Four questions for the historian Dr. Daniele Ganser concerning 9/11, Peak Oil and Mike Ruppert's "Crossing the Rubicon". "Endless resource wars are no promising vision for the future."

Dr. Daniele Ganser is an historian at the University of Basel, peace researcher and book author ("NATO's Secret Armies"). Moreover, he is a founding member of ASPO in Switzerland. To his field of research belongs 9/11 and its connection to Peak Oil.

LS: Dr. Ganser, you are dealing scientifically with amongst other things "Crossing the Rubicon". Hereby, you compare Mike Ruppert`s book with the 9/11 report published by the US Congress. How would you evaluate the performance of Mr. Ruppert in comparison?

DG: The books represent two entirely different theses with regard to 9/11. Ruppert assumes that the USA have manipulated or even staged 9/11 themselves, Dick Cheney is his prime suspect. The 9/11 report written by Thomas Kean, the official analysis from summer 2004, however, assumes that Osama bin Laden is responsible. It is important to notice that the Kean report is no report of the US Congress. The US Congress did not examine 9/11. President Bush chose some people, among them Kean, and they composed the report. I was primarily interested in the field of tension between these two books. Both books are rather long, more than 600 pages, so they are not read by the main population. Ruppert is interesting, because he brings up topics that are not found in the Kean report, e.g. the global struggle for oil. Apart from that it appears to me that Ruppert has brought too many single stories into his book, it is rather overloaded. In opposite to that, the Kean report is missing very important stories, which is not acceptable for an examination that is supposed to be comprehensive. The Kean report is too sketchy.

LS: Would you agree that "Crossing the Rubicon" is an important book of our times, and if so, why?

DG: Yes, because it connects 9/11 and Peak Oil. These are two very important phenomena, which I also connect in my research since many years. I have looked for publications, which draw this connection but the only book I found was "Crossing the Rubicon". Ruppert and I are sharing a similar interest although we have never met each other.

LS: Mike Ruppert`s central thesis is that the Bush administration not only used 9/11, but that they deliberately induced it to get hold of the Peak Oil matter. How would you estimate the endurance of Ruppert`s argumentation?

DG: This thesis, that Cheney or other Americans are responsible for 9/11, was already presented in a variety of books dealing with 9/11. In my opinion you cannot prove this thesis. It was also never proved that Bin Laden was responsible. The only thing you can prove today is that the global public was misled with regard to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The information that was published on television or in newspapers was very one-sided and incomplete, something the historic research can clearly demonstrate today. Nevertheless, this does not state what really happened. The only thing we know is: We were deceived and misinformed. That leaves a bad feeling. Of course, one should find out the truth about 9/11, but I think that this will be difficult.

LS: Peak Oil will lead to an enormous and maybe the biggest challenge ever for the industrialized civilization. Wars about resources are either already ongoing or they are going to happen in the future. Nevertheless, a broad discussion about the consequences of this historical watershed has hardly come up or even not at all. What is the reason for that in your opinion?

DG: The phenomenon Peak Oil is hardly known. Most people don`t know anything about it, which is an important reason. Those who know something about it hope that Peak Oil is still far away, after 2030, or that other energy sources such as coal or natural gas or atomic energy can guarantee our energy supply on today`s level. But that is unlikely. The Peak is going to come prior to 2020, and other energy sources cannot compensate oil quickly or comprehensively enough. On the other side, there are more and more people who think about resource wars, the Iraq war, the planned pipeline in Afghanistan and the role of the NATO, the presence of Chinese in Sudan. One cannot oversee it. For the global peace research, the field for which I am engaging, it is central that one thinks about Peak Oil and possible nonviolent ways out of the energy crisis. Manipulated terror and endless resource wars are no promising vision for the future. We need a global decrease in energy consumption, a reduction of dependency on fossil energy carriers and a development of renewable energies and energy efficiency. Additionally, we would have to learn to solve conflicts in a nonviolent way. That is quite a lot what is asked from us because in general it is all about a new consciousness. Whether that works out is still very insecure and we will have to see. It is important that we are entering this period of change without fear as it is also good that things will change fundamentally. But it is still entirely unclear how things will turn out. I am excited myself where we will be in 2030 and how we will judge this question at that point in time.

Translation from German into English: Hanja Eurich, M. A.