pump and dump" scam, which looks like this:

"Step 1. Borrow money and use it to lease thousands of acres for drilling. Step 2. Borrow more money and drill as many wells as you can, as quickly as you can. Step 3. Tell everyone within shouting distance that this is just the beginning of a production boom that will continue for the remainder of our lives and the lives of our children, and that everyone who invests will get rich. Step 4. Sell drilling leases to other (gullible) companies at a profit, raise funds through Initial Public Offerings or bond sales, and use the proceeds to hide financial losses from your drilling and production operations." Banks and oil and gas companies will no doubt profit, but the gains will not pass on to the people of Ukraine or the people of Europe, where the US is hoping to export it's 'fracking pseudo-revolution'. Instead they will only have all the terrible fracking impacts on water, air, soil, human health, the welfare of livestock and wildlife, and the climate to deal with. Ironically it is Russian natural gas, which would be much safer and cheaper for Europe to keep consuming, but US foreign policy has been set and it looks that people of Europe will not have a choice on the matter. It is from the likes of Condoleeza Rice that we hear what should happen to Europe: "You want to depend more on the North American energy platform... you want to have pipelines that don't go through Ukraine and Russia. For years we've tried to make Europeans interested in different pipeline routes. It's time to do that." Recently, Securing America's Future energy and the Foreign Policy Initiative hosted this conversation about energy security and geopolitics with US legislators and leading experts, where the "US New Paradigm" of Global Energy Dominance Foreign Policy was summarised. While the US is going for the kill with this new paradigm in Ukraine and Syria, Emperor Obama showcased his humanitarian Old New Clothes to an organisation which is supposed to "maintain international peace and security, promote human rights, foster social and economic development, protect the environment" and everyone present pretended not to see the ugly flesh of the US Energy War. But for anyone who saw that the King is naked, Obama's last words sounded like a dangerous threat:

"And at this crossroads, I can promise you that the United States of America will not be distracted or deterred from what must be done....we are prepared to do what is necessary to secure that legacy for generations to come. Join us in this common mission"

(Vera Graziadei is a British Ukrainian Russian actress and writer.)

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