A MIRROR TO THE PAST 

At 3 am on October 15 1927 a giant fountain of oil gushed 137 feet above the 

sands of Baba Gurgur, near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. It marked the beginning of 

Iraq’s oil economy, but triggered an immediate environmental crisis. A deluge of oil 

spread across the desert sands from a flow that could not be capped for ten days. 

Engineers designed dams to divert the oil from polluting waterways and ruining the 

surrounding land. 

Over 2000 workers, many wearing gas masks to counter poisonous fumes, worked 

to stem the growing black tide. The danger of rain meant that the oil would enter the 

rivers and waterways, potentially devastating water supplies across the country. 

With over 95,000 barrels bubbling up per day, it was decided to burn the oil. And it 

was Christmas before the problem was brought under control. 

Baba Gurgur was then the largest known oil reserve in the world. It remained so 

until 1948 and the discovery of the Ghawar Field in Saudi Arabia. Baba Gurgur is 

known for its Eternal Flame, a natural gas seepage that shepherds used to warm 

the winter flocks from the ancient days of King Nebuchadnezzar. That oil still flows in
Baba Gurgur as it has for the last 87 years, now due for its third Saturn return in 2015. 

HAD THE FIRST WORLD WAR BEEN ABOUT OIL? 

The belief that Mesopotamia was rich in oil drove the industrialists and bankers of 

Europe prior to WWI. Germany was already constructing the Berlin to Baghdad 

railway, and following their 1907 success with oil exploration in Iran, Britain was 

keen to follow. In an attempt to unite the competing countries, the Turkish Oil 

Company was formed. 

It was an amalgamation of investors including Deutsche Bank, the Anglo-Saxon Oil 

Co, a British run Turkish Bank and an Armenian oil entrepreneur named Calouste 

Gulbenkian, or Mr. 5%. who went on to become one of the richest men in the world. 

Germany, an ally of the Ottoman Empire, was already constructing a Berlin to 

Baghdad railway. The Ottoman Empire granted exploratory rights to the oil 

company on June 28 1914. But the same day the Archduke Ferdinand was shot 

WWI swiftly followed. 

Historians view the Berlin to Baghdad Railway as one of the instigators of the Great 

War. 

Germany was considering using the Persian Gulf for shipping oil and its direct 

access to the oil fields would have brought an economic and therefore political, 

challenge to the British Empire and its subsequent allies in WWI. So the Anzac 

tradition, the heroics of Lawrence of Arabia and the determination to conquer and 

divide the Ottoman Empire has much to do with the black gold beneath the 

Mesopotamian desert sands. 

The postwar San Remo Conference of April 25 1920 gave Germany’s oil share to 

France. The Anglo-French oil deal guaranteed France a 25 percent share of Iraqi 

oil in return for the inclusion of Mosul in the British mandate of Iraq. It’s doubtlessly 

occurred to any thinking person that the Middle East has become a hotbed of 

political instability since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Races and religious groups 

that once lived together in relative peace are now at each other’s throats. 

So what are the before and after differences? Surely the western government’s 

decisions to establish an Israeli state in Arab lands cannot be the sole catalyst. It 

isn’t! 

Instead, take a look at the largest companies in the world today. Seven, of the top 

ten, are oil and gas companies. The top three are Exxon Mobil, Sinopec and Royal 

Dutch Shell. Walmart then interrupts that list which continues with China`s National 

Petroleum, BP and Saudi Aramco. France’s Total rounds out the list at number ten. 

Even the first two outside the ten are Volkswagen and Toyota - car companies 

dependent upon oil. Lucky thirteen is Chevron. 

OIL IS THE BUSINESS OF PLANET EARTH AND CAPITALISM FLOATS ON OIL.

When oil engulfed the sands of Baba Gurgur in the pre-dawn hours of October 15 

1927 astrology speaking it was in hard aspect to Saturn. So while we may be being 

served a religious war, if the oil wasn’t factored in, we wouldn’t be factoring in 

either. There simply wouldn’t be a war at all. 

On October 13 2006 a completion of a 79 year Saturnian cycle produced a game 

changing political revolution connected to the northern Iraq oil fields. A new Sunni 

jihadist group formed in northern Iraq, partly from the remnants of the old 

Republican Guard. They were named ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq, under 

leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The emergence of ISIS came on the heels of a 

demoralizing confidential report by the US chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps 

in Iraq. The report revealed the prospects for securing Iraq’s largest governance 

area, al Anbar, were dim and that "there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do 

to improve the political and social situation there." 

National polling showed 70% of the population wanted foreign troops out within the 

year. Iraqis were convinced they were worsening the security situation. 

On November 23 2006, the deadliest violence exploded since the beginning of the 

Iraq war, aimed at the governing Shia's. 215 people were killed and 257 wounded 

in multiple car bomb attacks in one day. The US security update stated "US and 

Iraqi troops 'are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al- 

Anbar,' and 'nearly all government institutions from the village to provincial levels 

have disintegrated or have been thoroughly corrupted and infiltrated by Al Qaeda.'" 

On December 30 2006, the Sunni ex President, Saddam Hussein was hung. 

Gruesome pictures were splashed on the front page of western newspapers and a 

video appeared on the Internet. All fuelled the Sunni resolve for revenge. ISIS 

expanded as Iraq imploded. The real reason that George Bush Senior had left 

Hussein in power following the 1991 Gulf War was becoming increasingly obvious, 

as the alternative chaos was unfolding. 

SOMETHING LARGELY UNNOTICED WAS HAPPENING IN THE MIDDLE EAST 

On April 9 2013 a new united jihadist group encompassing Iraq’s Al Queda 

operatives and the Syrian Al Nusra Front was publicly declared, again under the 

leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were 

extending territory. And opposite to the moment of the first oil strike in Iraq. The 

planetary timing could hardly be a coincidence.

In its beginnings it was ISIS or the Islamic State of Iraq that we were referring to. Though
its new and truer name of ISIL - the Islamic State of Levant clears the muddy waters.
As the Levant s history returns this struggle to its original roots, The Ottoman Empire
and the borders which once defined it.

The capital of the world may float on oil, but little flows back to the Iraq people. And 

like the Eternal Fire that has been burning for 4000 years, the third Saturn return
arrives Mid March 2015. Which could potentially see something to the likes of the USA
turing its back on Israel.  

BAD MOON RISING

The Ukrainian Revolution, led by Cossack Bhodan Khmelnitsky began at the 1648 Grand Cross. It became the largest European land battle of the 17th century. The conflict to liberate the Ukraine from foreign yoke was a tug of war between East and West. It ended with the Ukraine joining with Russia under the Tsar of Muscovy, one of the most autocratic leaders of the time. Sounding familiar?

Khmelnystky was later lauded as the founder of the Ukrainian nation. His image appears on national banknotes and a thirty feet high statue is prominent in St Sophia Square, next to the Kiev cathedral. Yet the 19th century artist, writer and poet Taras Shevchenko, admired as the father of modern Ukranian literature, considered this time to be the beginning of Russian enslavement.

THE RETURN OF THE CROSS 

From January of 2014, and exact by late April, the first Grand Cross, involving Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto, since 1648 appeared. Another revolution took place in the Ukraine. The seeds were fully sown from November 21 2013. That’s when the Ukrainian parliament rejected an economic and political arrangement with the European Union. Starting December public protests rocked Kiev as government buildings were seized.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, offered to buy $15 billion dollars worth of Ukrainian bonds and proposed a new gas deal to ease the tension. But the protests grew. By February 20 2014 – the Sun now squaring the position it occupied at the rejection of the EU proposal – the riots reached a crescendo. Over 70 people were killed in a brutal government crackdown. The following day the Ukrainian President Yanokovich fled the country and protestors took control of the capital. Kiev’s smoldering city square was now a battleground.

DREAMS OF INDEPENDENCE

Ukrainian independence has been an elusive dream ever since the 17th century and Khmelnitsky’s heroic deeds. Sandwiched between Russia to the east and Europe to the west, the country has been victim of historical divisions varying from Polish to Austrian and Russian rule. There were three declarations of independence during the 20th century.

The Kiev Uprising of November 1917 led to the defeat of the Russian imperial forces and the fleeting establishment the ‘Ukrainian People’s Republic’ on January 22 1918. It was short lived as the Bolsheviks eventually prevailed and the Ukraine was absorbed into the states of the Soviet Union. This original independence movement chart is interesting when examining recent developments between the Ukraine and Russia.

January accompanied significant escalation in the Ukraine civil war with valuable gains by the Russian backed rebels. Growing war clouds and the threat of the US further arming the Ukraine, forced urgent peace talks between German Chancellor Angela Merkyl, French President Francois Hollande, Ukrainian President Petro Poreshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin. They agreed to a ceasefire, operational from midnight Sunday February the 15th.

UKRAINE MODERN INDEPENDENCE

During WWII, on June 30 1941 at 6 pm at Lviv, Ukrainians again pronounced independence. This was even less successful and resulted in the nationalist leaders being interred in a German concentration camp. Finally, in the shadows of the collapsing Soviet Union and hastened by a Communist attempted coup on Mikhail Gorbachev, the Ukraine parliament declared full autonomy on August 24 1991. The time is given as 17.31 hours in Kiev.

For starters it clearly showed the people’s dissatisfaction with their government when over a hundred thousand people protested in Kiev. The President, but not the public, accepted Putin’s loan offer on December 17.

What followed was violence and revolution, bankrupt and its bonds were listed at junk status just days ago.

One bright spot to the Ukraine Independence brings foreign aid and support packages such as a proposed European Union $15 billion dollar rescue plan.The Ukraine, desperate for investment, may be a bargain hunter's dream. 

If history is the judge this could be a long drawn out campaign, escalating the likelihood of war. 

ADDING FUEL TO THE FIRE

As the April Grand Cross came to exactness on April 22 2014 the USA’s Vice President Joe Biden was back on one of his multiple trips to the Ukraine. He was urging the Ukrainian government to reduce their dependence on Russian gas. Four days earlier Biden’s son Hunter, in a break with US protocol, had been appointed to the board of the Ukraine’s largest gas company. The White House denied any hint of nepotism. There are plenty of interests in this fight, which is why it’s likely to be a long one. 

The wintry winds of a new Cold War suddenly thrust upon and the Ukraine are back in a tug of war. Just like 1648.