Bad and badder
A senior Libyan has pleaded for U.S. intervention as Khadafi refuses to quit. “In Tobruk, Maj. Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, who defected Sunday from his post as the commander of the local army garrison … urged the U.S. and other powers to support the uprising and not to allow their interests in Libya’s petroleum reserves, Africa’s largest, to keep them sidelined.” The UN Security Council demanded an “immediate end to the violence”; the Arab League suspended Libya and the EU — with Italy and Malta dissenting — called for sanctions, but only the maligned and despised United States has the capability to intervene.
U.S. intervention. Can it? Should it? The answer to the first is yes and the answer to the second is: why? Simon Henderson and David Schenker, writing at ABC News, suggest a “no-fly zone” to ground the Libyan air force but predict that when the smoke clears, the Islamists are likely to emerge at the top of the heap:
If the crisis continues, the country’s long-repressed Islamist movement could benefit. Led by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the movement has an impressive history of supporting jihadist causes, having worked with al-Qaeda for more than a decade. Since 2003, Libya has been the second-leading source (after Saudi Arabia) of insurgents entering Iraq via Syria. And not coincidentally, a plurality of these jihadists hailed from Darna, the epicenter of the rebellion. More recently, al-Bayda –a village not too far from Darna — was declared an “Islamic Caliphate” by the locals following its liberation this week.
So caught between a rock and hard place, the New York Times, perhaps reflecting the administration’s desire not to be seen as abetting Khadafi’s bloody reprisals yet afraid to act to unseat him, describes officials talking out loud, like Hamlet deciding whether or not he should act:
Mrs. Clinton said the United Nations Security Council was the proper place for further action against Libya. After a day of debate on Tuesday, the Security Council condemned the use of force against peaceful demonstrators in Libya and called for those responsible for such attacks to be held to account. Mrs. Clinton said that the situation on the ground was still too murky to make a judgment. “As we gain a greater understanding of what is actually happening,” she said, “we will take appropriate steps in line with our values, our principles and our laws.” She noted that communications were largely shut down.
Among the steps the United States could take, analysts said, would be to reintroduce the sanctions it imposed on Colonel Qaddafi, starting in the 1970s, for state-sponsored terrorism, most notably the bombing of a Pan Am plane over Lockerbie, Scotland. It lifted the sanctions after Libya renounced terrorism.
An even more drastic step would be instituting a no-flight zone over Tripoli to prevent warplanes or helicopters from shooting at protesters. But NATO planes would likely have to enforce such a ban, and analysts said the alliance was unlikely to take such a step without a much greater escalation of the violence.
Administration officials said drafting a United Nations sanctions resolution would take time, since the Security Council would have to prove a case against Libya — something that could be difficult, given the chaos on the ground.
it doesn’t seem that the US would like to see Kadhafi falling, who’s gonna replace him?
Gaddafi is eccentric but the firm master of his regime, Wikileaks cables say http://wapo.st/gCB7Io un vieux coriace
The ability to write prose like W does and then finish with the best quote from “Dumb and Dumber” is such a gift to be treasured.
I don’t think the US has any say in the matter anymore, Marie.
What the Obama administration wants and what the US wants is becoming two seperate things. Basically Obama wants to play golf while the rest of the US would like a coherent and stable economic and foreign policy.
It is hard to imagine how this or any future American administration could ever be drawn in again by the cesspit of Islam to save the Muslims from the stinking sewer in which they find themselves. They are poisonous, and frankly deserve every atrocity they visit upon themselves through their malign culture. It is far better that they visit and spend their hatred’s on each other than visit it upon us. Further, if we really gave a damn about Muslims, as so many profess to do, then surely we would not continue to pretend to their faces (and to ourselves) that their broken, retarded culture and their bottomless, unquenchable hatred’s are not directly because of Islam.
But instead, and in order to avoid sending them off on another of their endless bloody rampages, we pretend that their Islam isn’t the most disgusting religion ever to befall humanity. If we gave them a dose of truth, we might stop enabling Muslims to fall even further into the gutter. Some unvarnished truth might not be so diplomatic, but the shock of it at this moment might force them to look inward for once and perhaps they’d grapple with the complete brokenness of the system which enslaves them. A little tough love is in order. Instead we give them PR lies, tell them their religion isnt the problem, and guarantee the ugly spiral downward to ever more depraved Islamic depths.
Now there’s a thought – Chicago secedes from the United States and applies for admission to the European Union so it can get an EU bailout like Greece.
It is hard to imagine how this or any future American administration could ever be drawn in again by the cesspit of ***** to save the ******* from the stinking sewer in which they find themselves. They are poisonous, and frankly deserve every atrocity they visit upon themselves through their malign culture. It is far better that they visit and spend their hatred’s on each other than visit it upon us. Further, if we really gave a damn about *******, as so many profess to do, then surely we would not continue to pretend to their faces (and to ourselves) that their broken, retarded culture and their bottomless, unquenchable hatred’s are not directly because of *****.
It was tempting to replace the terms “Islam” and “Muslims” with “Chicago” and “The Machine”, but that would have been impertinent.
The problem with Libya is likely to be oil. There’s lots of money in oil, both to be gained and lost. Italy and many other stakeholders are invested in it and probably worry about that oil either falling into somebody else’s hands or the Libyans flooding across the Med to the shores of Europe.
So for entirely unsentimental and crass reasons there will be pressure on the US to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, if only for a while. The same, it might be said, is true for bankrupt cities like Chicago. Wisconsin is a preview of what happens when the gravy train stops. Illinois and California’s convulsions will make the proceedings in Madison seem like a walk in the park. The music must always play. So the gravy train must at all events be started up again.
The US is overcommitted and under-lead, and you’d think Libya would be Europe’s problem, it’s their oil source. Sure, twenty years ago France and Britain would have had battalions there by now, fifty years ago they would have had divisions in by now. But today, they’d be lucky to put in a film crew with a couple of gaffers, and they’d have to arrive by commercial airline, and only if they’re lucky on Expedia.com.
I think the US lets this one ride.
As to Libya I think its time for the EU countries to step up to the plate if anybody needs to intervene. The EU has direct interests in the stability of the country since they are (I believe) the major customers of the oil that comes from there. Besides, at this point, what is it exactly that should be done if we did intervene? Whose side would we be on anyway? Do we even have a clear idea of what sides there are? Let the ones who are most interested in “doing something” be the first to stick their hands into the snakes nest. It should not be the US.
And as to Chicago, let them go bankrupt. The Federal government should not bail them out period. That would be like giving a penniless drunk a hundred dollars. He’d immediately start indulging in the behavior that made him broke to begin with. All that happens is that the day of reckoning will be postponed at considerable expense. Lets save that considerable expense.
uh Josh, the Americans have some balls there
check the maps, (don’t pay attention to the text, it’s notoriously not pro american, nor pro french nor pro english)
http://www.iran-resist.org/article6217.html
“Sure, twenty years ago France and Britain would have had battalions there by now”
uh no, cuz our former colonies were tou and still are touchy if we would interfer into their inner affairs. But 50 years ago probably that de Gaulle would have sent divisions
The consequences of letting Libya slide into the hands of Islamists would be grave indeed, but the problem is that it may not be the worst of it. Were the unrest in Libya an isolated event it might be worth intervening. But it is not; and so the major argument against intervening in Libya is economy of force.
The real threat is that the entire Middle East and Mediterranean basin is now unstable and that the administration, which may or may not bother to meet regularly with the cabinet, has neither taken steps to acquire reserves nor formulated a strategy to deal with the wholesale collapse.
Instead, they’ve dealt with the problem piecemeal and via teleprompter. A major part of US military strength is sequestered in Afghanistan, when even in that theater, it is Pakistan that is the center of gravity. But globally, as I’ve argued time and again, the real strategic center is the Middle East. This is the decisive theater and the administration has frittered away forces to “end 9/11 where it began” having no more clue to strategy than a talking point.
What it should be doing now is building up a framework within which to understand and act on these earthshaking development with the allies, realizing that some of these allies, like Italy, Spain and Greece may themselves be in crisis soon. Not to mention Turkey.
But Hillary is not doing this, or if she is, doing it so subtly as to be invisible. And President Obama should be re-assessing global deployments and commitments in response to really severe scenarios, but again, he is apparently not.
He is missing in action, but given his impulses in the past, that may even be a good thing.
What if the contagion spreads past Bahrain and Yemen to the Kingdom? And we’ve already forgotten Egypt, but the Islamists there have not forgotten Israel — that country which the administration has only recently condemned for settlements — settlements? That is really like complaining about the fly in your sorbet when a busload of zombies is charging through the door. But trust the administration never to see things in their true perspective. They cannot think past their teleprompter.
No, the real argument for not doing anything in Libya is that it is already too late to contain things there. I suspect it is too late for a lot of things, including retroactive raises for the Chicago unions. But they’ll never believe it. The music’s been playing for so long they thought it would play forever.
mc @ 10: uh Josh, the Americans have some balls there
you win some, you lose some balls. you should see me play golf!
very pretty graphs on the iran-resist page, but I am linguistically challenged on the text. I suppose I could paste it into Google translate for entertainment. I get the general idea, but what’s the point?
France was still intervening in Chad (?) just three years ago, with a very small number of troops. didn’t they send rather more down that way, within the last fifteen years? UK has sent some troops to battle with us in Iraq and Afganistan, but their forces are already small and the political will there is fading fast.
it’s not clear that anyone in Europe will lift a finger to save their own balls. why is it you even have to point out to me that the US is also in the game? only that Europe is comatose, or already dead. somebody poke it with a stick, see if it moves. if not, let’s steal its shoes.
two more quick comments and I will be at my quota.
first to wretchards newest – as I posted the other day in my “optimistic” comments, I think the US is suddenly and accidentally positioned for energy independence. let the ME sink. a little modest US support for Israel and they should be able to take care of themselves as dar al-Islam either falls into a pit, or moves forward to democracy. I hope that either will be beneficial to Israel, and if not, well, Israel will simply have to do what needs to be done. Iran is another category, unless the revolt there takes hold. No doubt that’s what Hillary is spending all her energy on. Hah.
and – Chicago? I’d make many snarky comments, but I’m writing from California so maybe I shouldn’t throw stones. But seriously folks, Rahm Emmanuel gone from the record-setting cluelessness of the Obambus White House to easy winner in the mayoral race in Chicago? Does he have the faintest idea of what he has just stepped in? OMG, and he was supposed to be the brains behind Obambus? Explains a lot, don’t it?
Bad and badder, indeed.
I think Lilly Tomlin was just a prophetess ahead of her time, searching for intelligent life in the universe.
And with all this stuff fouling up in all dimensions, will even cheap oil from fracked US oil fields, be enough to sustain us long enough that we can attempt a recovery? I dunno. The financial vampires on Wall Street are nearly unabated. All the jobs are still in China. The oil may buy us one more hand. There is no CLUE that any of the big names in Washington are even aware of the problems, the MSM is dead, or even worse alive and mad as a hatter. Ever been at the poker table, and down to your last couple of bucks, and then you find another few bucks under your napkin? That’s about the size of it.
“France was still intervening in Chad (?) ”
we have a base where jetfighters pilots are training and then go to Afghanistan, though I read sometimes ago that more than half of staff has move to our new base in the Emirates
it’s not clear that anyone in Europe will lift a finger to save their own balls. why is it you even have to point out to me that the US is also in the game? only that Europe is comatose, or already dead. somebody poke it with a stick, see if it moves. if not, let’s steal its shoes.
There’s enough life in Europe for it to feel the zombie-teeth biting at its toes. The Italian Foreign Minister roused himself to say:
But there’s not enough life in it to do more than hope the problem will be taken care of. Problem? Yes. Well, I’ll be. So the Islamist threat, which we were assured GWB invented out of whole cloth, exists after all. And about all Europe can think of doing in response is scaring up some money to prop up the north African Arab economies.
Earth to Frattini. You haven’t got the money nor the muscle to do it. Not to keep the Islamists from turning Africa into a base of operations nor even to keep the flood of refugees from European shores. Not unless you undo the whole friggin’ edifice of European fantasy and political correctness to do it. So to save their way of life, Europe is going to have to con America into doing the heavy lifting.
Trouble is, the phone’s been ringing in the White House since 3 am, and likely to keep ringing all the live-long day. Europe wanted Obama because they wanted someone like the Eurocrats themselves. And to their everlasting misfortune, they got their wish.
Europe has to realize by now that Obama is not going to interfere. Europe’s 60 year hiatus from national defense must be looming large in their calculations.
Mrs. Clinton drove that message home with her quoted statement above; I will paraphrase: “When it’s over, we’ll know where we stand”
They speak French-watch this video. (Warning graphic).
African Mercenaries in Libya
First saw it on French language France 24.
NATO has all the needed assets. We don’t have the manning. Choking them off at the African source is too messy-I guess.
If someone can stand to watch it maybe they can pick up the dialect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wbnhHp4o4Y
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that, by gum, Khadffi has ordered the demolition of oil pipelines to the Med.
Me or chaos. Like there’s a difference. The culture of hostage-taking and human shielding is so ingrained in that method of warfare, that in default, they threaten to shoot themselves.
As long as the US isn’t involved in war, everything is possible. Air strikes on crowds, mercenaries, demolition of civilian infrastructure, hostage taking and even self-hostage taking — all, all are possible — as the regime of modern political correctness reveals itself to be a pose, just an excuse to cheap political points against America, the very America they now hope will intervene in Libya.
Once the restraints of civilization disappear, slender though they may be, then hungry populations crazed with anger, or in the case of Khadaffi, crazed period, are capable of doing all kinds of things. “Gun free zones”, and similar fantasies are concepts which assume order, they do not create it. And when order goes, not all the EU treaties, nor all the signage in the world can easily bring it back. Rolling back entropy requires more energy than windmills or carbon trading certificates can supply.
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short-story called The Last of the Legions, describing the withdrawal of Rome from Britain. The scene is a delegation of Britons, demanding the withdrawal of Roman forces.
And soon, too, for Italy may be the legions of refugees from North Africa.
An interesting piece, and a sobering one. It covers, on one hand, a dictatorial one party regime known for making opponents disappear in unpleasant ways while stealing any wealth it can reach. On the other hand, it discusses Libya.
Both pose risks no matter which way things go. Both have the responsible officials desperately looking for someone else to be responsible. Let us look at Libya.
We have dealt with Libya, actually since just after the formation of our country. You may remember something about the “shores of Tripoli”. If you are a history buff, you may know something about a LT. Presley O’Bannon and Derna. There is a constant involved throughout our relationship with them. Every encounter was based on force or the threat of force, or bribery. We have never had a relationship based on friendship, kinship, or mutual understanding.
If we are the magic wand the UN or the EU wants to wave over the situation, we have to realize that this background is going to overwhelm whatever we try to do. We do not have any way to create the ideal democracy that Left [the UN, the EU, and of course our own Democrats] will demand. We have the ability to suppress one or another faction; but we cannot install or hold a stable and friendly society.
There is no burnoose-clad Thomas al-Jefferson waiting his opportunity. Nor a Libyan Locke or Adam Smith squatting in Benghazi pondering the relationship of man and the state, or the making of needles. The rise of a democratic and republican society requires a culture of both self reliance and general trust. You have to have a sense of self and self worth in a society, and at least a knowledge of what a rule of law means. These are people whose very religion literally is “submission”, which regards anyone who is beyond the bounds of immediate family and tribe as a hostile outsider, which regards anyone not Muslim and half of Muslims as chattel. They have a history not only of authoritarian rule as far back as it goes; they have not even had real exposure to what Western Democracy is. They were colonized, not by Britain; but by royal and Fascist Italy.
Any stability we may impose will be at great cost to ourselves and an even greater cost to the locals. It will be temporary. And whatever deluge that we arrest by our temporary presence will be merely pent up for later release. And those very entities that want us to undertake the heavy lifting, the UN and EU, will castigate us for over-reacting, under-reacting, and for the fact that we intervened in the first place; even though they themselves both asked for it and were unable to do anything themselves.
The thought of any sort of American intervention in Libya is an absolute no-win situation. Absent the appearance of a vital US national interest in Libya [and keeping the oil taps open for Europe does not constitute such in my mind], it is not worth the life of one US soldier; even if we had the strategic cushion to attempt it.
Buraq Hussein is in the position of having to make a choice of whatever policy we are going to have in relation to Libya. OK, we have a track record already, especially for that part of the world. He will waffle. He will flip. And then he will flop. He will blame both Bushes, Reagan, Nixon, and Eisenhower for whatever happens; for as the LSM will attest, his own plans were by definition brilliant. And our poor country will get the worst effects of both intervention and non-intervention.
There is question if the meandering policy will be the result of deliberate antipathy to US interests, incapacity, or lack of interest. Assuming that there is a United States left twenty years from now, and that history is not being written by Minitru; the historians of the day will have to decide.
Moving to N’awlins-on-Lake-Michigan; one can almost say that they have as little exposure to constitutional democracy and the rule of law as Libyans. And probably the same lack of exposure to reality.
The success of the new Mayor-for-Life is predicated on one or more miracles happening. We could go from what is in reality a depression to boom times in the next couple of months. He could cut spending drastically. Or the Federal government could come up with a way to bail out Chicago. I think the first is impossible, even for a miracle. The second will not happen. And the third may be tried, but faces two hurdles. Even after 22 Republicans in the House rolled over to limit the first spending cuts to $60 billion down from $100 billion, and after Governor Mitch Daniels functionally turned his state over to the minority Democrats in the legislature; there are enough Conservatives remaining in the House, and an active TEA Party movement to make such a bailout all but impossible.
It would take extra-constitutional means to pull it off. And even if it was pulled off, it would be economic suicide. The bond markets are on the edge of imploding. What is holding them together is a belief [likely unfounded] that somehow governments will put their financial houses in order. The full force attacks by the Left in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio against any cuts in spending have weakened that belief. A deficit funded bailout of Chicago, and the implied coming bailouts of every bankrupt Leftist cesspool in the country would destroy that belief. We are one failed bond auction away from being a new Greece.
And once again, if there are free historians in a United States twenty years from now; they will have to make the same choices as listed above.
Subotai Bahadur
Actually I should have sourced it out a little bit more-saw it this morning and it’s been rattling around in the back of my brain for awhile now…
Aujourd’hui, bien qu’indépendantes et contrôlées par la population, ces trois villes sont encerclées par les mercenaires. L’une de mes sources à Benghazi m’a dit que certains ont été capturés par les manifestants. C’est comme ça qu’on sait qu’ils viennent du Tchad ou de Mauritanie, qu’ils portent un uniforme militaire et, parfois, un casque jaune. Ils sont habillés comme les soldats de Kadhafi, mais ils sont noirs.”
So Chad and/or Mauritania.
********************************
Burning their own oil-should have saw that coming but Obama is never looking forward despite all the Hope & Change singing.
Rolling Back the Entropy now there’s a blog post title.
I don’t now how this all ends but it’s rolling at the speed of light these days, and like I said someone is always chasing it-behind it.
How about this-checked yesterday at the State Department and they had no advisories up about Libya.
Just a general cya about world wide demonstrations.
No. Shouldn’t.
None of our damn business. We’re broke.
Wretchard #20
Gerard at American Digest has reposted an essay first written in 2007, in the same vein as Conan Doyle’s short story:
Greetings Anti-American Earthlings!
It has come to our attention that, as Americans, we really haven’t been at the top of other Earth citizens’ Christmas lists for some time now. Like some spouse that has become too used to having her good life paid for by a husband’s work and sweat, you’ve keep telling us you “need your space.”
We have listened. We have heard. You want your space. And we are ready to give it to you. Politely if possible, but with both barrels if necessary. So pay attention….
We gave you a lot during the last 65 years since VJ Day in terms of direct aid — whole oceans of cash and special privileges — but we didn’t complain. There was the Marshall Plan, the continuing defense of Europe during the Cold War while you just sucked down bon-bons and took long hot showers into the wee hours of the morning with every misfit Muslim, Serb or what-have-you that came your way with “a hand full of gimme and a mouth fill of not-so-much obliged.” We looked the other way because we didn’t need those images seared into our memories.
Then there were all sorts of loans never paid back, and many billions and billions more in private charity and donations above and beyond what our government has done for you with our tax money. You were Wimpy and we were Popeye, but our metrosexuals loved summering in the Provance countryside and writing hymns to your cultural theme parks so, well, what the hell?
Don’t even talk about the costs of maintaining a credible defense all across Europe so you didn’t get munched up and excreted with blueberries by the Soviet Bear. (Looking a little testy again isn’t he?)
Alas, none of this was enough for you. Like some teenaged stoner with an unlimited American Express card, you’ve always needed more. You always had to go for one more deep suck off the bong while flipping us the finger.
Even when your own economies were robust enough to give you the 30 hour work week and the whole month of August off, we still couldn’t pony up enough to keep you in beer, skittles, prosciutto, and fromage.
This situation has made us poorer than we would otherwise have been. There are a lot of things here at home we could have spent the money on — schools, infrastructure, scholarships, lower taxes, aid to dependent children, and the kind of local American charities that always need help such as the grossly underfunded “You can send Al Sharpton a ball gag or you can turn the page” Relief Organization. We hope you’ll understand when we say we need just a year or so of working the “Charity begins at home” concept in order to catch up. And frankly things are a little tight over here and we need to cut back on luxuries such as, well, you.
It’s also more than a little depressing to wake up every day and find your “UNtellectuals” in The New York Times blathering on and on about how stingy and uncaring Americans are.
Hence, Americans are taking the a few years off not only to save many, many billions/trillions of dollars, but for a time of reflection and boosting of the old “self-esteem.” After all, you can’t help others unless you feel good about yourself.
And let’s face it, how can all you other nations (Egypt, The EU, Africa, South America, Mexico, and all the worthy, struggling and proud totalitarian Islamic states) feel good about yourselves when all you do is push your shabby stolen grocery carts around Washington sucking up for a hand-out? We’ve got our own American Washingtonian suck-ups working overtime as it is. Brother, these days we just cannot spare a dime or, frankly, give a damn.
You need to have a little time to develop some self-reliance. So go out and get that old self-esteem back that only comes with paying for your own defense.
We realize now that in protecting you and the world’s markets, and keeping everybody out there from killing everybody else out there, we’ve robbed you of the chance to determine your own destiny. For many of you, your destiny seems to be death, slavery, boredom, burkas or some bizarre combination of all four. Hey, we guess you’ve gotta just go for the gusto. You gotta believe!
Therefore, as Americans, we’ve decided to take a break and bag the rest of the world for about four years. That way you can sort things out without our annoying presence.
Think of it as our sabbatical from your “present difficulties” . . . .
There’s more at http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/enemies_foreign_domestic/the_declaration.php
There are no good choices. Might as well go skiing. Play golf. Slam Israel.
Yes, sir, we have here another fabulous set of choices presented to us courtesy of those ME wunderkind who specialize in offering one worse choice than the next and the third even worse than that. (Ad infinitum? Better hope not.)
In fact, this particular performance might easily justify giving Qadafi a gold-medal, competing most impressively among that whole slough of stellar virtuosi throughout the region—basically leaving them in the dust, which is no small feat.
(Still, there must be a way we can hang this on Bush, on the neo-cons or the Israel Lobby—hold on a second: Richard Perle! Tony Blair! Yes! Yes!!….They’re all implicated, now! Hurrah, hurrah!!)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0211/Among_Libyas_lobbyists.html?showall
There should have been little doubt that if/when the going got a bit tough, that Qadafi (Mr. Human Rights himself) was going go to go “full Saddam”.
Or worse. Yes, “Anything you can do, I can do better” is merely a way of Qadafi demonstrating his love of drama. Certainly, that Libya is currently a member of the UN Human Rights Council—that grand proscenium on Turtle Bay and in Geneva—is itself a matter of exquisite timing.
Drama. Theater. And slaughter. Burning oil wells. Blowing up pipe lines.
Apres moi le deluge, revisited. Saddam? Or Coriolanus?
(To be sure, Qadafi is making Saddam look essentially sane.)
On the other hand, Qadafi should realize—and be warned!—that if he allows his Libyan crude to muck up the Sahara or pour into the Mediterranean, he’s going to have a lot of Greens (European Greens, at that) on his back, or failing that, at least force them to experience some exceedingly painful pangs of conscience—”Qadafi may be making things tough for the sea turtles (etc.); but still, he’s an anti-Zionist, etc., etc.”.
Manuel Oriega and Hugo Chavez, e.g., have already made their choices.
So, apparently, has Obama.
…Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini…said the threat of an “Islamic Arab Emirate at the borders of Europe” in Libya was now a matter of “serious concern.
But it’s really quite all right for Hezbullah to set up shop in Lebanon, and it’s absolutely necessary to support Hamas.
And Israel absolutely has GOT to get out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Gotta love them Yurpeons.
File under: “One law for thee; another for me.”
Gotta love them Yurpeons.
It’s all one world now. One of the things Rahm Emmanuel is going to inherit is Richard Daley’s parking meter problem, in which it transpired that the City decided to sign over all parking fees for the next 75 years in exchange for $1.2 billion, to a private company. Richard Daley drolly advised Washington to emulate his genius plan:
Taking the money and running must have an atavistic appeal in Chicago. But there was more; there were wheels within wheels, and the Atlantic Wire later revealed that the parking meters were actually bought by Abu Dhabi, proving, if proof were needed, that the Middle East and the Middle West are not that far apart.
The humanity, oh the humanity! And if there were any doubts that the world is getting smaller by the minute, then the lawsuit by the ACLU and a Muslim advocacy group against the FBI for investigating them would set things to rest. The Washington Post reports:
The memes are all wrapped together now. The Wall Street Journal says US monetary policy is behind food price rises in the Middle East; which in turn drives demand for intervention in Libya from Europe; whose second-hand politically correct multi-culti ideology somehow translates to suing the FBI for surveilling mosques so that Muslims can enjoy their centuries-old First Amendment rights. And maybe the money collected thereby goes to leasing public assets in a great American city.
It’s a small world after all. So send not to ask for whom the parking meter ticks. It ticks for thee.
Wretchard @ 11: “Not to mention Turkey.”?
Tsktsk Turkey is very impotant; and, must not be omitted from the equation.
…-
“Turkish Opposition: Erdogan Received Gaddafi Human Rights Prize, Won’t Criticize Libyan Massacres”
“Erdogan receives prize. Hurriyet, Turkey, February 20, 2011In November 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accepted the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights from the Libyan leader. Following the recent unrest and massacres of protestors in Libya, the Turkish opposition is criticizing Erdogan for his silence on the events in Libya, attributing it to his receipt of the prize.
The Gaddafi award webpage, which is headlined “As the sun shines, for everyone, freedom is a right for everyone,” states: “The Algaddafi International Prize for human rights is an international non-governmental Organization concerned with human and peoples rights without discrimination as for race, ethnicity, sex, colour, or religion. Its Headquarters is in Tripoli, Libyan Jamahiriya.”
It continues: “The prize is awarded every year to one of the international personalities, bodies or organizations that have distinctively contributed to rendering an outstanding human service and has achieved great actions in defending Human rights, protecting the causes of freedom and supporting peace everywhere in the world.”
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5031.htm
Richard Daley drolly advised Washington….
Drolly?
I thought that was the plan all along.
Bit of this to Abu Dhabi. Large chunk of that to China. Divvy up the NYSE with Germany. (Oops, did I say “divvy up”?). Etc.
Yes. Bankrupt the US (but—ingeniously—in terms that imply you’re attempting to help ALL its citizens be healthier and happier; that you’re attempting to alleviate pain and hunger and disease; that you’re trying to level the playing field).
Betray those allies.
Suck up to totalitarians.
Stonewall any attempt at self-help, at self-extrication.
And sell off those assets.
But blame everyone else.
Blame it all on “events that have been forced upon us.”
Better yet, on “events that have been forced upon us by the previous Republican administration.”
Even better than that, blame it on “cliques of deluded, violent citizens who band together, march together (and drink tea together) with the intention of opposing and bringing down the legally elected government of the USA.”
But best? Blame it on “a peculiar, small ME country, supposedly an American ally, that has consistently subverted THE master plan for overarching peace in the Middle East—and the world…and also those here in the US who for nefarious reasons of their own support that country..leading to the consequences we see all around us today, etc., etc.”
And then blame it on fear; and on the fear-mongers; and those who purportedly benefit from fear mongering.
All the while preaching togetherness, and brotherhood, and non-partisanship, and civility.
A methodology that is tried and true. Tried and true….
That is, until the citizenry becomes masses of little children with open eyes and no inhibitions about shouting out what they actually see.
File under: “Ah, but we were so much older then….”(?)
We all know Obama is sympathetic to Ghadaffi Just like Ghadaffi, Obama wants the U.S. off of oil. And Obama would love to send in some fighter jets to strafe the Wisconsin legislature.
Just to make things fair.
“An even more drastic step would be instituting a no-flight zone over Tripoli to prevent warplanes or helicopters from shooting at protesters. But NATO planes would likely have to enforce such a ban, and analysts said the alliance was unlikely to take such a step without a much greater escalation of the violence.”
Um, why in God’s name should we really do anything? Are you really serious about a “no-fly” zone over Libya? You’re not happy with fighting two wars in the Middle East, now you want to try for a third? And what happens if Khaddaffi somehow manages to hold on to power, just like Hussein did after the first Gulf War? I’m sure he’d be really pleased that we tried to overthrow him. I guess you don’t really remember that whole Lockerbie act of terrorism that he committed and all those Americans who died because of it. Yep, this guy sure “doesn’t” have a history of terrorism against the United States. And even if we did help the Libyans, then the arab world would say, “You see, those Americans are butting into the affairs of another arab nation and are trying to take it over.” And the liberals in this country would undoubtedly say, “Another war for oil.” We would also be vilified, yet again, for trying to help some Muslim people. I’m still waiting for all that good will to come pouring out from the Muslim world for saving all of those Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Let the Libyans work it out. I really don’t have much sympathy for a people who supported a psychotic dictator for 41 years. And now some of them want our help to overthrow him? Sorry fellas. Freedom ain’t cheap. You want it, you fight for it and (this is the hardest part) try to keep it. Once you have a decent republic that’s up and running, call us. Then we’ll see how dedicated you are to this whole “freedom” thing. Then we’ll talk.
Wretchard #20, bravo.
Khaddafi might want to think about about sabotaging his own oil pipelines. Ninety percent of Libya’s GDP is oil exports. If Khaddafi somehow manages to stay in power, it will be a case of “monkey see, monkey do” for the insurgents, just review the endemic sabotage problem in Nigeria. If he is particularly brutal in putting them down, he might be facing sanctions and an oil-for food-program like Saddam, and oil-for-food programs aren’t run like charities. That $100 billion of Libya’s “reserves” in Swiss banks might be put into escrow.
“Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil expenditures from $4,956 per pupil in 1998 to $10,791 per pupil in 2008.” What effect? 2/3 of Wisconsin’s 8th graders can’t read…CNS News
The Romans had the good sense to restrict tax farming to the provinces. Citizens don’t like being told outright that they are getting screwed for a few pieces of silver, and what are you going to do about it anyway?
As the Age of Idiocy arrives at its denoument we are faced with the awful proposition that for the Average Joe representative democracy does not work any better than lords and kings. Although we have the comforting assurance that our children will not be conscripted by the Lord of Chicago to plunder the Kingdom of Madison, we have the same certainty as our ancient ancestors that the Lord of Chicago will plunder our farm and take his Royal share to distribute it among those who will call him Lord.
Good luck to the Caliphate of Benghazi. Our Islamist friends will learn soon enough that the idea of random, unprovoked terrorism carries much more influence than can ever be gained by planting a flag. The last thing that they want, and will ever see, is to become a set of GPS coordinates.
5. Morton Doodslag
Further, if we really gave a damn about Muslims, as so many profess to do, then surely we would not continue to pretend to their faces (and to ourselves) that their broken, retarded culture and their bottomless, unquenchable hatred’s are ….
but it’s about money, luverly oily money that “made” Britain and other European countries turn a blind eye to Qaddafi’s “antics” these past 40 years. Let a murderous SoB (Lockerbie bomber) free to get their hands on the filthy “lucre”.
The worst of this hypocrisy has been their persistent projection of their vice onto the Jews as a money grubbing people; just look at English literature over the centuries.
As for caring about other people bear in mind that the rhetoric is a porridge of clichés and crocodile tears to ameliorate the hunger pangs of the political agenda.
–we don’t need a No-Fly zone –just seal off the tri-state area.
Cheer up Americans! Your man Obama took six months to decide what to do in Afghanistan; so expect decisions about Libya sometime in August. As in Afghanistan, the UK will take its lead from you lot. So we will be announcing our plan in September or October. And I forecast we are all going to operate the MYOB policy. Well, I hope we are…….
So far what I have read is far too narrow a view to deal with what we and the entire world face over the next decade at least. Revolutions don’t play out in two or three months, they take years and decades. Entire societies have to be reordered amid backdoor deals that eventually cut out the “people” need to be made, new deals cut.
Do you really expect the ME and North Africa to simply resolve everything overnight? If you do go immediately to a psychiatrist, do not pass go, do not stop at red lights. This upheaval, were it to play out in a democracy or another round of ME strong men is going to affect the free world in a very bad way. Right now we have NO idea how things will go down in that section of the world but we can say with confident certitude that for those of us dependent on their oil that we’re now in a bigger hurt than we were two weeks ago, which was a world of hurt. Five, six or ten dollar a gallon gasoline will sink this country into its own chaos.
Will we allow Libya to burn their fields or will we invade them and take over the wells?
Will we finally begin to use the resources in this country to be energy independent? We know we have them but we will have to break some watermelon heads to get it done.
Will we allow sharia law and extra national law to be used in our courts because small factions demand it or blackmail us with flash riots? Think Dearborn.
This is gonna be one helluva unstable world from here until the 2030’s or 40’s, perhaps beyond, and very few Americans are prepared for what is coming.
There are those of us who would use the military option very soon while Libya and Egypt are in chaos but we would be force to irradiate some and that we aren’t even allowed to talk about here…yeah, not even allowed to TALK about..very sad and most ignorant……yep, we’re in a world of hurt.
The computer savvy youth in Egypt believe they have tapped into a new source of power, but all they have done is use a tool and power still grows out of the barrel of a gun. Should Eqypt’s forces have killed 100,000 in Tahrir Square the game would have changed, and the brassy 20 year olds who are gloating now will soon find they are ill equipped to run the world, but they do always die in great numbers during revolutions.
I care not a wit for Islam killing Islam , I revel in it, but I do care about the disruption it will bring to this country and our allies.
As I have said before we need to preempt before it is too late…their chaos is our opportunity.
About those parking meters…
I can’t help but notice that they are in Illinois and Abu Dhabi is somewhere I don’t care about. A rational American government would tell the government of that far away land to pound sand, of which I understand they have plenty.
But the US government isn’t rational, or it wouldn’t have permitted Chicago to sell their parking meters. True dat. But if the entire geopolitical order of the world is collapsing why would the feckless US government be spared?
It won’t, and the signs of the weakening grasp are legion- both at home and abroad. If I was a Libyan general I’d look elsewhere for someone to save me.
Hey…how about Egypt? I’m sure the new government would like some extra money, and I know they’ve got plenty of tanks.
Give them a call General Mahmoud. I’m sure they’ll pick up the phone.
32. Teresita
” he might be facing sanctions and an oil-for food-program like Saddam”
Ms. T…this is so much bigger than Iraq that any talk of oil for food is silly. We are dealing with a total reordering of the Islamic Crescent and there isn’t enough food to feed all of islam and not reduce the West to malnutrition.
Mama, take this badge off of me
I can’t use it anymore.
It’s gettin’ dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door
America has been the World’s Policeman since 1945. Looks like that is over, Good for America, bad for the World. Maybe China will take over? But not in America.
We’ll keep order in our house. Let the Wogs fend for themselves. It will be good for them. It will be good for America too.
Oil-for-a-LOT-of-food. Grave-faced experts on tv over the wkend said the west needs to help the crescent of crisis create one hundred million new jobs over the coming decade.
***
–meanwhile, Carolyn Glick @ JPost agrees with Michael in #36:
From an Israeli perspective, whether motivated by an animus towards Israel or extraordinary incompetence, the Obama administration’s Middle East policies offer one message: We can only rely on ourselves and so we’d better strengthen ourselves as much as possible as quickly as possible in every possible way.
***
ms Glick simply fails to understand, we are busy with several entire school districts’ teacher contracts up in the Great Lakes region.
***
“What, me wuri?”
toad @ 4: “Obama would like to play golf…”
Oh, my goodness! How much better off we would be if that were true!
On October 28, 2008, the man who calls himself “Obama” gave a speech in which he said, “We are five days away from the fundamental transformation of the United States of America”.
You, toad, and many others obviously think he was kidding.
I don’t. Obama is incompetent only if you believe he is a) trying to do the job of POTUS well, and b) has the best interests of the US at heart. Both of those propositions are transparently false.
hey
weren´t the french army sent to Chad to practice rape and gang banging.
seems the french military never got over those pretty ´´black thangs´´ in the jungle.
Sabotage and self mutilation may become a new global culture, like Coca-cola in reverse as they spread from the Third World to the Thirding. Abu Dhabi may find that those Chicago parking meters are a wasting asset. Didn’t Cool Hand Luke go to prison for decapitating a parking meter?
Italy dissents on sanctions. The Italians have gone from being more Catholic than the Pope to more Arab than the Arab League. Berlusconi owes Ghadaffi for telling him how to throw Bunga-bunga parties.
The Isolationist arguments to let Libya stew don’t work for me. This is a case where there is a gun and a suitcase of money being dropped by one lunatic laying on the ground and we are going to allow a homicidal maniac pick them up. There are only 6 million people there. Unlike Italy’s other colonial legacy Somalia, which I would cheerfully carpet bomb until the natives learn to simply leave the civilized world alone, empty Libya is worth something. What we should do is end the policy of importing problems from social disaster zones. America would become immediately safer if we expelled the Somali refugees and a quarantine should have been placed sealing the Mediterranean against illegal immigrant traffic a decade ago. Refugees should be functional people fleeing political violence, not missionaries of oppression.
Well, back to basics, our foreign policy Policy ought to be to find some way to block the dates atop such articles whose date-sequences will do nothing but make desperately broke and hungry third worlders annoyed with us.
What are the options?
In the ‘best world’, the UN should intervene; that’s what it was set up to do. But the UN has degenerated to a closed, corrupt cabal. It is useless.
Should the US militarily intervene? No; the US is not the ‘de facto’ UN.
What ought to be done ought to have been done long ago, when the world, the US included, turned its eyes away from the dysfunctional dictatorships of the Middle East tribal nations – in return for the one commodity they have to sell: oil. The world ought to have expanded its other sources of energy.
It didn’t do this. But that’s what it ought to do now.
Obama is useless. Obama has no agenda other than: Power. He wants to align himself with Power. So, he’ll ignore the Iranian demonstrators and align himself with Ahmandinejad. He aligned himself with Zelaya in Honduras thinking he would win. He dithered about Egypt until it became clear who would win: then, he aligned himself with the Winners. He’s saying nothing about Libya until it becomes clear who will win; then, he’ll align himself with the Winner.
Obama has no principles, no ethics. No understanding of history or economics. He has only one viewpoint: Himself as The Power.
The US ought to, now, be putting all its focus on other sources of energy supplies than the ME. Obama has, insanely, forbidden offshore drilling in the US! But the oil is there! The US ought to be dealing with Canada’s enormous oil reserves and elsewhere. And thus – starve the MidEast of the ONE commodity it has.
The ME has to sell oil. Ghadafi’s agenda of burning the Libyan oil wells will certainly harm Italy (its largest consumer of L.oil) and others, but it will harm Libya even more. Libya has nothing to sell; no industry, no private industries, nothing. Just oil.
The same with other ME states; they’ve relied on a public raw resource, developed and run in every instance by Western technology. They have ignored their internal economy; no middle class small businesses. Stop buying their main commodity – and they are economically finished.
And- they’d have to reform themselves politically to enable an economic reform. As for the fear of Islamism moving into the ME states – Islamism is purely rhetorical and repressive of the individual; it cannot empower and enable a market middle class economy. Therefore – economically, Islamism cannot support the massive populations of the ME. I wouldn’t worry about it taking over in the ME – because the old statist economies (oil, Suez) cannot support the populations..and Islamism..which would continue that mode…would fall in the same economic mess.
What should Obama do? [Apart from golf and parties?]. Speak out publicly against the Libyan massacres – and set up, immediately, the agenda for the US to access its energy supplies from other sources than the ME.
Good column on Obamanian diplomacy relative to Israel
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=209264
We can easily advise Khadafy that if he uses his airforce against civilians we will crater his runways and send cruise missiles against his airbases and barracks.
I think we should. Khadafy is scum and deserves to see his regime destroyed.
As to should we intervene, I think it sends a message that the US has differences with governments not people.
In the case of Libya, less is more. The U.S. might have a hard figuring out just who the good guys are. We’ve got that wrong as often as not. The people of Libya will do a better job of sorting this out. Foreign intervention will only complicate the situation.
No intervention without colonization, and the US is incapable of the latter. Tell the Libyans to ask China. Nice choice they have!
38. Xennady
“Hey…how about Egypt? I’m sure the new government etc…”
Ah, what new government? We are now facing a very large portion of the world, a portion that controls oil, lots of oil..that have NO governments. Who do you talk to? Negotiate with?
That’s the problem if you read my offering…this isn’t going to work out for 20 to 30 years ..who do we negotiate with?.Who over there in the land of Islam is in charge?..Not a problem, they’ll work out the details just like they have for the last thousand years.
In the interim we’d better open the ANWAR and coastal Florida for drilling ASAP, and the PACE Coal Project in the Dakotas and Montana…
BTW American Power, symbol AMWP.OB …Rio Tinto is taking a very hard look at them and you could make a bundle if Rio buys Am. Power.
This is one time where you never let a tragedy go to waste. The US, UK, Germany could take the Libya fields NOW, and we should, unless we want 8-10 dollar gas and the resultant chaos in our streets …think I’m kidding…just wait long enough shuffling your feet (collectively) and we’ll see it right here.
49. Robert
Robert my man it’s gonna take the Arabs years and years to figure out who the good guys are. This my friend is are revolutions to rival 1848 in Europe, just with much ,much bigger stakes.
My guess is that in the end the MB will have control of all of the Islamic countries…ad their creed is “Jihad is the Way” …think about that for a moment or twenty.
I say Jihad and shiara are evil and there is no way to administer an evil well.
48. ghilmeini
“We can easily advise Khadafy that if he uses his airforce against civilians we will crater his runways and send cruise missiles against his airbases and barracks”
Now why in the world would we crater runways we could use? Hell we can just shoot them out of the sky. Why destroy barracks when, like the Iraq’s we’ll have them surrendering to UAV photo recon aircraft?
Libya is right on the MED, and for now we own the MED.
I say take the Lib’s oilfields now while they are in chaos.
Obama may be doing the right thing (keeping his distance) for the wrong reason (he and Qadaffi hold identical opinions of US authority/history/society/existance).
Let us not forget the Bay of Pigs. And also the parallel geostrategic axiom:
RULES ON CIVIL WAR INTERVENTION
Rule #1 on intervening in someone else’s civil war -
DON’T.
Rule #2 (if choosing to ignore Rule #1) -
MAKE DAMN SURE YOUR SIDE WINS.
If we were to itervene, this “Oh, it’s jes’ a little ole no-fly zone” Shiite ain’t gonna fly. You do this, you are ALL in, until Qadaffi is Mussolini’d from a lamppost. No BS-ing around and hoping for the best.
And that’s the deal. Methinks we have a few other fish on the griddle at the moment, foreign, domestic and economic.
Yep. The Romans are indeed for Italy. We wish you the best though, truly.
46. ETAB
“The US ought to, now, be putting all its focus on other sources of energy supplies than the ME.”
That would take years which we don’t have. take the Libya oilfields NOW..that would take weeks, maybe months but it would bring stability to the West. If we wobble we’ll go down and no doubt France,the UK, GermanY , Italy all know that.
Yes we must drill and mine but Libya is now for the taking.
Wretchard:
“Will EU/UN/OIC/International Community really do the heavy lifting for once?”
This a joke, right?
“Among the steps the United States could take, analysts said, would be to reintroduce the sanctions it imposed on Colonel Qaddafi, starting in the 1970s, for state-sponsored terrorism,”
One hopes that they wear a back brace before they attempt a lift THAT heavy.
(Maybe they should employ a spotter).
The answer here is the same as it was in Iraq.
1)Qaddafi has sponsored terrorism against us in the past.
2)Qaddafi is a tyrant dictator who murders his own people.
3)The Libyan people have already done the “heavy lifting” in the eastern part of the nation,(like the Kurds did in the northern Iraqi No-Fly zone).
4)There is oil there.
5) No-one owes that bastard the time of day.
We could land and militarily safeguard the eastern areas liberated by the Libyan people and they could then use it as a base to take the other half.
There ain’t much TO Libya. 50 miles in from the coast is as meaningless in this context as the dark side of the moon, frankly.
Market down and I suspect since the one overarching thing the market hates is uncertainty that we will see a large correction over the next few months.
Meanwhile gold is over $1400/oz and silver over $33 headed for $34. Watch then skyrocket as the reality of the oil rich portion of the world is totally leaderless. Conversely the stock markey will become a paper wasteland.
Reports are now that libya is divided into two zone the east and the west.
Oil prices calmed down considerably when it became clear that egypt would not disrupt shipping through the suez.
For the world community the question with Libya is–will the oil continue to flow.
Pipelines are an easy target and both sides have threatened to blow them up.
Oil pipelines are an especially easy target if oil flows through both east and west libya.
Anyone know the path of the oil pipelines.
54. Andrew X
You are attempting to use “rules” that do not apply any longer. We shot down everthing they had in the Gulf od Sidra. They can’t fight with us, no way , no how.
What fish on the griddle is bigger than securing oil at a reasonable price. It’s already over $4.00/gal in CA..wait til it hit’s 6,7,8,9,10 and see how charred your fish are.
Your fighting the last war with the war before that ones dictums.
Perspicacious Wretchard: “That is really like complaining about the fly in your sorbet when a busload of zombies is charging through the door. …They cannot think past their teleprompter.”
Here is another hilarious image from Wretchard. I can just picture it in my mind, like something from Dawn of the Dead. Sorbet and zombies? Not even Groucho Marx could have thought of that combination.
An invasion of zombies would be easy to deal with in comparision. But what do you do with a national leadership comprised of clueless, short-sighted mediocrities?
58. Charles
“Oil prices calmed down considerably when it became clear that egypt would not disrupt shipping through the suez”
And which faction in Egypt made that promise and who says it doesn’t have an expiration date of tomorrow? No one there is in charge. Not the Amry, not the computer kiddies, not the man on the street who was happy yesterday but who will starve within a month.
Please tell the world who runs Egypt and for how long?
#27 Wretchard said…
The memes are all wrapped together now.
Sorry…Read what our UN ambassador and Mrs. Clinton had to say last Friday evening. Israel is an outsider and will remain such. Yes, we vetoed the Palestinian resolution… while simultaneously defaming and denigrating Israel in the most obscene manner possible.
While it is not provable, for all the internal strife, the Libyans and Egyptians would drop everything to take a shot at Israel. That meme cannot be abandoned without also abandoning the Koran and the prophet.
Keep the strife coming…Faster, please.
If we had ignored the environmentalist 20 years ago when they said “it will take 20 years to develop oil fields, it won’t solve the problem now.” we would be producing plenty of our own oil and this wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe we should look to the future and start drilling our own oil.
As for the U.N. I suspect a strongly worded letter will be forthcoming any week now.
Let the muslims kill each other. What do I care?
Assembled writers …answer one simple question.
Of all the Islamic countries that have just experienced revolutions, who is in charge? Shiite or Sunni? Mother Goose?..please tell us..the world is waiting.
“Khadafy is scum and deserves to see his regime destroyed.”
Yet you are advocating a military strike on the ONLY group that can remove him. Must be something in the koolaid.
In the real world, often there are no ‘good guys’. There are only bad guys and worse guys. So you go with the least unpleasant choice. Islam is anti-democracy. Or at least if you consider democracy to be more them one man, one vote, one time. So the ONLY possible outcome of the upheaval in the ME is the current despot being replaced by a new despot.
Will the new despot be better then the old despot? That depends. If the old despot was helping you put money in your Swiss bank, then no. If the new despot is short stroking your little sister, yes and you need to find out about Swiss bank accounts.
As far as America goes, if we keep playing policeman, then you are looking at a new generation of greedy crooks. Since they haven’t been stealing everything in sight for decades, it is certain they will be more rapacious then the last bunch of Labor thugs…whoops..greedy despots.
If it’s time to put down the badge and gun, then it matters not who the new despots are. That is between them and their swiss banker. WE can cut our militry back to a small, two Ocean Navy and a few fighter wings. NO Army, NO billion dollar bombers, no 200 million dollar stealth aircraft. No 100 BILLION dollar Carrier Battle Groups.
All the real expensive military atuff in for power projection, IE: offensive firepower. A Hi-Tech military designed to just defend Americs would cost maybe 5% of what we spend now to keep peace in the world. Fook ‘em and feed ‘em fish heads.
If the rest of the world wants peace, let them defend themselves.
Seen the news on Costa Rico?
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2011/02/19/costa_rica_loses_land_and_seeks_an_army_99405.html
It looks like they are about to pay the price for depending on the UN and an ageing, tired old cop for protection. One who is running out of bullets for his gun. A BIG part of the problem in Libya is the Navy has been cut back so far that it doesn’t have the ships to keep an eye on the Shores of Tripoli.
test.
#55 HABU and #56 Bilgeman – I disagree with your idea of a US military intervention and takeover of Libya.
We can’t pretend that it would be for the sake of the Libyan people; not when the other ‘first measures’ of sanctions haven’t been applied. It would be for the oil.
Such an action could set back the emergence of democracy in that country and elsewhere in the ME by a generation. This is a different situation from Iraq because this is post-Iraq. The notion of freedom and democracy has been planted into the ordinary people of the ME by Iraq.
That’s the reason for the current implosion of dictators in the ME…that, and that fact that the statist basic-resource economies of the ME can’t support the population explosions of the past decades. This transformation has to be allowed to happen within the control of the ME people.
The fact that Qaddafi is a vicious dictator is indisputable. The people there can take him out. The role of the US is to strongly, publicly, openly support the people. [Obama is of course utterly silent; he's waiting for The Winner]. And – to sanction the regime to strangle it economically. And increase its other sources of oil – which Obama is refusing to allow.
By the way – I see a strong similarity between Qaddafi and Obama..and Mubarak and the other dictators of the ME. Yes, Obama doesn’t, yet, turn the military on American citizens. But, he has set himself up as The Messiah. You have posters of Qaddafi everywhere – T-shirts, flags; you have Qaddafi riding triumphantly on a white horse. Heh – shades of Obama in Berlin, shades of Obama self-defining himself..er..Himself as Lincoln at his inauguration. And as Reagan now.
And, there’s Obama with his insistence that Congress, who represent The People, pass His bills without reading or debate. Simply on trust in Obama’s Wisdom and Will. Obama’s insistence that ‘the people’ don’t accept His Will because they are ignorant. How about Mubarak’s telling the Egyptian people that he is their wise ‘father’ and wants only what’s best for them and they should stand back and allow him to do that…
These pathological narcissists are all the same – whether they are called Obama, Mubarak or Qaddafi. All see themselves as Messianic Rulers of the peasantry.
The ME has no choice but to change from its old statist two-class structure and its reliance only on one commodity: oil. It cannot, economically, survive this way. And no, Islamism can’t be the next step because Islamism can’t provide a capitalist economy.
The area to watch out for Islamism is where it CAN survive, as parasitic on an already-existent capitalist economy: the West.
Oh – and what is going on in the US right now, with the states and the unions – is that the Public Service has set up a two-class political structure. The elites, who are the Public Service…who are, like the old aristocrats, landed, tenured, secure, living a lifestyle supported in total by the work of the peasant-population (private working class). The unions, a subset of this Elite Public Service, work to intimidate and threaten the peasantry into continuing to support and be subservient to: the Elite.
61. HABU
58. Charles
“Oil prices calmed down considerably when it became clear that egypt would not disrupt shipping through the suez”
And which faction in Egypt made that promise and who says it doesn’t have an expiration date of tomorrow? Not the Amry, not the computer kiddies, not the man on the street who was happy yesterday but who will starve within a month.
Please tell the world who runs Egypt and for how long?
…….
All true. There is considerable uncertainty as to the long term outlook and even the medium term outlook in Egypt. I was just talking about short term price fluctuation & short term sentiment as reflected in oil prices.
Oil prices are spiking again but not because of the suez but rather because of the pipeline in Libya.
If the pipeline in Libya flows through both the east and west sections of the country then it is relatively more vulnerable to sabotage than it would be if it only flowed through only the east or west part of Libya but not both.
If you are suggesting that the US support this (possible Islamic rebellion in Libya, then you are borrowing from the history of the US. In affect, the US would become France when it came to the aid of the struggling American revolution of 1776.
However, there is a big difference. The Founding Fathers of the US insured freedom of religion and enshrined it in the U.S. Constitution. If Islamists come to power in Libya, they will NOT do the same. Instead, we may be better off with the devil we know…
During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the US intervened and supported Islamic fundamentalists by arming them and the CIA built almost impregnable bases in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan near Pakistan as a centeral base so these Islamists could wage their holy war against the USSR.
Once the USSR was gone, whom did these Islamic fundamentalists turn the sites of their weapons on?
If Islamists come to power in any of the North African and Middle Eastern states where the revolutionary uprisings are taking place, the US will lose no matter what it does. There is one country in the Middle East that calls America the Great Satan. That’s Iran.
When the smoke clears, we may see Iran multiplied by a factor of four to six. An intervention on the side of the revolutionaries in Libya will not change the fact that the odds are against the US in the Islamic world. When G. W. Bush invaded Iraq with his lies of WMDs and botched the job, he smeared the image of the US in the Middle East for decades—maybe centuries.
The only friends the US may have in the Middle East and North Africa are the dictators. Facebook has a better image in that part of the world that Washington D.C. does.
Maybe, the president should make Mark Zuckerberg a special envoy for the US and send him there to help mend the image of the American government. Darn, that won’t work. I just remembered. Zuckerberg is Jewish.
Ironic, isn’t it?
Facebook was the tool used to fan the flames of revolution throughout North Africa and the Middle East and the founder and CEO of Facebook is Jewish.
The answer to the first question is no. There is no second question.
‘Send in the Marines!’ is so 19th century.
Send in the Droids.
Low cost, no casualties, and real-time video
of the ground truth; Nothing we do to them
could possibly be as bad as what they do
to one another.
HABU – Noted, but I am not “fighting this war, or the last one”, my point entirely. I think you are correct about Libyan hardware vs US hardware (heh), but my point stands, and may be more about the will of our National Command Authority than about hardware. If we intervene, no screwing around… we are out to kill a regime and it’s loathsome leader. In it to win it, no compromises. Good thing we have a solid Commander-in-chief in the person of George W. Bush calling the shots, hey? God forbid we were to have one with less determination and clarity of purpose in this matter.
As for that oil getting to 10 bucks a gallon, I doubt our current CinC will intervene even over that. One salutory result is that not only will it get his sorry can tossed onto the Carter heap, but it will bring candidates front and center who will finally start to make use of the multitude of energy options this continent has to offer that legions of by-then discredited idiots have spurned, opposed, and jammed up the gears to at every turn.
The latter is almost a lock, because the entire Middle East is gonna go where it’s gonna go, no matter what we do. I grant it may be simplistic thinking, but count me among the ever growing number of Americans who are fed up to the gills with the whole damn place. Those numbers are gonna be felt, like it or not.
The Libyan situation is very confusing; that is, it might have some positive reverberations but most likely not. The chances of Islamism succeeding Qaddafi, if he falls, seem real. At the same time, there are some geographic/tribal divisions as well. Most likely it will depend on whether Islam becomes the glue to bind the anti-Qaddafi factions.
The only real thing to say in favor of the Libyan situation is that it has not yet been shown to be going Egyptian. The situation in Egypt, for the West, appears pretty dire. At the same time, Tantawi seems to have not yet flowed over the dam of Islamism. But it looks like a matter of time.
ETAB:
“#55 HABU and #56 Bilgeman – I disagree with your idea of a US military intervention and takeover of Libya.
We can’t pretend that it would be for the sake of the Libyan people; not when the other ‘first measures’ of sanctions haven’t been applied. It would be for the oil. ”
Where is it written that it cannot be for both?
Seriously…why is safeguarding a vital resource of the world’s economy, and the source of future wealth for the Libyan people supposed to be some kind of shameful thing?
We NEED oil. The Libyan people will NEED money and guidance to fashion whatever government they see fit to author when the Buttplug is using a step-ladder to pick turnips.
It’s perfectly okay to use military force to obtain or secure resources, y’know. Don’t apologize for having to eat or breathe or crap…it’s part and parcel of being a human, man.
“Such an action could set back the emergence of democracy in that country and elsewhere in the ME by a generation.”
Maybe the Libyans don’t WANT democracy, but that is for them to dope out once Qaddafi’s goons stop bombing and machine-gunning them, ain’t it?
“This is a different situation from Iraq because this is post-Iraq. The notion of freedom and democracy has been planted into the ordinary people of the ME by Iraq.”
Right…and WE planted it.
So what now? We walk away and leave our garden untended?
That would be madness. The same kind of travesty that Bush 41′s abandonment of the Iraqi Kurds in the north and the Iraqi Shia in the south in their revolts of 1991 against Saddam.
We MIGHT have saved the kids of 2003-present had Bush 41 and Clinton had the balls to ignore the Saudis and Turks and green-lighted those indigenous efforts then.
I will tell you what will happen in case the US tries to so something about Ghadaffi: -the usual suspects chanting “No blood for oil” and the Europeans trying their best to backstab the eeeevil US imperialists.
“Take heart. There’s a chance.”
As the old fable goes, maybe the horse really will learn to sing.
Or as the head of United Space Alliance said in 2008, facing the shutdown of the Shuttle program and layoff of virtually his entire workforce, “Hey! There will be a new President of the country next year! They could cancel the Aries Moon program. Cheer up!”
Yes, “Cheer up!”, except that Obama cancelled Aries AND the Shuttle program.
Well, there must be a “stash” of cash somewhere that will solve all the problems. Has to be. There always has been. And if there is not, dammit, we will picket.
#64 HABU – in answer to your question – in Egypt, it’s a military junta in charge. Not a ‘tribal’ set (shi’ite or sunni). Their mandate is to act as an intermediary system to maintain stability; they’ve dissolved parliament – a corrupt legislature because no opposition parties were permitted. And the constitution – which disallowed opposition. And set up a committee for constitutional reforms to be put to a referendum. They’ve said they’ll govern for 6 months or until a new prime minister/legislation is formed. What more do you want?
In Tunisia, there’s a new government; this is probably not enough to deal with the political and economic problems..and this will take time.
The issue in the ME is not ‘religion’; it’s economic and demographic and political. The population of the ME has exploded far beyond the carrying capacity of a single-resource extraction economy, owned by the state. It requires a capitalist or private enterprise economy carried out by a middle class – which class is currently missing from the ME. And this requires democracy – which empowers the middle class.
As I said – Islamism can’t succeed in the ME because it is purely ‘virtual’; it’s magical thinking, it’s imaginary. Economically it’s parasitic and if there’s no decent economy..it can only survive as magical thinking. It cannot economically run a country. But, it can survive in the capitalist west, because the west is already capitalist– though Obama is trying to destroy this in the US. That’s why the West has to refuse multiculturalism and ‘identity privileges’ and insist on integration and acceptance of western values.
The difference between what we theoretically ought and could do and what the our hallowed Sheik of Chicago will do is too great a chasm for the mind to consider.
If we, (our government) still desired to spread Constitutional Democracy around the globe.
If we still desired to protect our allies’ oil supplies and create a stable global economic order.
If we still desired to play the World’s cop on the beat.
If we still desired to protect our interests, both home and abroad.
If we still cared about the plight of our own citizenry, much less those protesters being shot down by the Libyan Air Force.
Lot of demoralizing if only’s with Buraq in charge. The list if nearly endless.
Obama will act as if America is a third rate Banana Republic, because that is what he wants America to be.
Has anyone pointed out yet that ain’t it funny how Obama was quick to call for the ouster of an American ally in Egypt but can’t seem to bring himself to do the same for the evil dictators of Libya or Iran?
“A major part of US military strength is sequestered in Afghanistan, when even in that theater, it is Pakistan that is the center of gravity. ” – W
Touche. Obama’s handing of Afghanistan has cost him the credibility to do much for Egypt, Libya, or any other international situation. He’s in passive-hope-and-change-leadership-void mode, trying with all of his might NOT to become the next American Jimmy Carter. Hmmm … not going too well there, is it?
All Presidents have had to face “no-win” situations; it’s the nature of the job. Obama’s own poor leadership has constrained his options, and he is indecisive by nature.
Why is American so invested in Afghanistan? The US Military and intelligence agencies effectively dispensed with the 9/11 threat that the Taliban represented within about 60 days at the opening of the war. True, Al Quaida shifted it’s focus towards Pakistan and Afghanistan after losing Iraq, but they today do not represent a bigger force or threat that the established government of the Taliban in 2001.
The reason America is invested in Afghanistan to the point of risking national security (let along the lives of our best and brightest, and most courageous), is simple and clear: It’s a Presidential political prerogative. During the 2003 to 2007 period when American was at war in Iraq, when men and assets were at risk in the field, supporting America’s enemy and attacking America’s foreign and military policy was tantamount to treason. Think of America in 1941, and imagine a politician’s “political viability” for taking up the cause of Japan and Germany.
Obama opposed the war on both political, and I believe religious/cultural reasons. The only way to attack Bush on the war at a time when the nation was mostly unified (e.g. 2002-2003, prior to Kerry’s election bid), was to propose a “better policy”. Re-reading the Democrats ideas of that period, Bush was wrong on Iraq, and we should have been fighting almost anywhere else. I can’t recall which Democrat proposed this line of thinking first, but Barry picked Afghanistan. Bush was actually neglecting the war effort, said his Democrats, because he had us fighting in Iraq rather than Afghanistan.
There, that would work. That would do it, thought the Democrat’s brain trust. Now Barry and the Dems could take internal politics outside our nation’s shores, which was unprecedented, side with the enemy’s cause in Iraq, and preserve their political viability and call themselves “patriots”.
Well, eventually, the dog chasing the car caught the car, and actually had to make good on the Democrats strategic line on US defense. Iraq was won, Al Quaida was in retreat, and the war just had to shift away from Iraq and towards Afghanistan. Barry could not just call the troops home and abandon the Middle East – he needed an alternate policy. That policy was to put a few thousand troops into a relatively quiet Afghanistan for a few months, declare victory, and then go home and begin dismantling the Reagan and Bush military.
Unfortunately for Barry and his Democrats, things didn’t go that way. Pakistan heated up, Al Quaida understood the weak President they were now dealing with was no Bush, and now we’re fighting an intense civil war between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Regardless of the military situation on the ground, we are losing. Barry has ordered the military to refrain from the nasty side of warfare, i.e. no more artillery tubes, less air support, and now US soldiers and Marines are fighting early 20th century trench warfare on par with their enemy, running from trench to trench, and shooting over walls, and blind to the enemy’s movements. Now the US military is “good” because it’s fighting the Democrat way, taking unnecessary casualties, progress is at a stalemate, and America looks weak enough that a “negotiated peace” is thinkable (e.g. think Vietnam, 1974).
There’s a problem with Barry’s “peace through weakness” defense strategy; the “bad guys” play by the rules of reality. The bad guys fire on their own people with machine guns and bomb them with jets (as Saddam Hussein also did). The bad guys around the world have taken their measure of Obama and Hillary, and they have been found “wanting”.
So, absent American influence and credibility, chaos swirls in the void. But that’s “good”, in the eyes of the Democrat left. Self-determination and all that stuff, right? And, American definitely loses in these events in the Middle East and N. Africa, so this is obviously good, right?
So, folks, how do you think the conversations are going over at State and the White House “war room” (“Peace room”??)? Do you think that the primary consideration is the lives of the poor Egyptians and Libyans, the prospect for freedom and democracy in those countries, and possibly the impact to the US economy if oil prices spike? Because if those were the primary concerns, then Barry has many practical, useful options at his disposal. True, because the USA is over-committed to a useless war in Afghanistan, and due to Obama’s overall feckless leadership, all options are more expensive and contain more risk, but the decisions are not difficult.
All Obama needs to do is (a) take a major turn right on energy production from nuclear, domestic oil (off/on short), related domestic petroleum sources (liquefied coal, etc.), and oil speculation that is currently driving prices upwards becomes speculation that drives oil prices downwards. (Note: The very day that Bush signed an executive order opening BLM lands to mineral and oil exploration, and expanding domestic oil leases, the prices of crude oil and gas crested in – say 2006 or 2007 – can’t recall the timeline).
All Obama needs to do regarding the “democracy fires” in the Middle East is state an American position on freedom and democracy, that America is FOR Jeffersonian Democracy and law derived from English common law (e.g. like the USA), and AGAINST any form of Sharia law. Declare a “Universal Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights” that the USA promotes for all and any nations world wide. Declare that US policy in the Middle East and elsewhere will henceforth be American-Centric, i.e. puts American Sovereign interests first, and secondarily, consistent the Universal Declaration above.
What difference will that make on the ground in Libya? Perhaps, not much immediately. However, every successive action would be measured by US consistency to it’s own principles. Without apology, we could then intervene in Libya, and even set up a pro-democratic government, or not. Or, we could simply bomb the Somalian coast to arrest the Pirate problem. We could chose to intervene in Georgia. We could chose at WHAT LEVEL to intervene anywhere, without apology for covert activity.
Regardless, both our friends and enemies would know what they were dealing with, and who they were dealing with. They’d know where the “edge” is when pushing the envelope. Certainly, Obama would be tested, but a consistent response and approach would win out.
Oh, and yes, we could substantially DOWNSIZE in Afghanistan, and get American out of the “nation building” business, and into the “defend and promote USA” business again.
However, the White House conversations are not about any of these things. The Obama Democrats know that the 2012 Presidential campaign will feature comparisons between him and Carter, and that those comparisons will resonate with the electorate after “losing” a half dozen Arab countries to Islamic fanatics. The Middle East is burning, oil prices are spiking, the Obama Presidency is cooked, and there’s little he can do about it at this point.
Old Salt
My understanding is that Libyan oil mostly located in the section of the country that rebelled against Quadaffi. Last week, before that section broke off –threats were issued by tribes from that section that they might blow up the pipeline.
After Libya broke up Quadaffi threatened to blow up the pipeline–suggesting that he had lost control of the pipeline to the coast.
From The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room
Link:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/145627-dem-lawmaker-on-labor-protests-get-a-little-bloody-when-necessary
Here’s the key portion of the article published today (02/23/11) under the byline of Michael O’Brien:
Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) fired up a group of union members in Boston with a speech urging them to work down in the trenches to fend off limits to workers’ rights like those proposed in Wisconsin.
“I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going,” Capuano said, according to the Dorchester Reporter. “Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”
There is ONE SIDE in today’s culture that repeatedly claims to be devoid of violence, bigotry, and sin. They are LIARS.
The proper immediate response is dictated by the “when my enemies are destroying themselves..” rule. (Here Obama’s cluelessness is a help, because doing anything would be worse than doing nothing.)
Our allies (europe) will suffer….what it means when we sit this one out: might be a learning experience; in the mean time we could sell them some hi speed rail… or ethanol.
Libya could smoulder like a new “palestine” with a low grade long term civil war. Lets all deplore it! Strongly!
Islamist (religious) vs tribal authoritarian: an old split in Arab history,(Anbar tribes vs AQ) and Egypt is similarly riven: brotherhood vs military. I don’t think the prelim bout card is even fully filled out yet.
Let’s see the Arab world struggle with self-determination for a change.
(Orwell on ME future “Imagine an Arab shooting himself in the foot …forever.”)
Let the islamist roil themselves into a big brave wave and dash themselves against the Israeli military.
Too long has the enabling tolerance of Western policy makers kept the careening car of Arab dysfunction from finding its predestined wall.
W: “That is really like complaining about the fly in your sorbet when a busload of zombies is charging through the door.”
Sounds like channeling Alanis Morissette in Ironic.
Although the message is different.
#74 bilgeman – I continue to disagree. It is not up to the US to ‘safeguard’ a resource by moving in and taking over a country.
Apart from the fact that the current ‘president’ of the US refuses to allow access to other sources of oil internally …this type of imperialist take-over might have been constructive a generation ago. But not now. The people in the ME are not the rural, peasant-economy and out-of-touch mindset as they were 60 years ago. They are urban, they are in constant electronic communication with the world. They see what’s going on elsewhere; they don’t just tend their chickens and goats in their villages. It’s a DIFFERENT POPULATION! This is an informationally empowered population – and it’s a completely different mindset and requires different tactics than a generation ago.
They would turn against the US as the New Power in their Nation rather than focusing on, themselves, being The Power in their own nation.
Iraq was a one-time scenario, to take out ONE dictatorship in the ME, and then, assist them to set up a democratic infrastructure and then, sit back and let them work out the kinks (and this takes a lot of time and they must be left to work it out themselves). Then you allow a domino spread to other peoples. This is how it’s done in the modern era of electronic communication. You spread the changes, not via a top-down authoritarian military take-over, but via a grassroots, on the ground, population diffusion of ideas. You enable the people to operate as a ‘communication network’..
Agreed – the Libyan people need to sell their oil. That’s why Qaddafi’s suggestion that he’ll blow the wells is narcissistic stupidity. How’s he going to feed the people if he retains power – without oil to sell?
No, it isn’t perfectly OK to use military force to secure resources. That’s like the gunman who tells you that it’s ‘perfectly OK for him to use force to rob you..because he needs the money’.
And democracy isn’t a choice. It’s a necessity within a particular size of population. If your population has increased beyond the carrying capacity of a one-resource statist economy (where the state owns the resource, sells it, and redistributes some of the proceeds to the people).. then, you have to move into an economy that enables a middle class. These are the people to set up private small and medium businesses. To manufacture and sell goods and services privately.
This is a capitalist economy. A capitalist economy requires a political system that empowers this middle class – that’s democracy. No choice. All political systems must empower the class that is economically productive.
77. ETAB
Your right …today, but by the dawns early light over there another coalition government might well be in power. The MB is powering up and you can bet a dozen more factions want a seat at the table…nothing is written. Not in any country over there that you can name.
For God knows how many times I’ve said this today REVOLUTIONS take a long time to work out. Please pick a revolution and show me where it was resolved in a week, or a month, or a year?
I can’t believe how naive so many of you are to think that this Crescent Revolution is going to be over like day after tomorrow and that the people who are in charge today will be the people who are in charge when all is said and done…which over there is never.
ETAB, this is what is known as the long haul.
Also
“As I said – Islamism can’t succeed in the ME because it is purely ‘virtual’; it’s magical thinking, it’s imaginary. Economically it’s parasitic and if there’s no decent economy..it can only survive as magical thinking. It cannot economically run a country”
Yeah , sure.
h @ 64: Of all the Islamic countries that have just experienced revolutions, who is in charge? Shiite or Sunni? Mother Goose?..please tell us..the world is waiting.
Channeling Col. Jessup?
I think Facebook is in charge. Haven’t you heard, we are all self-organizing democratized masses, the millenium has come. At least that’s how the management at Megabank thought that their worker issues should now be handled, and maybe that’s what our experts in Washington are thinking too. No *individual* is in charge, nobody would be that arrogant. Of course Allah is in charge, but Facebook immanents the eschaton, vox populi rules us on terrestrial matters.
How’s he going to feed the people….?
Um, something—I can’t quite put my finger on it—tells me that the welfare of “the people” isn’t exactly the number one priority here.
“Imagine an Arab shooting himself in the foot …forever.”
ROTFLMAO!
Brilliant.
What is the US to do about Libya?
Consider that as of today Iran has more surface warships in the Med than the US Navy. If accounts I’ve seen are correct the USN has one destroyer in the Med. There will not be any no-fly zones.
The US is not going to “do” anything about Libya. Nor should we. Libya is small potatoes at a huge cost of intervention. If we want to play empire then let’s go Roman on Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Of course, that’s not going to happen either.
It’s starting to look like the Arab Awakening may turn out to have been a vigorous lurch for the sleep button. The underlying problems are not going away so the greatest long term threat to the West – massive migration into Europe – remains. I hope that we see lots of Spanish and Italian frigates patrolling the coast of Africa.
What a time in the history of the world to have such a completly useless and incompetent tit in the White House. The Western world will pay for this grandstanding bozo for decades to come. Watch for him to jump into the fray and do something totally stupid trying to prove to the world he is a “leader”. You just get that funny feeling his next move will be a disaster that we will all pay for as well as our grand children. Bloody fool.
As Ghaddafi sinks into the sands our alleged leader stands on the sidelines, wringing his hands and soiling his diapers.
Those who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the evidence of tens of thousands of years of human history will deny the wisdom of Habu’s observations.
The fate of Libyan oil fields will be markedly infelicitous if we do nothing to prevent their being seized by others whose motives and methods are less benign than our own.
I want to say one other thing and then I’m out, because some of you have your heads up your asses and there’s no redeeming quality to saving you.
I saw this happen in Saigon and it will sure as hell happen in the Islamic countries.
ALL of the networks will try to establish contacts. Now their “contacts” are THE contacts to listen to, kinda like Sandmonkey. Each network and internet site , twitter etc will be putting out THE WORD and in reality few if any will know shit about what is going on behind the doors with the negotitating factions…and there will be factions, each wanting their way, and with muzzies that’s a huge cluster fu*k.
So repeating who has the inside track, who is on top, who is doing what and not doing what is like the house of mirrors at the carnival.
Get it in your heads that right now the word “flux” doesn’t even touch what is happening. I saw it happen in the closing months in Saigon…so and so is going to do this and that and ole what’s his name is taking power and talking directly to the corpse of Uncle Ho.
This isn’t going to shake out for quite a while and I suspect ETAB and his Magical Mystery Tour will shutter to a stop when gas goes through the roof and the stores have half the food they now have…right here in the good ole USA…
Now I’ll leave you bigger brains to figure out whose on top….today.
ETAB:
“Apart from the fact that the current ‘president’ of the US refuses to allow access to other sources of oil internally …this type of imperialist take-over might have been constructive a generation ago. ”
Right about now, I’d opine that the Libyan protestors in Benghazi and Tobruk would like nothing better than a touch of old-school imperialism to protect them from their native tyrant’s loyalists and mercenaries.
Maybe that’s just me, but it seems that when you are getting machine-gunned, you might not be particular about who it is that shows up and makes the shooting stop.
“The people in the ME are not the rural, peasant-economy and out-of-touch mindset as they were 60 years ago. They are urban, they are in constant electronic communication with the world. They see what’s going on elsewhere; they don’t just tend their chickens and goats in their villages. It’s a DIFFERENT POPULATION! This is an informationally empowered population – and it’s a completely different mindset and requires different tactics than a generation ago.”
Odd that you should argue that point without also granting that the new Arab/Bedouin/Muslim/what-have-you hasn’t ALSO grokked to the fact, via the very same mechanism that the US has basically left Iraq to sort out its own handbasket o’ troubles.
BTW, I lived in Tunisia for a few years…25 years ago, (thanks for forcing me to realize that I’m getting older), so while no expert on Tunisians or Libyans, (and during the late 70′s, most Tunisians who couldn’t become scullery-workers in France wanted to BE Libyans…that was how FUBAR the late 1970′s in North Africa was for ya), I’m a smidgen more familiar with those cats than many of the other interlocutors here.
“They would turn against the US as the New Power in their Nation rather than focusing on, themselves, being The Power in their own nation.”
That might be the case if we occupy it long-term, but a short sharp “hard-power” smack-down on Qaddafi et al, followed by a long-term “soft-power” commitment might just do the trick.
From where we sit, as long as they keep the oil flowing, don’t threaten us, and keep their affairs within hailing distance of some semblance of order.
“You spread the changes, not via a top-down authoritarian military take-over, but via a grassroots, on the ground, population diffusion of ideas. You enable the people to operate as a ‘communication network’..”
I like the poetic romance of responding to machine-gun fire by Twittering, but let’s be blunt here…if push came to shove, I’d take the machine-gun over the smart-phone every single time.
The point is that we authored the grass-roots thing, and the folks responded. So do we act like parlor pinks and refuse to protect our ideological children when they try to accomplish what we have urged them to do?
Thanks to our Undocumented President, we are already perceived as weak by too many people.
“No, it isn’t perfectly OK to use military force to secure resources. That’s like the gunman who tells you that it’s ‘perfectly OK for him to use force to rob you..because he needs the money’. ”
You mistake Commerce for Robbery. There IS a difference, you know.
It’s not like we are unwilling to BUY their oil. And it’s not like libyans aren’t willing to SELL their oil.
Qaddafi is the evil clown who is standing in the way of the transaction.
And frankly, he was saved by the transposition of a 4th place decimal point in a USAF bombardiers’ computer back in 1986…so he’s had 25 years of an undeserved and unasked-for encore for his tedious and shopworn “Islamic Desert Bedouin Warrior” shtik.
NO time to adequately source this, so here goes . . .
Rome was undermined from within by a variety of policies which severely weakened her ability to cohere as a unified polity. The proximate cause of her demise was the tide of northern barbarians pushed south by hunger. For Europe this time is different: the barbarians are coming from the south.
Europe’s problem is not an American fight. America has her own fight: to recognize and extirpate the cancer within. Until that is done all else is a waste of resources. Fortunately we still have a chance.
The threat to our southern border is not nearly as severe as is Europe’s. The Socialist cancer is not as advanced here as it is in Europe. The cancer’s cover is being pulled and the populace is beginning to recognize it for what it is.
Even if that process of recognition, excision and reform were to advance in all haste on all fronts it would take a generation at least to sufficiently heal and unify the American people. Until that happens there is not much the US can, or should try to do about salvaging other people’s chestnuts. At best we can only hope to lend support and encouragement to our allies in the Anglosphere, S. Korea and Japan; hold our most immediately dangerous foes at bay: China, the resurgent USSR; create and sustain a buffer state in Mexico.
Yipes! Time! No edits, please excuse.
Libya is small potatoes compared to Iranian control of the Suez Canal.
The mullahs know BHO hasn’t the brains, balls, character or insight to deal.
Or else they have an even better reason not to worry. They know whose side he’s on.
Secure your Lines of Communication (LOC)s or in laymen’s terms: Logistics, and all that entails. Get the oil, stabilize the West, and look to the future.
We ain’t gonna do that. We are going to diddle around, as this is a different type of confrontation and the hand-wringers need to wring some more
What all of these gov’ts (and yes that includes the complete laundry list, if you can name a gov’t it’s on the list, and throw in the MSM, talking heads, armchair generals, and Doctors in Wisconsin for that matter) have failed to realize is the compression of the OODA cycle.
Gov’t acts: it is filmed, uploaded and You Tubed in seconds. The on-scene commanders lack the authority, latitude, and weapons (read personal technology) to counteract. By the time the eggheads have met in DC the original event has cascaded through countless iterations across the net and in the street. It is an Army of Davids and an army that is leaderless.
Habu is correct, the MB and their like are saving their powder and letting the fight be fought for them –they will sweep in and they will be ruthless. These groups waiting in the wings are not looking to make the grand escape with a fat Swiss bank account in the wings, they lust for power and will not hesitate to use it to force their will upon the public revolutionaries –who pretty much agree with their platform in spirit, just as long is it is the next guy. By the time they realize that it is themselves that is just not pure enough, it will be too late.
I’ve had a second row seat watching this playout from the ops center I’m working in, a glorious end of history part deux except it isn’t 1989, and it doesn’t rhyme with it either. It rhymes with 1917 ala Russia. The West will play ball just to keep the oil teet leaking and they know it. Our guilt besmirched political class making-up for colonialism, and imperialism and whatever “ism” they will fill-in the blank with in order to feel superior.
We will bankroll and provide the very knife which will slit our throats.
Yes the band played-on, and the deckchairs were laid out in shipshape, Bristol fashion to give a sense of calm to masses as the frigid rising water licked against their feet and the lifeboats, some half-full, passed into the night.
“The issue in the ME is not ‘religion’; it’s economic and demographic and political.”
The BIG lie. Islam IS economic and demographic and political. Liberals think the whole world is secular because they are. Shira covers economics. Islam’s demographics consist of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Politics is governed by the Quran. EVERY political decision has it’s roots in a book almost 1400 years old. NO tweets in the Quran.
Then again, maybe you know that, since you contradict yourself;
“As I said – Islamism can’t succeed in the ME because it is purely ‘virtual’; it’s magical thinking, it’s imaginary.”
So which is it? Or do you not see the contradiction?
You seem reasonable, in a bobble-headed sort of way. So I’m working to see your point. I just need a little help here. A word or two to clear away the confusion.
I see Islam as evil. Something to be exterminated before it destroys all that is good about humanity. My theory is those that don’t listen to the sweet song of evil instead of watching what evil does.
Team 44 doesnt want to be seen coming down on the wrong side of some brotherhood and well-off-shore oil reserves. They will wait until a strong horse emerges and jump on it with all the reverence of a campaign donor accepting an Obamacare waiver. I suspect.
#95
Greed trumps ideology – everyday.
The Egyptian military grand phoobas live a good life. They are not going to give that up so some mad mullah/imam can make his Mohammedan bones. Crowds in the street with access to weapons shouting death to Israel can turn just as quickly against the less than pious generals. They know that well.
The passage of Iranian warships through the Suez for the first time in decades suggests to me that the Egyptian military has made its deal with the MB, and will be looser about what happens in the Sinai or about what goes into Gaza.
I don’t see the MB having any control of military assets absent a real coup by the junior officers and substantial numbers of the rank and file. That is the knife at the throat of the top brass, if it’s there at all. I don’t know.
The US has leverage with the Egyptian military. Just turning off the supply of spare parts and technical training/manuals would cripple Egypt’s military effectiveness in a relatively short time. My guess is that keeping the M1A1s running is more important. The generals become dead meat to the MB if the tanks can’t move.
LL @ 69: Facebook was the tool used to fan the flames of revolution throughout North Africa and the Middle East and the founder and CEO of Facebook is Jewish.
Well they tried Burqabook but all the pages were black.
#93 Bilgeman – nope, using force to make someone to hand over a resource to you isn’t an act of commerce. It’s extortion.
Even if you pay for it, it’s no different from the gunman robbing you because ‘he needs your resources’. After all, public service unions do the same thing; they use force – denial of essential services – in order to force you, the taxpayer, to give them and their elite ‘landowners’ more and more and more…
All the references to 1917 and 1960 and 1980 …are not the point. It’s a different era now, and you don’t use the same tactics.
#97 stoicheion – I don’t think you understand my terms of: economic, demographic and political.
Demographics doesn’t mean: us versus them. Demographics refers to the size and location of a population. In the ME, the population size has exploded in the past decades far beyond the carrying capacity of a single raw-resource economy. And, it has urbanized, making that population dependent on food and goods and services that must be purchased in a market economy.
Politically, the ME has operated as a two-class infrastructure with an elite set of Rulers…and the Ruled. There was no middle class of free individual entrepreneurs.
Economically, the ME has operated as a statist socialist system where the state owns the economic power of production of goods and services. In the ME, it has owned ONE resource (oil, tolls from the Suez Canal) and redistributed the money to the non-producing economic sector: the majority of the population.
The problem is that the population has exceeded the income from these state-owned economic resources!
This size population requires a private sector economy, based around small and medium businesses: a middle class economy. Politically, these States have forbidden such an economy and freedom.
Islam is indeed a political and economic system – and it is two-class, with leaders and followers. BUT, economically, it is non-industrial, operative only within a sustenance, local horticultural and pastoral economy. It is also only viable in medium size populations. It cannot support populations in the millions – because such sizes REQUIRE a middle class free market economy. And Islam rejects individualism, rejects freedom.
So- Islam, as an ideology, cannot support a large population industrial economy.
Look at you people…Don’t you realize this screws Bill Clinton out of probably millions of dollars in speaking fees in the precious ME? [irony alsert!]
oops!. should have put that at the beginnning…
Khadafi ordered Lockerbie mass murder
Why is this man still alive? Please, do NOT answer Obama, his eighth president.
Re: Google founders and Judaism
DNA and daven have only a “d” in common.
‘U.S. intervention. Can it? Should it?’
Yes it can. No it shouldn’t (IMO). Libya is an enemy and we want it to fail. Stand back and let them fail.
Just maybe, Libya cratering will stop the US persisting in its insane self-sabotage of domestic oil production. Just maybe the US will increase exploration and production of energy from hydrocarbons.
This ME turmoil is just one more chapter in the ME handbook of how to be a failed state. The 1848 revolutions fizzled out in Europe after a few years, but the driving sentiments bubbled away under the surface. The Germans who tried to create a unified country in 1848, eventually did so in 1899. The countries that, in 1848, tried to break free from the Hapsburg Empire eventually did so in 1919.
Stand back until the Libyan bar fight is over, then help them. Confront Islamism and subvert their culture with our culture and our values. The goal is to fundamentally change their culture. The goal is to supplant their values with ours. Based on the 1848 disturbances, it will take only about 50-70 years. Habu is right about the time frame.
“The Obama administration did not outline any specific steps to coerce or punish the Libyan regime, with which the U.S. has built a wary partnership after years of branding Gadhafi a terrorist sponsor. After decades of hostility, the U.S. and Libya normalized ties during President George W. Bush’s presidency after Gadhafi renounced terrorism and weapons of mass destruction but relations have been far from fully cordial”
Is there a symbol for “to wretch”… :-O<
How does one “normalize” ties with the psychopathic murderer of hundreds of American college kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!… … …(good air in, bad air out) … … Yes, that is much better…Ah, where was I, again?
While I generally accept Napoleon’s axiom addressing stupidity and malice, when there are no exceptions, one is left with “stupidly malicious”… I’m thinking Captain Hook, here.
It is a rare sight to see so much contiguous territory on the ‘market’ at the same moment. Will the MB/AQ/islamists now abandon the ‘distant enemy’ [ie the US and the west] and turn once again on the ‘near enemy’ viz. those muslim states previously dictator-controlled? That after all was the original al-Zawahiri plan. It must be a compelling attraction, despite the fact that previous attempts to topple Sadats’ Egypt and in eg Algeria were such total failures, the Egyptians did not rise at that time and the Algerian attempt ended in a bloodbath.
In revoultions it is the best organised who get power and the best organised are the MB and Iran, although the latter up to their necks in Bahrain, there is the oppurtunity for a territorial putsch far greater than the Anschluss.
Is everyone standing back to see what a Caliphate might look like? Although Suez is obsolete, Oil is obviously one issue, but also important are the soverign debt portfolios of oil-wealthy nations – the west needs their cash?
Kudos Josh.
” Well they tried Burqabook but all the pages were black. ”
I hope somebody tweets the heck out of that.
Count me in as a non-interventionist, neo-isolationist. At least I am an isolationist as far as ME Oil is concerned. I am unpersuaded by economic arguments about how important ME oil is. I understand that when oil was first discovered in the ME it was a boon for western civilization, as the Arabs could pump it out of the ground for $5 a barrel (actually Evil Western Oil Companies pumped out of the ground for them), and then they sell it to us for $10 a barrel. They get fabulous wealth, compared to their days riding camels and sleeping under the desert stars, while we get a nearly inexhaustible supply of liquid energy which makes the world go round. It was in the beginning a win-win for everyone. But over the past 50 years at least, the Arabs use oil as a weapon to destroy us, and we finance our own destruction by buying from them, so they can fund more terrorism and radical mosques. Let’s get off this train. In the case of ME Oil, strategic and military security considerations trump economic considerations.
Draw a circle around North America. Declare a economic exclusion zone for all forms of fossil fuels from outside the circle. Allow a free market for oil that originates from within our North American sphere. Unleash all technologies and remove all restrictions as to where we drill for oil within this circle.
Do not invade Libya. Stay out of that snake pit. Have you ever been around a fire ant nest? Have you ever stirred up the mound with a stick, and then stood too close, while dozens of enraged ants crawl up your leg and sting and sting and sting? You won’t do it twice. Well, Libya (and the whole filthy Middle East) is a fire ant nest.
Oh, and let’s stop letting fire ants immigrate into our country.
It is a matter of absolute national security that we get off ME Oil once and for all. So, to this end, it will be a good thing if gasoline goes to $10/gallon. Face it, its going to anyway.
We will always be a day late and a dollar short with this admin. We need a leader that thinks like a general, understands strategy and tactics, supply chain,logistics, weaknesses and strengths. We are in global economic war if not a hot war pretty much everywhere. And this admin just circles the wagons and waits (or party’s) and bemoans what we should be doing about the weather. Great comments here as usual BTW.
105. allen
Is there a symbol for “to wretch”… :-O<
On this board I believe that would be a cat… /g
However, since I believe you meant the term “to retch”, the symbol for that could simply be an “O” – for Obama, aka “Teh Won”…
…could be
Fatah calls for a boycott of USA
I hope the community organ grinder, err sorry, organizer will join me in wishing Fatah good luck as it begins its journey into short-lived autonomy.
One can almost picture a cloying Tony Blair in an alley in Gaza behind a dumpster (if such were to be found) croaking hoarsely to Abbas, “Baby, please, please come back.”
And after all their ministrations, UN Ambassador Rice and Secretary (that does have a nice ring in the lower case) Clinton have only mussed makeup to show for the nasal procto-probing.
I agree with Beck.
We should be drilling for oil, now, everywhere we think there is a drop of oil.
And build 300 nuclear power plants in the next 12 months.
THAT would be a “stimulus”.
And would protect the Country from the consequences of a revolution that is going to touch all the North Africa, the Middle East, Center Asia.
The silence of Obama on the massacres in Libya is a shame. A shame.
43. downtowndubai
wake up, the neocons don’t hold MSM rumoring power anymore
Khadafi was one of the main reasons of Obama to win his Election with more than 300 million donation sent to him from AL-Khadafi, THIS IS why Obama is trying whatever, he can even to say a word against him, how the boy can attack his maker, and many in labia believe that Obama got his school fees paid by AL-Khadafi, long before he is in the theater of politics, so if Obama tries to do something, it has to be in a way to help AL-Khadafi, not as most of the naive American think.
83Note Obama was like a mad dog over Egypt’s president when he was our man !,but he said no word against AL-Khadafi.
43. downtowndubai
how many of the kind of offices that work with rogues states do you have in Dubai?
“Many German firms are circumventing UN and EU sanctions – as well as domestic export control regulations – by shipping military equipment and so-called “dual-use” technology to countries such as Russia and the Dubai free trade zone.”
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=166932
Wretchard said:
Yes, they though that the Cars song “Let the good times roll” meant the good times would go on for ever …
It seems that it is time to pay the piper. I hope that the butcher’s bill is not too high, because that is what it is going to require.
i wonder what the benefit is for any countries to intervene if the US does not.
Obama’s response to the current crises at home and abroad has crystalized and found its voice, for today he’s bravely announced that he’s lost confidence in the Defense of Marriage Act.
You can’t make this stuff up.
99. Peter Boston
#95
Greed trumps ideology – everyday.
The generals become dead meat to the MB if the tanks can’t move.
……….
Therefor the likelihood is the egyptian military will do the same thing that the Iranians did 40 years–switch suppliers–even if they don’t embrace the MB.
This will take place gradually. Obvious beneficiaries would be Russia & China–but mostly Russia.
Proper Russian nationalists need to explain to their checka oilcrat brethern in Russia that wisest move the Europeans and the Chinese could do….– is do everything they can to become energy independent in the next ten years. That the USA will become energy independent in the next ten years. That the pain and regret of not doing so years ago–motivates everyone.
This is as obvious and incontestable as the wisdom of Russia diversifying their economy away from oil by investing the surplus oil profits in Russian companies that will give russia a more diverse economy– so that when the next down turn in oil prices comes–because of incontestable laws of supply & demand — Russia will be cushioned.
This will be very hard to do because right now oil beautifies Russia’s fat boys. Current events that leave Russia sitting pretty is a medusa. It will turn the oil mafia in russia to stone. Putin is perfected and by no hand of his own. He is bronzed.
So Medvenev’s murmurs about diversification remain Potemkin villages.
Why because most people can be motivated to change by pain. But forsight? Not usually. This is as hard to see as the direction of oil prices in 1998 when Clinton abolished algae oil research because oil was at $15 a barrel and empowered HUD to force american banks to give home loans to people who could not afford them and Mexican newspapers screamed “free houses” above the rio grande.
People are amazed that democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo is talking such a great game about cutting government in New York. What’s mostly forgotten is that he was guy at HUD that forced the banks to make the bad loans. Just as democrat Governor Jerry Brown 25 years ago was the guy who gave who gave the unions collective bargaining rights in California–thereby enabling them to bankrupt that state. Its unknown how he will perform.
75 JFM, then you’re telling that the queen of England will renounce to her sharing within BP ?
bl@45: the time line of global food shortages as related to increased ethanol usage in USA
Very very briefly, the biofuels R&D is in high gear (don’t blink) – and getting results (commercial scale plants under construction.) Whatever role was – or is being – played by ADM should probably be reconsidered.
Cracking the Lignin Problem
Using Swedish Cactus
There’s much much more happening in this rapidly moving field. Very compressed time line.
#92 Habu
If I may offer a thought. You are less than pleased at a number of people who disagree with your interpretation of events. You will note that I agree with you, and think that 1848 redux understates the scope of what is in progress. We are watching the beginning of a process that has to work through. Given that there are really no good guys [or anyone who even has a concept of anything we would consider to be a good guy] in the mix, the end state is going to inevitably mean that those in charge are going to be a) nasty, and b) enemies of this country. I see this more likely [my crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else's] ending as a rehash of the original Jihad that spread Islam compressed from 140 years [AD 610-750] to probably less than a decade. It is going to be a nasty ride. Somewhere, in there will be a second wave against us Infidels. An even nastier ride. Being European is not going to be fun right smartly.
Since I am in agreement, I did not write on the wider issue. I suspect that there are more than a few BC-ers who are in the same boat. Just saying that it is counterproductive to get upset. All of us put our viewpoints out here. Some are accepted, some are not. None of us is responsible for those who choose not to listen to us.
Pax vobiscum, et cum Spiritu Tuo
Subotai Bahadur
Ohio Braces for Oil Shale Boom
by Ryan Dezember
|
Dow Jones Newswires
|
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
http://rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=104419
27 Wretchard: “and the Atlantic Wire later revealed that the parking meters were actually bought by Abu Dhabi, proving, if proof were needed, that the Middle East and the Middle West are not that far apart.”
Kool. Now lets change the “No Parking” signs to allow free 24X7 parking…
Heh.
Hey, wanna buy a bridge?
tw
Christian 114,
If Qaddafi falls and his files get opened up Stasi style and proof is found of what you charge then it may possibly get enough traction as a story to make a difference, but I would not bet on it. For the record I absolutely do not believe that a C-5 was spotted airdropping paper shredders on Tripoli.
Now has anyone ever seen Qaddafi and Gene Simmons of Kiss in the same room?
This may prove that I need a rest but Habu is making sense. Just because it is irrational for people not to be peaceful and sell us oil, given that they are numerous and starving, is not reason for us to have an irrational belief that they will act contrary to 1400 years of experience. The oil is valuable and almost unprotected in a thinly populated region. The people there have no ironclad moral claim being devoted to theft and treachery and conquest. We can take the oil fields and devote 10% of the income to educating and building infrastructure in the surrounding area. That is a far better deal than they have or would get from anyone else. We would then be in the happy position with Europe’s energy needs that Russia is today, and we are far nicer.
C@123: Ohio Braces for Oil Shale Boom
Wonder what USGS estimates are?
(To balance the RigZone reporting.)
Nothing like ME upset to drive development of domestic resources.
#122. Subotai Bahadur
I see this more likely…ending as a rehash of the original Jihad that spread Islam compressed from 140 years [AD 610-750] to probably less than a decade.
I think that Islam runs neck and neck with Marxism as the most destructive ideologies in the human experience but your rehashed jihad scenario of military conquest is not even remotely likely. Round 1 and 2 of US military vs. Iraq is convincing evidence. And that’s with the US operating on a Leviathan setting of medium. We could have made it much worse.
Soft jihad is a much greater threat to Western Civ, especially in Europe. Incredibly (to me at least) is that this threat is self-inflicted and voluntary. The flip side is that all it would take in Europe to completely expurgate the Islamist threat is a change in attitude of European political leadership. The recent public statements that multiculturalism has failed may mean that the tide has begun to shift. We shall see.
I am trying mightily to understand how truth and reality have left the Capitols and faculty rooms across the Western world. It will come back – someday. Maybe Islam will be the provocateur.
126. YBR
The USGS is behind the curve. Their estimates tend to be conservative. For example in 2008 they upgraded the Bakkan fields recoverable oil estimates by 2,400%to about 4+ billion barrels. But early this year industry estimates say new drilling methods will place Bakkan recoverable deposits in the 24 billion barrel range.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/562553/201102081930/All-Hail-US-Shale-Bakken-Oil-Output-Booming.aspx
I’m inclined to believe this because recoverable natural gas supplies started doing this stupendous ascent 2-3 years ago as fracking was applied to more & more fields. Its only in the last year that the same methods have been applied to oil. The result has been a broad upsurge in recoverable oil estimates. Its likely too that the big upgrade in oil reserves comes as a result of high oil prices. Higher oil prices make more expensive wells–ie lower flow rate– available for drilling. And not just higher oil prices but also higher assured oil prices (assured for the next 5-10 years before rising supply takes over)and low natural gas prices.
Demographics drives all.
Russia’s demographics are lousy. So lousy that she’s re-importing ex-Russians back from the near-abroad.
That trend will quicken.
As for the ummah: Malthus is their prophet.
Fracking into French, German and Polish shales is ruinous to the muslim-Moscow axis.
Fracking/ intelligent whipstocking will soon take off in Red China, and Russia.
Netting all of these trends out: peak ummah is at hand.
The first stage is a firestorm of rage against the ‘now.’ The muslim brotherhood will drive events into the distant past. What suffering occurs — and it will be staggering — will be blamed on a lack of ‘islamic piety.’
At some point a pandemic must break out. Once it gets rolling fatalities will eclipse WWII horrors. It will trigger a wholesale revulsion of muslim immigration at all points of the compass.
The real reason for Gulf oil decline will be the ex-patriate Smart Fraction ™ exodus triggered by muslim brotherhood policies/ terror.
Dubai will go the way of Beirut: from beauty to war-prize.
—–
The ummah is going from an essential 1st world interest to irrelevancy at a frightening tempo. Once this evolution is complete the ummah will be entirely bankrupted of political capital.
The collapse of hyper-populations is a reverse exponential if not a pure cliff function. In that it tracks the collapse of despotic power. Everything looks kosher until the dam breaks.
—–
The pronouncements from Tripoli are so bizarre that they demoralize regime stalwarts entirely. The last I looked, Daffy has lost his entire diplomatic arm and 8 out of 9 troopers in the ranks. The Duck of Death has to bomb Libyan depots — he fears them so.
The rumor mill is now circulating terrible stats: 10,000 dead and five times that wounded. The bulk of these — apparently — inflicted by the LAF.
Oil exports are collapsing — one must figure that Daffy is on the horn to his banker rather constantly. Unlike Mubarak the Duck of Death figures to have real money across the water.
Daffy has resolve along the lines of il Duce. Hence, the time is nigh for his prostitutes to hit the road.
——
It note that the Greens are caterwauling that fracking is ruining ground waters.
That’s some doing since the pay zone is thousands of feet deeper than any ground water.
I think we should stay out. Perhaps the Italians, who have some historic interest in the place, can send one of their carriers to enforce a no fly zone
#127 Peter Boston
Probably I was not clear. I was thinking of the Jihad redux being a fundamentalist reconquest of the Ummah in the Middle East and North Africa into one entity. A Caliphate for lack of a better term. US military power, even aside from the fact that the current regime will not use it in United States’ interest, ever; is not going to be a factor in that. We are not going to intervene in that theater. Sorry for any confusion.
Part Two is going to be a combination of economic warfare against the West, physical warfare against Israel at some point, and demographic warfare against Europe. They already have a bridgehead there. We see the beginnings of waves of “refugees” from the unpleasantness in North Africa starting to hit Europe, via Italy. These are not going to be devotees of Hobbes, Locke, or Voltaire. Yes, it will come down to violence at some point. It is not a sure thing that Europe will have the means, or the cultural testosterone to fight back, to fight back effectively, or to prevail if they do decide to fight.
Given the truth and reality denying nature of the ruling elites in the West; I judge that the best hope for stopping the enemy [I know, it is very un-PC to say such] is going to be the Israelis. We have the capability to defeat the Left and their Ummah allies at every point of competition save one at this point. But that one is WILL.
Subotai Bahadur
Russia stands to mint money from the chaos in MENA
“Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest crude supplier in 2009; OPEC’s share of production has gone from around 54% in the mid-1970s to just over 40% now….
Demand rose by a blistering 2.7m b/d last year, according to the International Energy Agency, and is set to grow by another 1.7m b/d this year by Deutsche Bank’s reckoning….
Analysts at Nomura reckon that it would only take a halt of exports from Algeria as well( as Libya ) to absorb all the slack and propel oil to a terrifying $220 a barrel.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/02/arab_worlds_unrest_and_oil_prices
Reference “fracking”
Fracking is short for fracturing non-porous strata until it is porous enough for the resident hydrocarbon (and the residual viscous fracturing agent) to pass through the fractured strata. What could possibly go wrong?
Fourth and final post for this thread.
#129 blert
I don’t disagree with your argument about demographics. I do note that European demographics are [crude expletives deleted] also. Barring the pandemic, I kinda figure that the Ummah will still be around to attack and harm us before it all goes Tango Uniform. This having a civilizational race to the bottom cannot be timed. I assume it is even more un-PC to root for a virus.
As far as being able to use those new reserves, that is problematical. We have at least two years of dealing with Buraq Hussein, assuming that the Constitution is followed. That is an assumption that cannot be made with absolute assurance anymore. The incumbent regime has been consistent in few matters other than trying to destroy both the economy and domestic energy production. It is well within the realm of possible outcomes for both the fracking method and increased trade with Canada to be banned by decree. Once again, it is not a lack of capability, but a lack of will.
Subotai Bahadur
Victor,
The thing about $220/bbl oil is that somebody has to buy it. At such prices many industries go away, including passenger airlines, Fed Ex and its kin, Truck transport of fresh vegetables, petrochemicals – all in all several million b/d of demand, enough to knock the equivalent of all of N. Af + UAE and Nigeria out of the demand barrel.
That is why such prices cannot be sustained for very long. But the short term profits for the swift . . . . (and the culpable)
Grad rockets fired at Be’er Sheva for first time since Gaza war
“Palestinian news agencies reported that three children were among the injured; the other eight were members of the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad.”
…brave Palestinian children follow the gallant warriors of Allah into battle…bunk! The trogs are using children as shields again. Israel is acting half-heartedly to compensate. Save the ammunition BiBi; you may need it sooner than you think. How like the Palestinians to start a war just as their allies are falling into chaos.
She is attractive but dumber than a bag of hammers (See poster on right)
what toad (#4) said
#131. Subotai Bahadur
I agree that the mass immigration issue is a very serious threat to Europe. I am not convinced, however, that Italy and Spain, the primary entry points, would be so receptive. No doubt the chattering class in Brussels would scream bloody murder about human rights, but at some point the ear must become immune to idiot speak.
Iraq is always on the edge of civil war. I also think that Libya is a more representative model of Arab/Islamist unity today than what we have seen elsewhere. In other words, there ain’t any. Islam as a unifying force can only go so far among tribal societies, and I don’t think that will include sharing scant resources.
The strategists for the MB have to see their dreams of a caliphate falling apart. Disunity and fractionalization are the facts on the ground. A food shortage, which looks almost unavoidable, will break up the entire ME into tribal militias. That’s what happened in Ethiopia, which is arguably a more culturally centric country than any of the Arab states.
All the MSM cheering that we’ve seen about democratization is much more likely to become “what happened.”
Utica Oil Shale Gas Deposits may be higher than the Marcellus
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_724034.html
Picture of Utica VS Marcellus Natural Gas deposits
http://ysnews.com/news/2011/02/fracking-concerns-arise-in-village
Picture of US Natural Gas Deposits
http://www.eia.gov/oil_gas/rpd/conventional_gas.jpg
I’m not seeing extensive records of Utica oil production. That means the oil part of the Utica formation is still speculative.
You see articles with these kinds of words:
After missing out on a rush that promised to coax $400 billion in natural gas from deep Appalachian shale deposits, Ohio might have another shot at a modern-day drilling boom.
Geologists say the Utica shale formation, a layer of thick black rock that lies 8,000 feet beneath most of the state, might hold enormous oil and natural-gas reserves. This promise has oil and gas companies spending a lot of money to snap up land.
“The leasing activity of out-of-state producers in eastern Ohio is intense,” said Tom Stewart, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. “What that tells me is that people are willing to invest unusual amounts of money to acquire acreage to take a look at this formation.”
Drillers have predicted huge oil and gas reserves in the Utica shale for years, but they hadn’t been able to reach its deposits cheaply, said Chris Perry of the Ohio Geological Survey. That has changed as drilling techniques have improved.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/22/drillers-have-high-oil-gas-hopes-for-ohio-shale.html
“In the case of Libya, less is more. The U.S. might have a hard figuring out just who the good guys are.”
And, bluntly, there likely aren’t ANY.
It looks to me like Quadaffi’s support in Libya is falling away faster than
news reports suggest. For example, it doesn’t look like he has
much of the Libyan military behind him anymore.
ie he would need the military to carry out his oil pipeline threats
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/23/muammar-gaddafi-libya-tripoli-uprising
What the U S ought to do is put RPVs over Tripoli to broadcast live streaming video of the situation on the ground. Document the dictator’s atrocities now instead of waiting until it is over. Would pictures of the reality of Auschwitz have turned world opinion against Hitler earlier?
So what if he shoots one down? There are lots more of them where it came from. Station a destroyer off the coast just outside the territorial limit (Line of Death in the Gulf of Sidra? I think he might remember what happened the last time he tried that act.). It can fly off mini-RPVs. And do a Voice of America broadcast loop of the Marine Corps Hymn, you know the part that talks about “the shores of Tripoli”, over and over and over again.
The tempo of defection has reached the inner circle and the wife and progeny have flown.
The Duck of Death is on a countdown to Hell.
He’s so alienated the other despots that it may be impossible for him to fly off to refuge.
His threat against the Libyan infrastructure now rings hollow: he’s down to one tribe and a bunker or two.
Black mercs are getting trashed by the locals. I know of no mercs who would press the issue at this point. It doesn’t pay.
Thursday figures to be his finale. Friday is the day of worship. Everyone will be on the streets by then.
Right now I’d expect him to be raging against his ex-loyalists and pronouncing death sentences — in absentia, of course.
Here is a timeline of events in Libya.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Libya-revolt-timeline/Article1-665917.aspx
It looks like Qaddafi’s room to maneuver is steadily shrinking.
Using foreign mercenaries on your own people is not a crowd pleaser.
Qaddafi’s speech yesterday in which he said he would be a martyr
may be about like Mubarak’s speech saying he would die in Egypt–just before he resigned.
However, Mubarak didn’t draw blood like Qaddafi has done.
ybr/121, thanks for the info –but i was trying to get at the lack of proportionality, not to mention the incoherence.
…briefly, the wave of empirical research following the results of the 10% mandate disproves the ENTIRE stated premise of the mandate, that air quality so needed further improvement that a berserk law of diminishing returns is unworthy of consideration.
But but but, the waste of assets for no result is not even the problem here in Cloud Cuckoo Land –the problem is that the air is not simply unaffected by the mandate, but is perversely affected by same.
IOW, we’re paying a fee for the privilege of flushing our cash down the terlit.
So, what do we do? Cancel, or at least cut, the mandate?
Of COURSE not –we RAISE the mandate, natch!
…and by a full 50%, or, “as much as humanly possible”, to 15% (AKA the maximum that political bogosity can boilerhouse some science reportage saying is not harmful to your equipment).
So, apart from any issue regarding air quality, one notes that the mandate’s use of air quality as the premise has just been shot dead, and the shooter, Uncle Sam, who happens to be the advocate of the false premise as well as the actual hidden premise, has not even bothered to notice the smoking gun in his hand, nor that it has fired a bullet, nor that the bullet hit him, nor that he’s too doped on dumbed-down demo-deceit to be be feeling it, nor that in any case he soon will, because his cerebral blood pressure is dropping.
Okay, that explains the first two links, the third, that was to show that while the crazy political patronage ethanol payoffs continue unabated in the corpulent USA, MEANWHILE back on the foreign piece of the globe, the seemingly unconnected financial issue of QE2 and inflation is being assembled within the global meme machine, by people the world over, people to whom the description “adversely affected by US policy” no longer means a ding on a balance sheet, but empty larders in the home, staging rapidly toward empty bellies for the children.
We need leadership so badly.
I say that the BC has no shortage of non strategic thinkers and moralists who wouldn’t squeeze a carbuncle for fear of getting their hands soiled.
To hear some of the “no action” panty waste writers try to validate allowing the thinly protected and easily taken oil in Libya as off limits is totally gutless and will cost American civilian and military lives. This will carry over into our next winter and with oil at what will then be at much higher prices the old and feeble of OUR society will perish.
Now I fully realize that POTUS hasn’t exhaled since this started and is unlikely to do much …on his own….but he does have Joint Chiefs of Staff that can resign and speak vociferiously against obama’s do nothingness. For that matter they can raise hell in a meeting with him and perhaps lose their position and one star, but in the end that’s not much to aid OUR nation.
I emphasize OUR nation because I don’t give a camels gonads for any Islam…one more time for those who missed it. Christianity and Islam are IMMISCIBLE and always will be…the MB says there is one way for the world..JIHAD..ok we’ll crank up some of those shove ready jobs and produce some JIHAD mamma-jamma killer war machines.
I can just about guarantee that in Eqypt the Soviets have already made contact with some of their old friends while our CIA is doing likewise. Fortuneately we have the inside track because for several decades we have had a military training partnership with Egypt….but that guarantees nothing.
Just as Patton slammed the map in his trailer and pointed to Messina saying “Massina is the key” so now the key is taking the Libya oil fields. One Marine Expeditionary Force could take those fields in two days and await reinforcements, which they probably would not need.
We inflict upon ourselves years, perhaps decades of deprivation if we hesitate and allow the Sov’s or Chinese to cut a deal first…We get their first with the most..wins every time. Losers in these situations are those who dilly dally and waste time that equates to greater casualties and dead bodies.
The only dead bodies I care to see are Islams, and to those who say “just let them kill off each other”…well that takes decades too for they have been doing that for centuries, but RIGHT NOW heavy weight international factions are positioning themselves to take over “training”, “running of untilities” and other vital infrastucture all under the guise of eventually taking over total control with a puppet Islam as their front man.
If we do not act then we get the MB with endless JIHAD and Israel gone and the blood of their dead will be forever on our hands and soil our souls, and no country on Earth, save the anti Semetic ones, will ever trust us again…with good reason.
With Hugo diverting oil to China contracted to us, what would Obama do? Laugh?
I gotta agree with you Blert, Qaddafi’s end comes on Friday.
Of course that’s just the beginning of the chaos.
What? Obama’s busy with the “Defense Of Marriage Act”.
Priorities, don’t you know?
Habu: Just as Patton slammed the map in his trailer and pointed to Messina saying “Massina is the key” so now the key is taking the Libya oil fields. One Marine Expeditionary Force could take those fields in two days and await reinforcements, which they probably would not need.
No US blood for UK and Italian oil.
Perhaps there’s a pony in here.
I’m relieved that China appears (a) to be as unaware (with no strategy or preparation of the battlefield – e.g. creating Vaclav Havel’s prior to the Wall falling) as our own intelligence services irrespective of the fact that they don’t have to live within the West’s sensibilities for spying, and (b) they don’t already have 20,000 soldiers on the ground now aligned with whomever they bribed to be their front man in return for splitting, say, 20 years of all the (new) oil Libya can produce (given they are producing less than 5% of their current opportunity). It’d give China some expeditionary experience, a place for their restless young men (who have no chance of finding a wife so are not only frustrated but angry) to prove themselves, and immeasurably raise their stature in the world. Note that China has to succeed at something like this if they’re to have a prayer of replacing the dollar as the reserve currency (trace the history of “reserve currency” over time).
Would take little more than a few cruise and container ships to make this happen – and grow their presence to 100K in a month. Little to risk, much to gain.
Granted, given U.S. (and Western leadership in general), they can still do this anytime over the next six months.
Also, I see folks are still using “energy independence” as if these words mean something. It’d help the discussion if club members would include a few words saying either (1) what it means to them, or (2) what the effect would / should / is supposed to be. As long as something / anyone / even our enemies are buying oil at a price higher than its marginal cost of production the ME will have the wealth to build WMD, terrorize, threaten and damage our interests, etc (i.e. Milton Friedman’s magic of the market enabling creation of a pencil irrespective of politics/enemies/friends). And if that’s not the goal, then as long as the U.S. is relatively the wealthiest country, we are already energy independent – we can pay the least fraction of our wealth for energy compared to all our competitors and need not care about the source – as everyone else will become less competitive (or starve) first.
#146
There are 5,239 km (3,255 miles) of oil/gas pipelines in Libya, greater than the distance from New York to Los Angeles. Source. I don’t doubt that a MEF could go anywhere they wanted in Libya, but securing 18 major oil facilities and that much pipeline is beyond the capacity of a few thousand ground troops.
We would need a secure port facility and a few airfields to sustain any operation. How many more thousands of personnel would that take?
Every jihadi wannabe from Morocco to Turkey would be within walking distance and have millions of square miles of empty terrain to hide in. How many more thousands of troops would it take to secure the flanks?
That is an awful lot of money and effort for 1.8m bbl. We were getting 2.0m bbl out of the Gulf of Mexico. All it takes is an executive order to get the Gulf back on line. Seems like a better choice to me.
149/cybergeezer; DOMA heat –calibrated to force-multiply the big Saturday union rally day –get the minorities mad any way ya can –
147/bear; …and at $5.00 per barrel –the attack is multifront –the ”fair market” itself is a target too –just imagine the hay a commie can mow –
146/habu; well said –but if O handles the Marines the way he does the food commodities, he won’t just not use ‘em, he’ll arrest ‘em and make a brig outta the navy –so better not give him any ideas –
***
from Hugo to the Islamic arc to the staccato stae dept’s flamenco in galoshes, all roads lead to a little fella named Carter. So, the sh*t we’re in now, is still trying to clean up a 30 year old mess –we still have Clinton to clean up after too. Then the next one or two, depending on how ya rate GWB.
Maybe we all –the whole country –ought to just declare for red china and the jihad at the same time, and see if we can hurry up and get thru the carter era –
My, My, My…Has it been a mere ten days?
Yes, just ten short days ago Gaddafi was fomenting violence against Israel among the sweet natured Gazans. (Yes again, they are the same lovely little folk who took to the streets and rejoiced at the news of the attacks of 9/11.)
But back to Gaddafi “The Prince of All Fashion Statements” (No one will ever beat Liberace, but that’s a different thread), how far has he fallen? Why, just today, his only daughter was turned away from a speck of rock (121 sq mi) in the Mediterranean. Just ten days ago, Gaddafi could have purchased the whole place on collateral only.
Tsk…Tsk…Tsk…
Yep, one minute you’ve got the world by the tail and the next, well…
link
Tunisia…Egypt…Libya…a half dozen others on the brink…
While restless masses across the Middle East and North Africa region are struggling to realize some type of alternative government in their own lands, many here in the USA are just now waking up to some of the not-so-pleasant effects of it. The expression of discontent is more or less the same in each country. The results? Well, we’ll have to wait and see…
In the beginning, democracy seems a virtuous and decent enough solution to autocratic tyranny. And it is….…so long as the process is populated with virtuous and decent people</I ( like find me one of those in Islam).. During the seeds of revolution, dictators are quickly overthrown and the people usually obtain a “voice” through the ballot box. One time and in Islam , one man.
Everyone feels part of the progress, part of the plan. Love, hope and jasmine. All that good stuff.
But democracy has the regrettable tendency to remain in the hands of the virtuous and the decent for precious little time. As Winston Churchill once suggested, democracy is “the worst form of government…except for all the others that have been tried.” It wins by default, in other words.
Over time, once the fanfare of revolution begins to fatigue, the democratic political system becomes a tyranny of the majority. By the time people get around to voting other people’s property into their own hands, the game is more or less over. And while oppressive regimes like those of Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak and now Muammar Gaddafi present easy targets for freedom-seeking individuals, it’s much easier to topple a dictator than to topple “of the people, by the people,” no matter how big a mess the people are making of their own condition.
Democracy in the ME is just the flavor of the week…an evolutionary development. Is it possible that it succeeded in the 20th century because it was much better adapted to leeching out the wealth and complicity of the average man? It gave him a stake in the system. Isn’t it possible that by giving the masses a ‘voice,’ the elites who really control government are better able to take his money…and, if necessary, his life?
Soldiers will do their duty to a dictator, if the price is right. They will do their duty to the government they helped elect for less. And they will more willingly submit to government’s taxes, too, if they feel they are its masters, rather than the slaves.( but slaves they in truth are) The real difference may only be an illusion, but it is an effective one. In practice, the individual may have less ability to influence the large pool of voting numbskulls than he does to influence a single knuckleheaded autocrat.
However the ME is vastly different as the fearsome Republican Guard showed us and Baghdad Bob reported to us. If we fail to act we will lose an entire generation, a generation we must have to pay the heavy burden of bills we have placed on them as witnessed by the courage in Wisconsin.
Folks we simply can’t muff this one..call your Rep and Senator, call the Chiefs of Staff and get someone who will have the guts of a Cincinnatus to get our mongrel pResident off his ass.
Comrade Joe didn’t have “the final solution”?
“Before I found the final solution,…”.
“Before I found the final solution, I had to meditate long and hard on the history of humanity, on the conflicts of the past and on those of the present”.”
…-
“Gheddafi Told Oriana “You Massacre Us”
Hitler and Mussolini exploited the masses. I just appeal for the people to govern themselves
We publish a summary of Oriana Fallaci’s interview with Colonel Gheddafi, which appeared in the Corriere della Sera on 2 December 1979. The text comes from the second part of their conversation, in which the Libyan leader talks about his policies and replies to charges of supporting terrorism that were being levelled at him. The first part of the interview dealt with the hostage crisis involving Americans being held prisoner by the Iranians in the US embassy in Tehran. At the time, the Colonel had offered to mediate. Using her notes from the same meeting with Colonel Gheddafi, Ms Fallaci published another interview in the Corriere della Sera on 20 April 1986, just after the Americans had bombed Tripoli.
Colonel, I get the impression that your hatred for America and the Jews is actually a hatred of the West. Just like with Khomeini. Do you realise that this turns the clock back a thousand years, starting over again with Saladin and the Crusades?
“Yes and the fault is yours, the Americans’ and the West’s. Back then it was your – the West’s – fault, too. It’s always you who massacre us. Yesterday, as it is today”.
But who is massacring you today, where?
“Did Libya invade Italy or was it Italy that invaded Libya? You attack us now as you did then. In other ways, with other systems, by supporting Israel, opposing Arab unity and our revolutions, frowning on Islam and calling us fanatics. We’ve been too patient with you. We’ve put up with your provocation for too long. If we hadn’t been so wise, we would have gone to war with you a thousand times. We didn’t because we think the use of force is a last resort for survival and because we have always been on the side of civilisation. After all, during the Middle Ages we civilised you. You were poor barbarians, primitive, savage creatures”.
… and we were crying out for the light of your civilisation.
“Yes, the light of our civilisation. The science you enjoy now is the science we taught you. The medicine you treat yourselves with is the medicine we gave you. It’s the same with the astronomy you know, the mathematics, the literature, the art…”.
Really?!?
“Yes, even your religion comes from the East. Christ wasn’t a Roman”.
He was a Jew. That’s a clanger. Colonel, what do you think about the Red Brigades?”
http://www.corriere.it/International/english/articoli/2011/02/23/oriana-fallaci-interview-gheddafi-1979.shtml
bl@145: ethanol
OK. I see. Why increase the allowable ethanol admixture in the face of demonstrated (??) environmental impact? The ethanol impact came from transportation and fertilizers. Under then extant conditions, the net energy equation was (slightly) negative to zero. The so-called increased carbon footprint … certainly there is a qualitative argument, but the quantitative case, I *suspect,* not as compelling. (Of course, the carbon issue depends on one’s view of “CO2 as waste.”)
Both of those issues – transportation and fertilizers – are ancient history with the development of enzymatic catalysts that can act on vegetation low in food value, which can be cultivated on marginal land not suitable for food crops.
The net energy issue is being smoothed out by using local feedstock from any number of organic biomass waste streams, including orange peelings in Florida.
Short story: the cellulosic biofuels industry that relies on local feedstock from low food-value crops, cultivated on marginal valued land, and/or various biomass waste streams, is technically feasible (slightly positive net energy), economically cost effective, and carries no burden of contributing to the “adversely affected by US policy.” So ethanol – using corn – is out, as of a year or two.
(As a footnote, my opinion, offered w/out sourcing, is that the food impact of ethanol was exaggerated for effect. Certainly the current world-wide ag shortages, caused by climate, dominated the various food crises in the ME – far more than the uber-efficient American ag technology that extracts more nutritional value per acre than any other country on earth. As per usual, a small nugget of truth wrapped in a distracting package of propaganda and outright lies.)
If we do not act then we get the MB with endless JIHAD and Israel gone and the blood of their dead will be forever on our hands and soil our souls, and no country on Earth, save the anti Semetic ones, will ever trust us again…with good reason. – Habu
Side-bar: Who trusts the USA now?
ETAB: So you are using standard definitions. So was I.
Your definitions are for an Industrial, Technological, Mercantile civilization. Mine were for Islam. Therein lies the problem. The two civilizations have different standards. Almost all the way across the board.
You see Islam as a failure because they can’t create and maintain our standard of civilization. They see our civilization as a failure because we are all going to hell. They have no desire to mimic western civilization. By they I mean the bulk of Muslims. The faithful. Muslim means those who surrender to god. Those Westernized Muslims you see on the telly ARE NOT Muslims. They haven’t surrendered to god. The Quran gives them dispensation to Islamic law in order to mix with the non-believers.
THe 2 societies have different moral standards too. They are as horrified by the way our woman dress as we are by their stoning naughty girls.
The Quarn says something about massing horses and men along the border to bring fear to the unbeliever. So they will breed as fast as the food we sell them allows.
As a theocracy they look at the big picture. One believer more or less means no more to them then 1 rat more or less does to the pack. The hive doesn’t care what happens to an individual roach. They see it as a weakness that we do.
Westerners that know Islamic terrorists kill more believers then non-believers, often don’t understand why the Islamic core doesn’t put an end to the extremism. That is because the core doesn’t care about all the dead. A few that are effected on a personal level but none of the western caring on an abstract level.
You will NEVER see a volunteer Human shield that is Muslim. Lots of involuntary types.
Habu, as a combat vet with a purple heart( 2 actually but 1 was from an Air Farce bomb, so it shouldn’t count. The Capt. commanding wrote it up because he liked me and didn’t want some officer 10 years down the road thinking it was self inflicted) I consider charging machine guns stooooopid. Especially when there is a mortar available. As an officer, you would have been fragged about day 2. And good riddance. Any fight you can walk away from with clear conscience is one you SHOULD walk away from.
Please provide ONE reason why the USA should use it’s most precious resource to help out a known terrorist with American blood on his hands? We will argue over if it’s a good enough reason to die over after you pony one up.
NO matter what happens in Lybia, the USA will continue on it’s path. Europe is in the crosshairs. We need to give them EXACTLY ( to the decimal) the same help they gave us in Iraq.
ybr/157, ok, if the issue is mainly the optics, then a signature on an exec order would be even less dislocating.
As is, your position indicates that for no gain at all we (the administration, that is) simply want –gratuitously –to look like the Ugly American.
Why would THAT be, one wonders?
RE: Fracking (hydraulic fracturing)
The issue is risk management – and any risk associated with fracking will likely be mismanaged.
From Charles’ links @139:
But geologists at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mineral Resources Management, which oversees fossil fuel drilling and fracking, maintain that no groundwater contamination has taken place in any of the 80,000 fracked wells in Ohio, and that strict state regulations mandate cement casing within a well to isolate underground aquifers from the fracking taking place several thousand feet below them.
80,000 wells – that’s a lot of drilling.
Any operation can be *reasonably* secured. The recent mention of weaponizing the mini thorium reactors was countered by security recommendations (from erc rodson.) Every high rise you ride up to the 99th floor is governed by risk-managed engineering design. There is a risk you might not make it to the top – the 1 millionth time.
Another fallout from the BP oil spill – as described very well by buddy larsen – is that in-place security precautions – as well as Standard Operating Practices – were brazenly violated.
Technicians can design safeguards for (nearly) any endeavor, but we (USA) no longer have effective compliance or enforcement infrastructure – outside of absurd zero tolerance policies.
The question isn’t “What could possibly go wrong?”
The question is “What will you do about it?”
I have read that a few don’t worship the hydrogen idea as a the new “benzine”, I would like you to comment on this british “discovery”:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1351341/Relief-pumps-Revolutionary-hydrogen-fuel-cost-just-90p-GALLON-run-existing-cars.html
Screw the middle east…let them drown in their own feces. I hate to be isolationist, but the US is over its head in debt, the economy is a disaster, we have extremely weak leadership in the Oval Office and at State on foreign policy and I worry that they are so incompetent as to make the wrong moves and make a bad situation worse. Better we do nothing. With oil now at $100 a barrel, the already weak US economy will start to slip of the cliff into a double dip recession and the already bad employment situation will get worse. In some ways this is probably what Obama and the socialists want… the more upheaval domestically and internationally the better. The fact that Obama’s Dept of Energy has stopped permitting in the Gulf is clearly a threat to our national security and a seditious act. In a time when the US should be on a crash “do it all” energy policy, what we have is obstructionism and unrealistic alternative energy promotion that can not full fill the US’s need for cheap energy. In the end it all comes down to energy and cheap energy equals power, and right now we look increasingly powerless.
bl@160: As is, your position indicates that for no gain at all we simply want –gratuitously –to look like the Ugly American.
Seeing is believing. For the Ugly American to survive the current ME transformation by revolution would be a feat – of virtual magic perhaps – but a feat nonetheless.
Not that we can’t or won’t do it.
#159 stoicheion – no, I think we are still talking past each other.
I’m not talking about ‘civilizations’. I’m talking about the basic variables of : economic mode, political mode and demographics. These have nothing to do with ‘civilizations’ – which you seem to define as ideology or culture.
The two-class statist structure is found, now, in the Islamic world; it used to be the basic economic and political structure in the West (medieval period). My point is that – forget the culture – focus on the basic economic reality.
A two-class statist economy that lacks a middle class private market economy..cannot support a population in the multimillions. This has absolutely nothing to do with ‘culture’ or ‘social beliefs’. Nothing.
The old medieval period in the West had many similar cultural beliefs to that of Islam – in the sense of the rejection of individualism, the rejection of reason, the rejection of science, the insistence on submission and etc. These beliefs, which kept the society frozen and prevented new technologies, had to be abandoned – due to population pressures and the subsequent requirement for increased food, energy, water, etc.
The same is happening in the ME. The ME has managed to retain its out of date two-class infrastructure long past its ‘due date’…because of OIL. It has sold the oil, and maintained the people..at a sustenance level. They can’t do this anymore; the population has outstripped the carrying capacity of that single resource economy. They have to move to a middle class small private business economy. No choice.
And that means, politically, they have to move to a democracy. A constitutional democracy empowers the middle class. No choice.
It’s not easy; it took the west 400 years. It won’t take the ME that long – but, it’s not an easy change. No major structural changes are easy! The people demonstrating in the ME aren’t demonstrating for More Islam! They want freedom; they want a better life; they want jobs, they want food and housing. That requires a major structural change – to enable a middle class private market economy.
Nothing to do with culture; nothing to do with religion.
Fox* has this also. Link by commenter.
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“Maummar Gaddafi tied to… Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Pundit Press ^ | 2/23/11 | Aurelius
Posted on 02/23/2011 5:42:07 PM PST by therightliveswithus
You may be wondering why President Obama has been mum on the subject of Libya until tonight, even though for the last week Dictator Maummar Gaddafi has been massacring people on his streets. One possible reason is that the White House does not know how to spell “Libya.” Another: President Obama’s spiritual leader, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has been tied to Gaddafi.
This is not to necessarily imply that President Obama didn’t criticize Gaddafi because he favors Gaddafi’s regime, but that the President had trepidation because he was aware of his pastor’s ties to the iron-fisted ruler.
It all goes back to 1984, when Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Wright decided to take a trip to Libya and see Gaddafi in Tripoli, the capital of Libya. Was it to condemn Gaddafi at the height of his reign? Was to to ask Gaddafi to work with the United States, as the two countries were in an extremely icy relationship? No.
It was a social visit.
And even worse, at the time and since, the good reverend knew that this could have political consequences, especially during the Presidential campaign in 2008. To quote Wright in 2008:
“When [Obama's] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit [Gaddafi] with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.”
The ties between Farrakhan and Gaddafi are numerous, but surely President Obama has known about his reverend’s indiscretion for years now. Is this why he has kept quiet until today? Maybe.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2679004/posts
…-
*Fox:
http://nation.foxnews.com/rev-wright/2011/02/23/qaddafi-has-been-tied-rev-jeremiah-wright
Not this time.The Tunisians, Egyptians ,Italians and Greeks can sort this one out.All of these countries have an air force and can enforce a no fly zone over Libya.A no fly zone sanctioned by the UN ,which all these countries are a part of.Just make sure NATO is in command if there is a no fly zone eh?That should pull the teeth out of Ghadaffi’s “aviation” assets.
165. ETAB
The people demonstrating in the ME aren’t demonstrating for More Islam!
………..
Woa hoss. Always remember that russian idealism is as fatal
as Stalin’s Gulag. They are often two sides of the same coin.
The middle east is a very mixed bag. The people who started the revolution
in Egypt may have been the face book kids but its anyone’s guess who the
principal beneficiaries of the revolution there will be. Similiar things happened in Iran after the shah in 1979 and in Russia after Kerensky in 1917. What most people talk about right now is that the Muslim Brotherhood is the best organized outside of the military in Egypt. They primary agenda has little to do with economics.
Nobody knows what kind of stew comes out of either Tunisia or Libya.
YBR/164–maybe you don’t know but in the book of the same name the Ugly American was the hero.
Humbly Request Permission for 5th Post in this thread
Wretchard, if it is too much, feel free to delete.
#146 Habu,#152 Peter Boston,#153 buddy larsen
You all mentioned the use of Marines in different scenarios. I was looking to see what forces we had available in the Med; not for taking and holding ground, but for a NEO [Noncombatant Evacuation Operation]. We have 35 Embassy staff, about 500 US citizens, and several thousand US-Libyan dual citizens in Libya and they were told to beat feet out of there. After Buraq Hussein’s speech [Translation: 1) I have convened a committee working to give me options which I'll choose later, 2) Hillary is going to Geneva to meet with the Human Rights Commission. Not taking any questions.] and hearing that the ports have been closed, the airports are closed, and the civilian ferry the Department of State hired to evacuate our nationals is way behind schedule supposedly due to weather but also the whole thing was delayed because State did not want to pay for it; I wanted to see what our options are for either a NEO or a forced entry equivalent.
If what I found is true, our entire current force in the Mediterranean consists of one (1) destroyer. I knew that we sent a carrier [ENTERPRISE] through Suez a week or so ago, but we usually are rotating ships around and have at least one CVBG either in the Med or close enough to get there in a hurry. Both of our CVBG’s in the area are in the Arabian Sea now.
We do not have a single MEU in the area, the KEARSARGE group being near Bahrain. Let alone an MEF. The nearest MEU is the 22nd which is working up for deployment near Camp Lejeune. I do not know where it is in the working up cycle, but they are 15 days steaming from the Gulf of Sidra if they leave today. The TRUMAN CVN-75 is just back in Norfolk after squadron quals, but transferred her munitions to CVN-76 GEORGE H.W. BUSH which is just starting work up for her first deployment.
We do not have any options at all to project naval or marine power in the Med right now; be it NEO or dealing with the Iranian targets in the Med. None. The entire southern rim of the Med has been in an uproar for several weeks. It is not like a crisis here is a surprise. Our Navy is used to being on standby for such, and usually would have a force within a reasonable steaming distance leaning forward in case they were needed.
Someone had to order deployments to leave us in this situation. I do not think it was anyone in a Navy uniform. I am blaming the National Command Authority. Any bloodshed or hostages are on his head.
In related news, the Italian Navy is reported to be getting to sea as fast as it can. I have no idea how fast that would be. One light carrier and two LPD’s in the mix.
Now, if any of the three above, or any other BC-ers, have other information, I would appreciate it if you would post it.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
Subotai Bahadur
ybr/161;
you’re receiving on the second channel, for sure. These search results are not in chrono order, but as you can see, Shell made it thru the Obamahawk gantlet –and then backed out of their biggest, bestest, most meticulously-planned mega-project in years. Why?
You answered it in 161: security. What does ‘security’ mean?
…it means the Beaufort Sea prospect is a potential minor-key game-changer –in a rich offshore new horizon prospect –just like the BP Macondo.
Shell fears a Macondo attack.
No, Shell won’t say so, but i have a few eyes and ears in the patch, and this is what i’m hearing thru the grapevine.
Russia will end up with the Beaufort Sea, and probably Alaska too, courtesy BP and Obama and the wonderfully adept magic green shield from behind which they are destroying the political economy and traditional cultural structure of the USA.
America the Maginot, wondering if the Sitzkreig is the war, or what.
***
Subotai/170; good grief –all sorts of feathers drifting toward ‘subversion’
G@169: I did at one time, but forgot, as the title flew farther than the novel.
#168 charles. Nope – I disagree. Idealism doesn’t provide food, housing, medicines. You need an economic infrastructure – and Islamism doesn’t have one. It’s pure ‘magical thinking’.
The era of the shah in Iran – and its subsequent current era – were economically and demographically similar. It was just a change in the face of the Rulers. This era in Iran was two-class, the population was low enough to be supported by oil. That era is over; the Iranian population in 1970 was 29 million. In 2010 it’s 73 million. OK? That exponential increase in population in the ME – just as in Egypt – means that the old economic and political two-class structure – is incapable of functioning. So, replacing the FACES in the ME…and keeping the same structure – won’t work anymore.
It’s the infrastructure that has to be transformed. Not the faces of the Rulers.
Don’t think oil can go much past $150 even in the worst case, simply because (as we saw in 2008) that’s the price point at which the economy breaks. Demand drops dramatically if unemployment goes to 25%.
re: well fraccing – fluid coming up away from the borehole is damn near impossible. The danger point is the borehole, most especially if they’ve done a crappy cementing job. That’s also one of the main things that doomed the BP operation in the gulf.
Point is, this is just an engineering problem, and can be quite easily controlled.
@ 162. Marie Claude
Marie,
Hydrogen still has to made by energy from some source, to electrolyze water. You need cheap electricity from somewhere.
The chemical used by that outfit to store hydrogen has low-energy density per unit volume. And if is not pyrophoric it will nevertheless burn very well. Their encapsulation technology would have to be pretty robust to use safely in a moving vibrating system (such as a car). Most importantly, it is clear that the material cannot be re-charged with hydrogen indefinately.
A red warning flag for you is that they use the “nano” word in the article and on the company’s website.
The American Government has active programs (at Oak Ridge National Labs) for hydrogen storage in metal hydrides that is interesting, but it is not going anywhere. I have some interest in their work for technical reasons that would bore this audience.
regards,
C.W.
On the demographic front a compelling case can be made that more people equals better. Of course you have the problem of what’s the cart and what’s the horse. Does a high population cause prosperity, or does prosperity cause a high population?
ETAB has looked back on medieval Europe, so let’s track the rise and fall of populations with the rise and fall of civilizational advance using this model. During late antiquity populations throughout the Western Empire crashed hard, for a number of reasons (most all man-made). This led to the outright collapse of Roman institutions across the board, with the sole exception of the Roman Church, ushering in the “Dark Ages”. They were named “dark” because for a long time not much was known about them; record-keepers, scholars, men of letters, bureaucrats, all vanished from the scene. Hardscrabble, stressed economies such as what emerged in the Dark Ages cannot afford such luxuries.
It was a 600-700 year slog from Late Antiquity until the High Middle Ages, to grow population levels to heights never seen before. More Frenchmen were alive during this period than there ever were Gauls. This was also a time of great prosperity. Critically, scientific, philosophical, and economic knowlege made great strides. Today’s seats of “higher learning”, the modern “University”, were solidified across the continent as critically important and highly valued institutions. The era’s greatest thinker, St. Thomas Aquinas, placed a capstone on the intellectual bridge begun by St. Augustine centuries before on the necessity of the marriage of faith and reason. On the economic front, the “middle class”, practically AWOL since Roman times, re-awoke in Europe’s cities. Meanwhile on the monestaries, enterprising monks developed an exciting new concept known as “a coporation”.
Then, catastrophe struck in the form of a staggering series of War, Plague and their triplet sibling, Famine. Population, production, and discovery settled into a 300-400 year decline that would eventually turn around when the Renaissance began. The population at last started to climb again.
The nation of France has roughly the same boundaries as it did in 1100, 1800, and today. It would take her until about 1800 or so, the Early Modern Era, to regain the population density she had already achieved during the High Middle Ages but then tragically threw away.
People are resources. The more of them you have, the better off you are, if you prepared to let them live their lives as they see fit. If you are thinking, “Oh, but how am I going to feed them?”, then what are you thinking about? Lebensraum? You’re thinking like a Planner. Give it up, please. Nobody here at BC, and in fact nobody here on this Earth, is good enough to be a Planner.
That’s not an entreaty to stop thinking about what’s best for the future and formulating a plan of action to get yourself there. It is a condemnation of All Too Human tendency of successful people to think they Know Better and force Pet Outcomes.
Looking at Islam today, across the board, I see nations mired in population declines. China, too, as a matter of fact, which has self-inflicted a fatal wound at the hand of Planners. China is looking at the most meteoric rise to world power ever seen, on the backs of it billion+ people, only to straight-away enter a cataclysmic nose-dive due to state enforced 4-2-1.
As for the Middle East, they’ve Twin-Peaked both in oil-production and in baby-production. It is all downhill for them now for quite some time. Europe was poised, after the High Middle Ages collapsed, to pick up the ball and run with it, once they had resouces, when the Renaissance arrived. They had laid the groundwork (University, Corporation, etc) and had it good-to-go. Middle East demographics don’t look good at all. Of course things started in Tunisia, a front-line state on the wave of demographic decline.
The Middle East is coming in and going out like junkies of the oil drug, by comparison, having poured no foundation for the future. That’s not news to the Smart Faction in Saudi Arabia, who have been earnestly trying to develop an alternative economy to oil for 40 years. But failing, by Planning!
Meanwhile, here in the West, we’ve got insanely grave problems. Those 50 million babies sacrificed for Women’s Rights are sorely missed in the United States, not to mention the unborn babies of the unborn babies.
Fact is, worldwide, in almost every corner of the globe, populations are shrinking. That means less production across the board, industrial, scientific, and otherwise. A world of shrinking pies run by Planners who always, and still to this day, make a constant assumption of growth!
We’re not entering into an era of growth. Like Late Antiquity, quite the opposite.
bl@171:
Shell fears a Macondo attack.
No, Shell won’t say so, but i have a few eyes and ears in the patch, and this is what i’m hearing thru the grapevine.
I – one – might be tempted to conclude that the raw guts required of a derrick rigger don’t extend into the corporate boardroom of the oil and gas industry. I don’t mean to be rude (and I don’t) but since when does the oil industry cave to a shakedown?
At the same time, Congress is hacking away at the ethanol subsidies.
We’ll see in a few short years. The cellulosic biofuels plants can come on line very quickly, coupled with nat gas for the trucking fleet. The oil reservoir development, not so fast. I think it is safe to say that time is now officially an issue.
Colderwater
thank you
I found out it wasn’t worth the cost in that article:
http://carfree.free.fr/index.php/2008/09/01/la-fin-de-la-voiture-a-hydrogene/
Cowboy, nevermind, we’re still alive, “tant qu’il y a de la vie, il y a de l’espoir”
RE: footnote to my @161 post on hydraulic fracturing
I support the (aggressive) development of this technology – coupled with professional risk management to monitor technique and impact.
As perhaps an overtly obvious statement, one of the political problems with energy, in the modern context, is dealing with a suite of technologies that don’t fit comfortably within a single ideologically confined platform.
Requires a clever speechwriter.
Requires a clever speechwriter
“it’s Saul in the presentation”
Defense of fracking is going to require a lot more than a clever speechwriter I’m afraid, YBR.
Back in the early late 70′s 60 Minutes ran a piece about “Stray Voltage” that totally screwed my dad. Stray voltage was a phenomenon where, if you lived by a power line, “stray voltage” fell off the line and screwed up everything near it. Cancer was certain, and a number of health problems. Stray voltage fears ruined about 30 acres of land my dad tried in vain for a long time to sell. It was all bunk’em. At least, for me, it kept a great fishing pond in the family.
There are tons of foreboding videos out there on the web where people’s tap water from their kitchen faucet catches on fire. Due to fracking, of course. Fracking happens 8,000 feet down or so.
Who has an 8,000 feet deep water well?
Who?
If they’ll believe “Stray Voltage”, they’ll believe flaming kitchen faucets, no doubt.
Enviros aren’t above “poisoning the well”, ironically in this case!
[S]ome believe Saul’s tragic fall is due to the fact that “he was unable to deal with the Philistine threat decisively.
Well, that makes for a lot of good argument, doesn’t it?
But I can’t reduce it to the level of fracking and cellulosic biofuels.
bl…
I SEE the light!
C@182: stray voltage
Just the terminology is humorous. “Stray” anything is dangerous. Get in lock-step with The Program.
cowboy/176; compliments on managing to hold all that at the same focal length and covering it so well.
Re Nobody here at BC, and in fact nobody here on this Earth, is good enough to be a Planner.
That’s not an entreaty to stop thinking about what’s best for the future and formulating a plan of action to get yourself there. It is a condemnation of All Too Human tendency of successful people to think they Know Better and force Pet Outcomes.
That’s really the cross. That’s where you step away from the sysiphean boulder and let nature take its course. Sure the four horsemen as social planning seems an abdication of responsibility –but what profits man to take on any large heavy unstable object project he chooses, and calling it his responsibility? Who sez? no, man will play God but God will be God, even if he’s merely the brain chemical that makes you think it needs to be named.
Population control is always attempted by people who are already here –i call conflict of interest, and nominate God to decide the question, if there is one. question, i mean.
***
ybr, philistinism can’t be dealt with decisively –that’s the threat –
173. ETAB
It’s the infrastructure that has to be transformed. Not the faces of the Rulers.
……..
Who can disagree with that? I’d vote for this next time it comes up in the local election here in my neighborhood. I’ll check the yes box that says “Do you think that the infrastructure of Egypt should be changed and not just the faces of its rulers.
But that ain’t the way it normally works. Not in the middle east.
I’m not saying that miracles can’t happen. Typical miracles happen with technology all the time. I happen to think that the huge aquifers in Egypt should be mined to grow grain in the desert as Libya is doing. This is relatively easy. Even the Saudis are doing it.
Heck I even think that all the billionaires in the world should get together and offer a one billion dollar prize for every 100 dollars per acre foot that desalination plants can reduce the cost of desalination. At $200@ acre foot you can do high value commercial farming in the desert. At $50@ acre foot you can grow field crops in the desert–and therefor turn the deserts green all over the world and double the size of the habitable planet. That will keep everyone busy until technology matures sufficiently to mine recently discovered water on the moon and mars in the middle of 21st century.
This stuff is relatively easy compared to changing human nature.
Human nature does not change so much. That’s what would have to change in order to have a reordering of society in Egypt to one that supports a middle class–or a transformation of the infrastructure — as you call it. One of the posters here posted a link to an article about how there were huge crowds in Cairo last week crying out for war with Israel. They do not suggest a people with an economic agenda or one that looks to the future–but rather people with an ideological/religious agenda that looks to the past. (Though I’m sure there are economic voices in Egypt.)
Islam like communism is all about rule over people and not rule over nature which is what a self sustaining civilization is about.
Hillary Clinton has a gift. She walks in a room and people get angry. That is unfortunate given her job as head of the diplomatic service. Perhaps I can do better.
ETAB has made coherent arguments regarding the problems in the Middle East and what the people need to get out of the trap of fatalism, low productivity, high birthrates and arbitrary and oppressive government. Clearly Islam, especially as espoused by the advocates of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups, either Sunni or Shia, is not the answer. On this we all largely agree. The point of dispute is regarding the relationship of the economic-political and social-religious issues. Are the political and economic problems a phase that all societies pass through which once remedied, by the patient leavening of an educated minority and the natural effect of interaction with other societies over time, will lead to a natural internal transformation? Alternatively are these deplorable conditions the result of the religious and social structure that infuses these societies, even to the level of their deep linguistic codes so that they cannot change until those patterns are first altered through external intervention.
The question is which is the dependent variable? It is posited that the example of the Middle Ages in Europe shows that even the wealthy and tolerant West went through a period similar to this 600 year long dry spell that has afflicted the dar al-Islam. That seems unpersuasive for two reasons.
1. Islam is not simply a parallel that arrived ex nihilo and started late and is duplicating the experience of Christian Civilization. It is an offshoot that had an existing Jewish and Christian presence, and Persian after the early conquests, to build on. While it may have begun on the periphery and while most Jews and Christians would argue that Muhammad did not understand those he claimed to supplant that argument is not one that Muslims can make themselves. Because of its peculiar and unique character, being dependent on the unchangeable example of its founder, to a greater extant than was Buddhism, Islam proved incapable of correcting initial errors in using source material. It is either a false invention that claims an illegitimate connection to the legacy of the “Abrahamic” religions or a failure that proved unable to build on that legacy.
2. The impoverished and oppressive period in the West, that began some time before the rise of Islam and lasted for 800 years is not comparable to the subsequent fall of Islamic society. The oppression and intolerance were not expressions of care theological principles. They were more likely to arise as either the persistence of pagan (which means rural) values or the intrusion of intolerant patterns by invading barbarians and Muslims. While both suffered from poverty due to invasions, in the East from Mongols and Turks, the East never deurbanized (despite the depredations of Tamurlane) and never imploded as the West did after the Fall of Rome. The East remained as it was and failed to grow.
So on balance I think that ETAB tries to make the case for a Utopian variant ofthe modern Marxist-secular-materialist explanation of the ills of the Arabs. That they suffer from the legacy of colonialism and neo-colonialism that have drained their resources and stultified development while saddling them with bad movie despotisms such that if only a more enlightened leadership were to take charge then productivity and creativity, in a necessary capitalist phase, would flourish leading to a more educated peaceful and tolerant society, and eventually harmoniously post capitalist, in a virtuous circle.
Many good and sincere people have had that dream. Most of them had ugly deaths. Some remained idealists and others became corrupted and ended as either cogs in an oppressive regime or rebels in violent confrontation with it. Others found the struggle to draining and relapsed into the totalitarian extinguishment of their individuality through radical Islam. That was what happened to Muhammed Atta.
Some mechanism is needed to break the grip of culture that has blocked modernization. At this time the minority Christian communities that could have provided the leaven for creating a civil society and effecting change are vanishing. The Jews are already gone from the Muslim lands.
185/182 re: Stray Voltage.
Oh my yes. The Chinese dictators (all Russian trained engineers) couldn’t stop laughing when they saw all the screen “diapers” Sacramento forced PG&E to put under their high tension lines in the 80s. I remember seeing them driving around the Bay area freeways. Thank goodness most, if not all, have disappeared.
Anyone unburdened by our political correctness and who has a competent high-school (late 1800s era) education finds our innumeracy better than sitcoms – esp. the fact we let litigation be driven by competing experts’ opinions rather than provable demonstrations – where, like presuming innocence, no direct causal (non-statistical) proof, there should be no finding for the plaintiff. In my dealings with the Chinese they think of us (our government and people with these non-numerate beliefs) as foolish, ignorant, spoiled children – and any respect we see in our relationships is due to their own caution, reserve and Sun Tzu.
In rural settings, stray voltage usually meant that the farmer (more likely his grandfather) had played electrician without enough education to know what he was doing – so there were ground-loops in, say, the milking barn, where if you lifted the panels and looked at the wiring it was little better than speaker-wire pairs. I used to tell them, “here, if you think this isn’t a problem, grab hold of this (stainless steel) milking cup with your left hand and now take a piss into that pool where the cow relieved herself.” It’d take those without a clue a minute or three to stop swearing, once they stopped twitching. I’d flip open the yellow pages (remember those?) and point at the list of local electricians and recommend, pretty please, that they call them before they come to city council and complain again about (stopping town growth and) the power company from building new lines and “stray voltage.” (one didn’t take my advice – someone must’ve called the SPCA – they came, looked around, and had the county shut him down).
It’s all a corruption of civil society. Once we lose our common sense, ability to trust our fellow citizens to act rationally and independent of a herd, and worse, think a government can be trusted to do better – we’re doomed.
A Somali from Lybia: “Hi i just crossed the border to egypt, the Libyan people not the governement is killing any black or somalian that they see in the street. i have witnessed 80 somali and 20 ethiopian and 10 tchadian being executed by stone and hand in the city of bengazi accused of belonging to african mercenery. i personally escaped cause i didnt have the fare to pay the bus so i was hiding on the roof of the bus. It is a GENOCIDE please help us please help we are not mercenery we are refugee that escaped somalia for peace and freedom and on our way to euro”
An American vet response: “Dear Omar the Somalian Sounds pretty bad that your having to post from the top of a bus. If your post was real I would tell you this. I remember us “the U.S.” coming to Somolia trying to help back in the 90′s. You may remember this. What we got was the war lords shooting at us. I still remember seeing our soldiers being drug through the streets naked. Anyone who could carry a gun had one and turned them on us. Just last week some of your countrymen highjacked an American boat and killed the four unarmed people on it for no reason so F you.”
HABU@64 asked: ” Assembled writers …answer one simple question. Of all the Islamic countries that have just experienced revolutions, who is in charge? Shiite or Sunni?”
Self identifying as an “assembled writer” I rise to the bait mainly because it’s such an easy question.
Answer is as follows: there has been precisely one (1) and only one (1) revolution in an Islamic country in 2011 and it replaced a pro-western Sunni/Druze regime with an Hizbollah-lead regime in Lebanon. Hizboallah is, of course, Shiite, and while the coalition it leads also includes Sunni, Christian and Druze elements, its rise to power with the concurrent destruction of the pro-western ‘Cedar Revolution’ is a real revolution.
The military coups in Tunisia and Egypt merely replaced the leaders while preserving the old guards of the existing regimes in both countries. By no stretch can one use the term “revolution” to describe the recent events in either country.
There may be a second revolution underway in Libya. Al Qaeda’s announcement that it has established an ‘Islamic Emirate’ led by a former Guantanamo inmate in the eastern city of Darnah will certainly qualify as a genuine revolution if it stands. However, at this time Libya’s uncertain fate is clouded by the fog of nascent civil war.
@120 Marie Claude
You should stop knee-jerking for a while: the Queen of England has still less influence than a president of the (French) Fourth Republic. Her annual speech is not only handled to her by the Prime Minister but it includes indications about the words to stress and the tone of voice.
Besides I was not thinking as much in governements (for all of its faults Sarkozy is not an America hater like Chirac. I suppose Chirac has never forgiven that American girls refused to go to bed with him during his stay in America when he was twenty something) but the journalists of l’Immonde and your intellectuals specially the national-europeisten ones.
159. stoicheion
I am proud you won the Purple Heart , or what we called in the Corps as the Enemy Expert Riflemans badge.
Yeah I was there too, without the Geneva Convention covering my ass. Also Angola and Rhodesia so I’m not sure what the run up to your point of running away from any fight you can was all about, except ego. Marines run to the sound of the guns. That’s how you win battles, that’s why the Marine Corps is the Marine Corps and why the Air Force is a military gravy train for pogues.
191. ScenarioA
Thank you for the answer.
Looks like the count might go a bit higher this year.
Thanks again.
H
188. Blast From the Past
Nice, very nice, informative piece..please keep writing
Cobra pics….
http://tinyurl.com/656lngn
http://tinyurl.com/5s5y2ed
Now we’ve covered the BAD of the BAD and BADDER…but what is some of the thinking out there on how BADDER it can get here in the USA, especially if the Suez Canal gets closed….being retired I’m more into my toys than the end of the world , but it does interest me since I was out ther as a youth.
Thanks
O’s Unsafe Houses.
O’s Flee Party: Democrats Flee from Democracy.
Meanwhile, at the O’White House: Hello … hello … he….
“It all feels very spylike,”.
…-
“Life on the Run For Democrats In Union Fights”
CHICAGO — By now, Jon Erpenbach, one of 14 Democratic state senators on the run from Wisconsin, has switched hotels in this city three times, a necessity, he says, as word kept slipping out about where he was staying.
At first it was unsettling: the essentials were forgotten — extra slacks, socks, even underwear — in a last-minute race to get south of the state line. But gradually the lawmakers restocked, thanks to packages delivered by family members and trips to discount stores.
And while they seem to be adjusting to the rhythms of life on the lam, they are still trying to come to grips with being part of a sudden Democratic diaspora that everyone knows about but that the lawmakers themselves do not want to reveal. Speaking by telephone, many of them will say merely that they are staying “somewhere in northern Illinois,” in hotels or homes or something else, together or separately or both.
“It all feels very spylike,” said Senator Chris Larson,”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/us/politics/24exiles.html?_r=1&hp
THE BADDER
http://tinyurl.com/6a4shmd
#193 Habu; “the Air Force is a military gravy train for pogues.”
I suggest you try that line with some of the British Tornado pilots who went on runway-denial operations during one or other of the Gulf Wars, flying transonic at 100 feet in pitch-black night through 300 miles of AAA. Our guys are possibly too polite; you’ll find yourself talking to thin air.
#191.
Indeed, but beg to disagree (slightly).
Turkey.
What’s been going on in Turkey over the past half-dozen and more years is a revolution, though of the slowly-boiling-frog variety (unless that’s an oxymoron—but I don’t think it is, for what it’s worth…).
It is, in fact, a major revolution, which has been undertaken with stealth and cunning, with great foresight and careful planning.
And manifest patience.
A major revolution that is in the process of overturning that other great Turkish revolution, which, begun in the 1920s, propelled—dragged, rather—that backward country into the 20th Century.
(Which means, I suppose, that it’s a counter-revolution.)
Whatever.
This summer, we’ll see if Erdogan and friends will have been able to pull it off.
He’s been pulling all the right levers, imprisoning all the right people, infiltrating his people in the most important positions and ministries so as to convert the Kemalist revolution into a brief historical footnote.
Poof.
If he succeeds, watch out for another Turkish exodus (this time, not just Armenians).
Actually, watch out, period.
186. buddy larsen
“Population control is always attempted by people who are already here –i call conflict of interest, and nominate God to decide the question, if there is one. question, i mean.”
IIRC the ‘father’ of ZPG had 3 kids. And Gore’s empty guest house spews more carbon than my entire family.
G-d already decided, see Genesis 1:28 ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.’
While some would read this to command unrestricted population growth, it is clear that the intent is for man to be a responsible steward of the earth and other species. For example, man cannot have dominion over the fish if they are fished to extinction.
G-d has given us ample resources to support a growing population, but the idiots in charge would rather pretend they are gods than acknowledge the blessings we have been given by our Creator. To illustrate: burning food as gas while banning the extraction of gas.
All: fantastic thread. No way to reconcile (or even properly digest) all the POV’s but I sense a consensus at the level of “those folks are so done.” Agree that Islam is bad source code, every time it runs it will break, i.e. it is incompatible with scientific method, market economy and real democracy. Magical thinking, unswerving obedience, oppression of half its own population, limited to tribal and Big Man allegiances. Probability of evolution is not zero but we’re looking at centuries which it doesn’t have, in order to adapt.
So we have the shock front, where two incompatible worldviews are sliding into/past each other. (FWIW I wrote a poem using that metaphor, right after the Twin Towers came down). For a while, the interface/bearing surface of the two worldviews was lubricated with oil revenues but now the demographics and political entropy (s*** happens) have overloaded the precarious arrangement. So we have a hard break, and a hard stop. My guess is on our side we see big spikes in oil price, volatility like crazy (because as it goes up it will choke off a lot of consumption, forcing a drop, then up again…), ripples into everything that depends on oil, which is everything. Yes, let’s get cracking on the frac’ing and a whole lot more.
But as bad as our straits will be, the view across the Gulf of Sidra will be into an Arab Islamist world of massive shortages and collapse of infrastructure, flights of refugees, with bordering nations from Lebanon/Turkey/Greece to Italy and Spain being swamped. Europe is going to reel under the double blow of energy pricing and refugee influx and riots among the multi-culti ghettoes already present, who will not allow their co-religionists to be left outside the walls to starve.
The UN will issue memos. And what will we do? Nothing, or at least nothing useful. I am grateful for and horrified by the intel supplied by Subotai Bahadur at #170, that we have SFA military assets in the Med that could even begin to address the crisis. Not with occupation or extraction; not even with maintaining orderly flow of refugee and other shipping. Nothing. This answers the questions posed by Wretchard: can we intervene? No. Should we intervene? No. The third unasked question, Will we intervene? Is probably answered, “Only if it hurts our interests, and is done in a way to maximize the hurt; so yes, Obama will lead us into the mire at exactly the wrong time and place in exactly the wrong way. Maybe this will be like Carter’s “Hostage Rescue” fiasco on a much, much bigger scale.)
I guess one solution to the demographic explosion which has overloaded the kleptocratic/theocratic extraction economies of the region is –population crash. A few days without water or a few weeks without food will tend to do that. Will we then see a “rebound” in a year or five, where the survivors re-form a series of less-unstable states?
#188 – whew, that’s quite the ‘romantic rhetoric’ you’ve written. Lots of unconnected terms. I’m afraid I have to disagree with your outline.
First, the dependent variable is the result not the cause.
Now, my outline of the ME situation has nothing to do with Islam as a theology. Islamic theology is minimal, primarily based on judaic. Islam is primarily a socioeconomic and political structure. It is a tribal system which means that it operates as a two-class system: Rulers and Ruled. There is no free, independent middle class.
It emerged, I suggest, in the 7th c as a socioeconomic reaction of a tribal pastoral economy that was losing its land base to the expanding Byzantine settlements of a market economy. As an economy under threat of loss of land and contacts – it was militant. Right from the start. Setting it up as dogma, i.e., as religion, was a tactic to enforce militant power. But, at the same time, this tactic meant that the ideology froze the people into one mode of life: tribal. And without the ability to adapt and change.
Second – by the way, Islam and the ME structures have absolutely nothing to do with ‘deep linguistic codes’. Such as??? Sociolinguistic determinism has long been shuffled to the garbage bin.
And – there’s no such thing as a ‘false invention’. An invention is an invention; it’s neither false nor true. Don’t apply the rules of logic to a hypothesis. Islam is not a ‘false invention’; it’s a sociopolitical and economic mode of life that can function only within a small tribal non-industrial no-growth, no-change population.
Furthermore, my analysis has zilch to do with marxism or secularism or materialism. It isn’t based on any political or economic theory. And certainly not neo-colonialism etc. You sound like an undergrad student, filled with terms about which you are still unsure.
It is based on three independent variables. Not theories but variables: population, economic mode, political mode. All three are necessarily linked. The result, the dependent variable – is the type of economy and political mode.
If you have a population in the multimillions, in urban sites, maintained by industrialism – then, you MUST have a capitalist market economy and a constitutional democratic political mode.
The above has zilch to do with theology, or with colonialism or with marxism or with any political theory of development or with utopianism. Try again. Without dropping undergrad terminology. Just stick to the basic variables of reality.
193. HABU
You miss my point. Do you read any posts besides your own?
War is sometimes necessary. When so, it should be prosecuted with vigor and to a conclusion. Necessary means there are issues of national survival at stake.
Waging war for the amusement of aging adolescents is NEVER a good idea.
There is a fine line between being bellicose and frothing at the mouth, mad dog crazy. I doubt that you can see that line in your rear view mirror.
Slow down, take a deep breath and give me 1 GOOD reason the USA should go to war in Lybia. Why should American troops die to support Col. Quack quack?
IF you are that determined to support the Col., he IS hiring Mercs. With your credentials I’m sure he can find you an AK-47, lots of Magazines and a target rich environment. Maybe you can interview with his bodyguards?
199. Fletcher Christian
Are you former USAF? Ever get shot at? I hope not.
I was referring to the USAF, notorious for it’s easy duty…yeah pilots fly dangerous missions with 10-50x more flight hours than their opponents in aircraft that are noteably better….some are even tough guys.
I don’t personally know any RAF types but I do know RAAF and former Rhodesian pilots….good chaps
Don’t get your panties in a wad and don’t worry about me saying anything I say here face to face to anyone ..I was born into the Corps, I served in the Corps and the CIA and I don’t know the word coward. Everybody dies; as the Bard said..
“of all the things I yet have heard it seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come”
Live by it bro….you’ll enjoy life a good deal more. You may relax now. But the USAF today is notorious in the services as being pogue country.
Every Marine is a rifleman FIRST. Every AF is a maintenence man first.
Have a nice day and remember…don’t hold a grudge, it’s bad for your blood pressure. Have a tootsie roll and relax.
and hey ..did ya like the car pics..neat huh?
“A two-class statist economy that lacks a middle class private market economy..cannot support a population in the multimillions. This has absolutely nothing to do with ‘culture’ or ‘social beliefs’. Nothing.”
I disagree with that theory. MY evidence;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty#Population
Ming Dynasty had a population of around 60 million. Room to Quibble over that number but the difference between 57 million and 63 million makes no difference to your argument.
The Ming dynasty was an EMPIRE. A fine example of a two-class statist economy. Supporting a population in the millions. Larger then most Islamic states today.
The scientific method requires that when a theory has an instance (observation) that violates the theory, it should be abandoned. Or the theory drops back to a hypothesis until the new data (observation) is folded into a new theory that explains ALL the observations. Social sciences, such as economics are a little ‘squishy’ on that, which is why they are called ‘soft’ sciences.
You insist on looking at EVERYTHING through the prism of your culture. That is what I’m trying to jolt you out of.
Climb out of the box and look around.
The ONLY law of economics is supply and demand. Supply and demand applies to 20th century America, 10th century Islam as well as 14th century Ming China.
You apply the standards of Western civilization (culture, whatever) to everything. The world is bigger then that.
It appears more and more that Obama’s game is chaos. Nothing is as it seems. I just hope his Internet kill switch malfunctions. I would miss BC.
bftb @ 188: … blocked modernization…
Enjoyed your pomo rant, but I don’t think modernization is something that is blocked, it is something that must be actively sought or at least tripped across, and Islam is dead set against movement. Deconstructing Islam is like deconstructing cultural suicide, it has no place for progressivism. Even the Islamic fantasy of a golden age is backwards-looking and status-seeking, not an example of anything they want to do now – or in fact, ever really did in the first place. The claim may be more like some tiny self-acknowledgement of embarrassment and obvious inferiority to their neighbors.
In fact, Islam has allowed an active business element since the beginning. It has to, y’know. I don’t think capitalism as such has anything to teach it, nor in any case does Islam have any capability to learn.
Remember, even the west had no sense of progressivism until it was invented, discovered, accepted as part of the Renaissance. As they say in academe, you have to teach the students to learn. Everytime a Moslem uses Facebook, for that matter turns on an electric light, he is violating Islamic strictures. I think the strain of that has built up now and will take its toll, but what is that toll, on a belief system that simply has no place for it?
ETAB
I have already commented on the historical inaccuracy of your thesis regarding the formation of Islam. You never responded and have yet again cut and paste an earlier post. If you cannot or will not defend the historical accuracy of a even a minor point of your thesis, why should the rest of it receive any consideration at all?
#204. stoicheion
It appears obvious that HABU does not.
204. stoicheion
You obviously have missed the entire history after WWII where proxy wars replaced wars where ” Necessary means there are issues of national survival at stake.” yadda, yadda…hell man even without this latest outbreak we are living in a country that is facing bankruptcy or Weimar type inflation…..so I do believe it is you who needs to focus on the here and now and not the rear view mirror. Now it’s hard to slow down in a 427 Cobra but I’ll try during my rides to the skeet club.
I already own an AK, lots of magazines and 4000 rounds of AK ammo. I also own about 15-20 other assualt rifles, mags and ammo. But I ‘ve done the clandestine things and now I enjoy life, driving my Cobra, riding horses on my Montana property …all the boons that come from being way smarter than the average. Started buying gold five years ago and silver four. Own four homes. all paid for. I have NO debt. Life is good and I made it through three shooting wars (two while being clandestine) without getting hit….and I was the leader. Just pure luck.
I don’t want to go to war in Libya , I want their oil which would entail engaging some type of rag tag enemy but nothing close to a war….get real. Quadaffi, Kadaffyi Kalaboosey, whatever ..care about defending him? That’s an attempt at humor, I recognise that. Hang on to your cubicle. You obviously have not read the various reasons I have already given for wanting the oil ..but if I were you I wouldn’t go back and waste my time, because then you’ll be off on a tangent about bombing innocent people or some other Rosie Richardson, humanitarian Cause Celeb. (go ahead ,look it up)
I would recommend you raise your game to looking out for the greater interests of the USA rather than what the casualty list might look like after engaging the mighty Libya Army, because when this is all done it’s not going to be Libya for the Libyans , it’s gonna be Libya for some superpower…and it might as well be us unless you object. How do you like your lettuce? $4 per lb or $5 per lb?
Both Islam and leftism are really philosophies/ideologies, not just people or systems. That’s why the fall of nation-states that they inhabit, like the USSR, does nothing but slow down their spread. It is also why they both employ violence as an essential component of the argument that they make, not just as a way of keeping their systems going.
Both the left and Islam are joined at the root. They both have an idea of man that they must validate at all costs, an idea that is contrary to reality. This requires them to force men to be as is dictated by their philosophies, both of which emphasize the virtual elimination of individuality.
To win this war, we will need to market our competing philosophy better than we have. Scientific breakthroughs and isolationism will not hold back the enemy forever, and political and military efforts obviously don’t cut it by themselves either.
The tragedy of Obamanation is that we have abandoned a belief in the philosophy that sustains us and which we embody. And you can see how this abandonment has energized the enemies and led to lightning speed “progress” on their part. The alternative is the way the house of cards crumbled when faced with principled philosophical opposition by John Paul, Reagan, and Thatcher.
But the tenacity of what we’re up against is evident in the unaccountable “success” that both philosophies have had in the sense that billions keep signing up for them despite their decades/centuries of abject failure.
The key to reversing this is going to be a belief in who we are, not just what we can produce or control militarily. And without that, they will bury us, not that I expect that to happen.
#206 stoicheion. I disagree. The Ming dynasty was a market economy, with a middle class engaged in the production and marketing and trade of goods. The fact that it was an Empire is irrelevant. Britain was an empire and had a middle class and a democracy.
China at that time was an agricultural economy (non-industrial) just as the European 16th-17th c economies were also agricultural and were also market economies with a middle class.
What you are ignoring are four key variables:
First – is the size of the nation – and having a population in the multimillions in the whole of China is no comparison to the same population in a nation the size of Egypt or Iran or Britain or France. In the 16th c, in China, a population of that size in that massive a nation – using various types of agriculture (the ecology of China obviously varies from district to district)…can be sustained by LOCAL governments. The central government was focused on communication (roads, security, currency) and defense.
Second – is the vital fact that Chinese government has always been local. The central government has always been ‘far off’ and has not interfered to any great extent in local affairs (until the enforced movement into industrialism via Mao). I’m sure you know that the dialects spoken in China are so different that people cannot understand one another. It is only since Mao that the use of a common language, Mandarin, has become widespread. But not back then. Local governance is, itself, a mode of democracy. This is a key factor in China – the power of local governments to look after local issues.
Third, in both situations – Europe and China, the productive members of the economy were a market middle class. It took time to change the political infrastructure in Europe to a democratic one where that middle class took power. In China, because of the vast size of the country, what remained were the local styles of government – where villages and local towns effectively looked after themselves. This is ‘local democracy’.
Fourth – is the reality of industrialism. In the ME, the economy has moved to sustenance being derived not from local and market agriculture (China) or from market agriculture (Europe) but from industrialism. And, an industrialism based around one resource: oil or the Suez Canal. Furthermore, the majority of the population has become urbanized and thus, are non-participants in an agricultural production. More and more of the sustenance in these nations must be purchased from external sources. And their one market economy – oil – is unable to sustain the increased population.
And – this increased population, unlike those in China and Europe of the 15th, 16th c, is not engaged in any production of goods and services. That’s the whole point. There is no ‘market economy’ in the ME, where a middle class emerges to produce goods and services for the market. They are a dependent population – depending on the distribution by the central govt of the revenues from oil. Just as the Saudi King has suddenly ‘distributed’ to everyone – several thousand dollars – to ward off rebellion in that country.
So, I stand by my analysis. China in the Ming era did have a market economy, quite a vibrant one, and its own version of democracy – local governance.
I don’t apply any standards of ‘western civilization’ to my thesis. Economic sustenance, demographics and political mode has nothing to do with western or other civilization. [Oh, and by the way, my first degree was in Chinese - not that it matters.]
Habu insufferable alerts of the day:
#1 beware of photoshopped pictures coming out of all these kerfuffles.
#2 beware of agitprop or disinformation which ,like photoshopped pics is damn hard to tell.
#3 believe little of what you hear and “see” going on over there.
#4 dump your dollars and stocks and buy commodity futures and foreign currency,Canadian my fav.
# for those who can afford gold..buy..silver buy..nickles buy. Nickle?..yes..the current melt value of a nickle is 140.24% higher than face value….consult Coinflation.com
Have a nice day
“If you have a population in the multimillions, in urban sites, maintained by industrialism – then, you MUST have a capitalist market economy and a constitutional democratic political mode.”
Completely meaningless statement. If you have a point guard quicker then Mohamed after a 7 year old, a center who ducks when satellites pass over, a power forward who can squeeze OIL from rocks with his bare hands, a 3 who can throw a beachball theu the eye of a needle from 40 feet away and a 2 who’s crossover removes the socks from the front row of spectators you might make the second week of the tourney.
Cherry picking criteria to match your desired outcome is why the world laughs at AGW nutters today. Some call it the Al Gore school of science. Define ‘industrialism’. The Roman empire was the industrial power of it’s day. They had factories based on overshoot water wheels. That allowed them to manufacture weapons for their legions in amounts that the village smith couldn’t hope to match.
The Roman Empire was built on crony capitalism and was in no way shape or form democratic. The Roman Republic sorta was. Another hole in your theory.
Will you head for the lifeboats or will you go down with the ship?
History is chock full of examples that disprove that theory.
Granted all the empires in question collapsed but so will ours. Eventually. No matter what theories are produced to entertain academia.
Saudi student arrested in Texas for planning a bombing attack:
“The FBI has arrested a 20-year-old Saudi student in Texas suspected of planning a terrorist attack using explosive chemicals. The FBI says his possible targets included the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush.
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, attending college near Lubbock, Texas, was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Federal prosecutors say he had been researching online how to construct an improvised explosive device using several chemicals as ingredients.
Federal authorities say Aldawsari’s diary indicated the young man had been plotting an attack for years and obtained a scholarship so he could come directly to the United State to carry out jihad.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/24/saudi-citizen-texas-charged-suspected-bombing-plot/?test=latestnews
Last April –
Gaddafi: Barakeh Obama is friend
Libyan leader praises US president: ‘He is of Muslim descent, his policy should be supported, as he now leans towards peace’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3877174,00.html
Related: a map of cities still controlled by Gaddafi.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/02/map-of-libya-showing-who-is-in-control.html
#209 – peter boston; I’ve checked this thread and you haven’t commented here on my hypothesis about the formation of Islam. Are you referring to my view that it was a militant tribal reaction to the loss of a land base for a particular economic mode (pastoralism)..because of the spread of the settled market economies of the Byzantine era?
I base that analysis on the texts and socioeconomic practices of all three religions – Judaic, Christian and Islamic. It would be too difficult and space-grabbing here to explain, but the Judaic was obviously a horticultural self-sufficient economy (explains why it is matrilineal); the Islamic was not self-sufficient and was pastoral and patrilineal..and the Christian, based around the Roman infrastructure, was a market economy.
#214 stoicheion. Industrialism means (a) the production of goods using fossil or other fuels such as coal, oil, gas in (b) the mass production for mass market consumption. It does not mean a mechanical mode of production (the Roman example using water power) nor craftsman style of production.
Crony economics is not the definition of capitalism.
No, history is not ‘chock full of examples’ denying my point that: “If you have a population in the multimillions, in urban sites, maintained by industrialism – then, you MUST have a capitalist market economy and a constitutional democratic political mode.”
The point is: how does one sustain a population of that size (multimillions), in that area (urban)? It can only be done by the industrial method. Then…
how do you pay for this industrial process? By selling oil? Heh – what happens when the income isn’t sufficient to buy the food and medicines and etc?
You need a private middle class market economy. And that requires that the legislative power must be with that middle class. ALL political systems must empower the economically productive members of their society.
You don’t get it – and I can’t help you with that. We (?) are not an empire. We – the global world – are a mode of societal, economic and political existence.
So much to digest above. For those isolationists not wanting to interfere with Libyan citizens- that is not an option. If it is not us it will be someone else. Better we take control I say. Teach the Libyans to fish instead of our past history of giving away fish with an empty promise of friendship. I seem to remember there being water under Libya. Help them develop an economy based on more than just oil and promote self sufficiency. Do this cooperatively if possible but at the point of a gun if necessary. Remember, ME peoples respect strength overall and I seem to remember it working pretty well with Japan and Germany.
Electronic revolutions (eRevolutions?) are cute but all the tweets in the world can’t stop a bullet. You are being niave (ETAB). Our intent should be to franchise the American model. Diplomats make poor founding fathers- too wimpy and too eager to compromise just to check the box. TELL them what their new constiutution will read, let them live under true freedom for a determinate period of time, then back away slowly. Important, non-negotiable aspects are secular freedom in government, liberation and equality for women and a seperation of military and government.
What is in it for us? Reliable supply of reasonably priced oil to stimulate our economy and create more jobs (including in Libya). Strong allies in the Libyan people long-term but tying down a loose cannon in the near-term. Ability to project power from a close base into the ME. Stabilizing the Israeli position by making it absolutely clear we will NOT ACCEPT any hostile actions in their direction. President Speakeasy would move onto Lebanon shortly after I had set up bases in Libya. Offer our hand to the Eqyptians to help them move in the same direction while putting Iran on notice- The buck stops here.
Bottom line, put our interests to the forefront while helping others to realize the same dream of liberty. Anything else will end much, much more violently- just like Germany felt emboldened to conquer the world, so will Iran and facsist Islam, until someone stands up to them. The longer we wait the bloodier it will be.
What if Obama is the Trojan Horse of both Islam and progressivism? There are two lifestyles that are unsustainable – slavery via Islamic dictatorships and unfettered capitalism in the mode of the Love Canal, Eastman Chemical, asbestos, etc etc. There are ideologies that are unsustainable as well.
Obama is, by his election, exposing the ugly underbelly of liberalism around the world by pretending to represent it. And capitalism can’t continue to trash the world with consumption and pollution. Obama is exposing both and creating enough chaos to flush the system? Reset button?
ETAB, I do not disaggree with you entirely, just in your methodology mostly. I believe the American model is superior because we start with basic, human rights guaranteed in writing. Our rights are based on personal existence whether you believe they come from God, Allah, Buddha or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It sets everyone on a level playing field at birth and promotes equal opportunity for all. No, it is not perfect- some argue allowing personal wealth to be passed on to heirs skews the game (hence the social justice crowd), but if you allow personal property ownership free from government confiscation, you really can’t play both sides.
Our form of government has made a larger and more positive impact on the world in our short 235 years than any of the much, much older forms. You can’t argue with that kind of success. Our form is the least restrictive allowing the greatest amount of liberty, the highest amount of national security and the most equal protection of individuals by law.
If there is a better model, I’m all ears.
ETAB is the person spouting undergraduate claptrap. He was offered an olive branch and rejected it. Arab and Islamic societies fail to modernize because of deep social pathologies that are linked to the practice of Islam and reflected in the usage of the Arabic language. Islam is not simply a variant of Judaism or Christianity with a similar impact on its adherents. It impacts on perceptions of the nature of the individual and their relations to God nature other people authority creativity and knowledge. These patterns of thought have consequences. The economic and political symptoms are dependent variables and the religious-social system is the independent variable that would need to be changed first. Actually I still find most of what ETAB says useful, his description of China is generally accurate. The problem is that he persists in a top down focus that admits of no cultural impact on behavior. Economic structures probably do modify behavior, change the Utiles, over time but that is a very poorly understood process. Totalitarians attempt to force that change.
Josh, “pomo rant?” Not understanding your criticism, thought we were in agreement on the essentials.
The question in this case is whether a simple technical analysis would lead us to favor seizing the oil fields. Oddly enough I tend to agree with Habu in this case. That troubles me and I might be wrong, but it would not be the first time. The usual crowd would scream “No blood for oil” and I’d reply “Why not? Better theirs than ours and that will happen anyway so why not on our terms?” There are things to review, such as pipeline vulnerability and population density. in determining feasibility.
For the record and to forestall any challenge from our aggrieved participant from England, Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers got almost exactly this problem wrong when he stopped the Franco-British seizure of Suez. In Ike’s defense that was the same weekend the Russians invaded Hungary and he simply thought he had other fish to fry. Perhaps this can be an opportunity to correct that mistake and retrieve Europe from the path of decline that they entered onto over 54 years ago.
American forces controlling the oil, and positioned on Egypt’s flank, would prove a telling counterpoint to both Muslim Brotherhood/al-Qaeda ambitions and to Russian energy market coercion. Perhaps we can stop playing defense.
ETAB
I commented more completely to that exact same paragraph in a previous thread and will not repeat it here. My only point is that your model of Islam being created as a “reaction” to the economic models of other groups is hogwash.
The economy of the early Muslims was banditry. Mohammed himself participated in at least 27 bandit raids which are described in detail in the biographies. The motivation was to kill the people that had rejected him, plunder their caravans, and take the women and children as slaves. Mohammed’s successors continued that pattern for the next 100 years. The ranks of Islam grew in proportion to the amount of accumulated booty. Absent the robbery aspect of early Islamic history Mohammed would be a footnote in somebody’s dissertation of the Quraysh.
The Byzantine Christians probably traded with the Quraysh, the dominant tribe in central Arabia, but I am not aware of any Byzantine expeditions into that region, and they certainly did not have any landholdings or participate in any local market economy (other than the trading). In the early 600s the Byzantines were fully occupied much closer to home warring with the Persians.
I wrote: For the Ugly American to survive the current ME transformation by revolution would be a feat – of virtual magic perhaps – but a feat nonetheless.
Very fast note of clarification to counteract a rare reversion into nuance. One might think that the concept of the Ugly American (bad, badder, and baddest) would begin to fade in comparison with whatever words/ideas/narratives are used to described the melt downs currently sweeping across the sands of ME history, not to mention the surrounding ocean currents.
That it (likely) will not abate in intensity or frequency of invocation, a measure of many things, including the persistence of imagery that inspired, if not created, the food vs fuel debate.
Since the subject is only borderline tangential to the thread, I’ll simply end with This.
(The role of USA in the ME is vulnerable to criticism on the basis of historical record of engagement, without invoking this particular spectral incarnation of the Ugly American, the one and same who bled billions of dollars of foreign aid to countries who could arguably be characterized as unworthy of the generosity.)
Habu when you brag about being above average, the good life, military exploits, and surviving shooting wars you tend to sound like one who is not and has not these things. I’ve known soldiers of all kinds and every one is reticent about his achievements. Men of genuine military valor. Especially about surviving the shooting. None would think of attributing survival to intelligence. I suspect not a few Blemont Club posters are ex-soldiers; they, however, would rather not mention it than appear boorish by doing so. I’ve never really known any bragging soldiers of your ilk. So, you might be a first. I’m more inclined to believe you are a retired farm equipment salesman who has read a ton of Tom Clancey-like novels and, Don Quijote-like, you are living out your twilight years imagining yourself a valiant warrior from those military hardware thrillers. Yes, I’ve been in a shooting war. Now what? This isn’t Soldier of Fortune Magazine, pal. This is the Belmont Club.
I don’t believe Americans will allow any form of coercive government; Exhibit A is the Tea Party movement. The Federal Government has been overstepping their Constitutional authority, incrementaly for years. We only resort to extreme measures when the legislative process ceases to work, and it has been showing signs of that recently. If the Socialists make the big move they will be put down, violently if necessary, but down all the same. Socialism is slavery, period. You can’t give someone wealth on the backs of others without that definition being applicable. If person A has a “right” to healthcare without paying for it, either the healthcare professionals or the taxpayers who are not ill are enslaved to provide that service. That is not liberty, period. I am all for charity and walk my talk in this regard but GOVERNMENT CAN NOT MANDATE CHARITY! It ceases to be charity and becomes enslavement.
When the recipient class is able to order, at the point of a gun (government force), the provider class to give them what they want we no longer have a democratic republic. We have enslavement. This is a fact and not a breakable argument if you believe in personal liberty.
If we can not recognize this we will have a bloody civil war on our hands. Everyone will suffer as a result and we risk neither side surviving as our enemies will strike in the midst of our troubles. Oceans are no longer as much a problem as our last civil war. Think it through, America, before we go too far down that road.
Habu’s designs on Libyan oil fields just may have gotten some Justification:
“Al Qaeda establishes Islamic Emirate in Libya” – in eastern oil rich provinces
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-al-qaeda-islamic-emirate-established-in-libya-led-by-former-gitmo-detainee/
Can we let Al Qaeda run a oil rich country? don’t think so.
Now, I’ve always been for taking Iran’s oil fields and Kharg Island to boot and making them American territory as reparations for Iranian terrorism.
Of course Khadifi is also blaming Al Qaeda for the unrest- so have to take this report with a grain of salt.
With the uprisings in Sabratah, that will cut Gaddhafi from all the pipelines, including the elephant field.
None of the pipelines at present flow through any territory currently controlled by Gaddahfi.
Right now it looks like he has lost most of his military. What remains are mostly his mercenaries. For now his military is sitting on the sidelines for the most part.
I would wager that if his mercenaries kill enough of his own people–his military will join in the fight against him. Seems like a safe bet.
Habu:
Put a sock in it, will you. Why don’t you go get your own blog instead attaching yourself like parasite to this one and sucking the life out of it?
BTW, I think you’re a phony.
Agree totally with Das at 224.
And re “Why don’t you go get your own blog instead attaching yourself like parasite to this one and sucking the life out of it” … This suggestion is applicable to some of the other tavern big-mouths who inhabit (and are ruining) this site. No need for names, you know who you are.
What Obama started can’t be fixed with a veto
‘Get us Out’: Thousands of U.S. citizens STILL stranded in Libya as pressure grows on Obama to act
The first link will resolve any doubt, it is hoped, concernng the anti-Semiticsm of the Obomber administration.
The second will suggest that Americans fare little better with the “Mighty Mouse of the Praire.”
Perhaps we can all agree that the rescue of thousands of American citizens, who seem to be viewed by Ghaddafi as potential hostages in a pinch, is worth the effort. And if in the process Libyan military aircraft and armor were “checked”, well, so much the better for an entirely overly belicose region. Why, our good friends the Egyptians might have to step in to fill the vacuum.
Cynically, it would destroy Obie’s presidency if a hostage situation were to arise, despite the Great Won’s deep concern…Hmmm…
Barry Meislin@200 said: “What’s been going on in Turkey over the past half-dozen and more years is a revolution, though of the slowly-boiling-frog variety … It is, in fact, a major revolution, which has been undertaken with stealth and cunning, with great foresight and careful planning. And manifest patience.”
Absolutely! I fully agree. As I indicated in 191, the frame of reference for that post was limited to the recent rash of unrest which has captivated the media for the past two months.
As you said, what is happening in Turkey has been a slow moving strategic revolution, but IMHO the word ‘revolution’ is quite inadequate to describe the tectonic shift which has taken place. While Turkey has established a new and revolutionary model for an Islamist state it is also playing a much larger game as a rising power with seemingly unlimited possibilities. As the only state which currently can challenge Russia’s monopoly on transmission of energy supplies from central Asia to Europe, its geopolitical clout can only increase.
One perspective might be to consider that Turkey is aggressively but quietly going about creating the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ that other Islamists only talk about.
A modest proposal to Wretchard:
Shut down the comments section for three months.
Perhaps that phony loud-mouth Habu and some of the other blowhards will find something useful and productive to do, like getting a job. Or, they could just sit around and jerk off. Whatever.
Speakeasy
I hope there are enough of us to prevent progressivism’s grand plan. The flood of immigrants, the deliberate financial assault, the attacks on all fronts have weakened us. Somehow we made it through the Depression, but it was ugly. People are different now. They are expecting us to take care of them.
I’ve accepted the fact that I don’t have enough money to reconstruct my body when I get old. There is a limit to what a free society can do. And there is a limit to what a socialist society can do. The difference is in a free society, those that have do. They go to the head of the line. In a socialist society, you take a number and take a seat. We are now badly out of balance and could be overwhelmed.
Seizing oil fields anywhere in MENA may sound like a tactic worth attempting, but like the dog that catches the car, what do we once we “seize” them? Whether a good idea or no, it’s not going to happen because:
1.) Obama is president. Need anything more be said?
2.) Liberal MSM & “I’d like to buy the world a coke”-types would just go nuts, howling even louder that they did over Iraq.
3.) There are too many right and/or reactionary/right types (like myself) who consider the entire Muslim world a cesspool, a snake-pit, a fire-ant nest; and want USA to get off their oil, and detach ourselves from the ME hideous problems.
Let them kill each other.
And again, do not allow fire ants to immigrate into our country!
Finally, it’s past time to start thinking about food as a weapon. We have it, they don’t. No way in Hades can they feed themselves once the oil runs out. To the poster who keeps assuming that they will magically grow a middle class, there is another alternative: An economist named Thomas Malthus described it about 250 years ago.
Effin’ unionista idiots.
“a bit that was designed to compare the union protests in Madison with the ones happening in Cairo.”
Where are the banshee howls of outrage/protest from ASPCA/PETA?
…-
“Video: ‘Daily Show’ Camel Stunt Goes Awry Ecorazzi”
“The Daily Show: Camel Stunt Turned Rescue Effort – What Were They Thinking? Gather.com”
“Camel Eats It for Madison Daily Show Stunt Newser”
“Dumb Daily Show Camel Stunt Goes Bad (VIDEO)
Post Chronicle – Mitch Marconi – 7 hours ago
During their coverage of the huge labor protests in Madison, Wisconsin, Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” thought it would be funny to add some camel humor to the proceedings. The TV show brought a camel to the Wisconsin Capitol on Monday for a bit … ”
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/strange/article_212350855.shtml
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi
232. A Rogue Wave Called Bruce
A modest proposal to Wretchard: Shut down the comments section for three months.
Nonsense. I don’t know whether Habu is as he has presented himself, or if he’s Walter Mitty on steroids, but that does not concern me. What is important is whether his analyses are accurate and predictive of developments versus those of his detractors, or simply proponents of other scenarios. In this gigantic global chess game for survival we all need to “play the board, not the man”.
Only time will tell if he’s correct or full of it, but you would preclude even consideration of those viewpoints. Whatever Wretchard envisioned for the Belmont Cub to be, I doubt he wanted a one-sided amen chorus.
Whether Habu is “real” or not is far less important than whether his arguments prove correct.
As for allowing fire ants to enter and build nests in our country, allow me to illustrate what results by noting that a mother from New Hampshire has created a blog titled “My Daughters Assault” which documents the brutal beating of her 12-year-old daughter by two teenage Muslim fire ants who came into our country as refugees. Her jaw was broken, yet apparently neither the police, immigration authorities nor the local school are doing anything about it.
A wiser commenter than myself wrote this about the two young Muslim fire ants:
“And what would be the fate of these boys in their native lands after assaulting the daughter of some neighbor? They would be extremely lucky to remain alive, is what. Rest assured I’m not saying that someone should kill them, only that in our uniquely gullible States, the boys probably knew that they could get away with it.
Being a refugee shouldn’t be sufficient grounds for immigration to this country. They’re not our problem, and they only create problems for us.”
Seal our borders now!
“Is there Napalm in Gilead?”
habu’s comments come from a long tradition: the “Jeremiad”
http://www.bing.com/search?q=jeremiads+definition&form=IE8SRC&src=IE-SearchBox
–they’re intended to be irritating, i’m pretty sure. Once you get used to that notion, they’re pretty unique in the combo of horror and hilarity. i myself, personally speaking, get a kick out of ‘em. Tho will concede readily, de gustibus non est disputandum.
Tharkun @ 236. What you said. W runs the BC so he can decide whether to alter the ROE, but for what it’s worth I think it works. And in a libertarian space it is hard –not impossible, of course, but very hard– to argue for prior restraint on speech that is reasonably relevant and halfway civil. If somebody gets silly or abusive, I don’t much mind, I just skim or skip. The more it happens, the less time I spend on him/her: the screen name eventually is the screen itself, and I just tune him/her out entirely. No need for W to do anything; and the resource cost to the thread is pretty modest. What’s a few kilobytes of e-blather cost anyway?
I am also OK with being treated the same way. In fact I have no doubt that others tune me out. If my little efforts produce a chorus of crickets, I try to raise my game. Maybe eventually I will make a worthy contribution. In the meantime I am glad for a chance to play, and to learn from others.
FWIW – I appreciate HABU’s comments.
The problem with Sharia – no interest allowed thus no business/lending can happen.
The torah has a similar prohibition but the rabbis figured out a way to deal with it – limited partnership. Judaism is a modern growing thought process, islamism is a dead letter.
Habu,
Not sure what the point of insulting the Air Force like that is, but it makes you look pettier.
This guy ‘gets’ Jeremiah:
http://maybeimamazed59.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/is-there-no-balm-in-gilead/
f47/240; re last sentence:
http://www.financialsensearchive.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2009/0522.html
((snip
Modern man has developed nuclear weapons. But even more devastating, he has developed birth control pills and television. He has created tools that have cut the birth rate of the most advanced countries. He has made entertainment the center of modern society’s attention. He has created doctrines of entitlement and freedom, offering food stamps and free medicine for the masses. And now the relationship between the advanced countries and the “developing world” can be described in the words of Louis Veuillot: “When I am the weaker, I ask for my freedom, because that is your principle; but when I am the stronger, I take away your freedom, because that is my principle.” Here is the predator at work, even in the midst of civilization (in the overturning of civilization).
It seems there is a law of history at work. Whenever something good is achieved, a force is formed in diametrical opposition to it. Whenever progress is made, a force emerges that wants to take us back – whether it is Nazis who want to replay the survival game of tribe versus tribe, or Communists who want to return us to our Communist roots as hunter-gatherers. Whenever civilization emerges, the romance of the barbarian wells up to swallow it.
end snip))
…hard to find a snip, any of the eight para would do –
Buddy we just have to survive ‘the romance of the barbarian ‘ in the white house.
Habu is a force of nature. Might as well demand that tornadoes and earthquakes be banned for xx months. Of course, some will experience Peak Habu before others. YMMV.
The Other Debate was vibrant, imo, possibly to the consternation of lurkers who were expecting a slam dunk.
218. SpeakEasy
Righteous brother !!!
H
JFM # 192
knee-jerking? me? uh no, just kidding you, you’re so rare !
hmm the “Firm of England” do hold some shares in BP
Uh, Chirac not having been to bed with a american girl, oh dear, these things were unthinkable at these times !
He wasn’t a America enemi, just that he didn’t agree with Bush administration pushing into a war with Irak with wrong escuses, if he had been such a enemi, why then did he send troops to afghanistan, why did he let CIA to oppen a office with french intelligence in Paris…
The force of economics and empty bellies should bring light sweet Libyan crude back to the market — and in much larger amounts.
Libya has reserves in the 50,000,000,000 bbl range — with conventional methods.
Were it not for Daffy she would be completely displacing Gulf shipments to Europe.
6,000,000 bbls per day would be no problem.
IIRC Italy receives her Libyan crude via sub-Med pipelines.
If Libya goes fundamentalist then it would be most wise to omit her from the oil trade and the food trade.
Otherwise, stay out of the briar patch.
FWIW I think that Habu is not a fantasist. My judgment may be wrong and Habu and A Rogue Wave Called Bruce may be the same person arguing with himself. You never know. He has actually given ample evidence of his real identity, such as who his father was, for any who wish to track him down and verify. I do not suggest banging on his door at night uninvited. He never claimed to be an Agency Shooter but rather a Courier and member of the support team. Still that would have been hazardous duty. His behavior is atypical of combat veterans and can vary. We have seen him give thoughtful reasoned contributions. We have seen him engage in respectful banter. We have seen him apologize for crossing a line. We have also seen the inverse of all that leading to storming off for varying periods. Medical expertise is not my field but such mood swings might mean something. My hope is that he can contribute his best.
Many of us may come here to shine a light and push back against the gathering dark, both historical and personal. We should all seek to strengthen this little virtual Club and respect each other and the owner. My feeling is that civil contributions, even when disagreed with, should be encouraged. Hateful and abusive intrusions designed to break the furniture should be censured. Spam which is rare here and purely disruptive extended flame actions which are not rare are not cost free to the blog as an institution. Such conduct can drive contributors away and kill the blog. When the owner chooses to end such an episode, even by blocking someone, I will support him.
241. exhelodrvr
I believe it was with regard to stoicheion relating his second purple heart via an AF bomb.
I’m not sure if you were ever in the armed forces but AF jokes like that abound. I just fit one into the situation. It may be petty but it’s more along the lines of locker room humor and towel snapping. But as Abbott and Costello as my witness the AF isn’t considered in the same league with other services that bomb our own guys.
And petty..hell yes I can be petty, but I would like to take this opportunity to say to all who have never been petty that I will sign up for the twelve step anti-petty course (isn’t it like a GED?) and work on my sensitivity, no wait that goes too far, ok , just the petty part..but I’ll tell you honestly right now I’m only shooting for a 70% on the final.
Do send in a new stack of Hurt Feelings Reports or can folks just print them off?
Hurt Feelings Report Form…….. http://tinyurl.com/6cer8hg
Re: Habu the Insufferable – He has his place and makes his contribution. There are times I don’t like it, tough on me. I have frequently disagreed with him and sometimes said so. The right to free speech means occasionally having to hear things you don’t like. Deal with it. I have learned to control the impulse to tear my hair out, or let it be set on fire, having lost it already lost it all. I feel confident that if and when the shooting starts he and I will have the same target in our sights, and not each other.
I’m just glad I don’t have to live with him; I don’t doubt that he feels the same about me.
248. Blast From the Past
Thank you BFtP. Yes, I started out as a clandestine courier(which is a very harry job because you are ALL alone deep in Indian country) and over the years took on more and more various assignments for several different Directorates, as my training increased and my psychological tests proved to be accurate…that I didn’t mind danger, or get rattled easily, didn’t mind inflicting pain on others if necessary (and the less civil our society gets the more that quality comes in handy) and I always finished the job.
Now, I personally come here for the chicks … some days are bad here for that and other days here are horrible for that ..but I have hope, hope for the little children, hope for all Americans to have a better life..and hope we kill every last SOB who is our enemy and then take their oil and whatever else we want.
Stoich, ETAB
While you can certainly sustain a population of millions in a two-class society, what you can’t really do is have that population be very innovative or productive, beyond subsistence level aggriculture. The Soviet Union came about as close as anyone, and they only made it three generations and left a serious impact crater.
People can go out and grow food regardless of social structure, and a handful of upper-crust nobles can maintain order and marshall the levees against an invader (or recruit and lead the pillaging parties if they’re on the other side). But without a middle class, they don’t have any effective way of organizing non-subsistence activities.
The middle class provides the NCO’s of the economic world, the people close enough to the day-to-day operations to know what’s going on, but with a stake in the outcome worth extending themselves for. They also give the peasants a reason to exert a little extra effort. Peasants know they can’t leapfrog into the nobility through patient work, but they might get into the middle class that way. It gives both classes an incentive to take responsibility for making things work (aka “leadership”). The middle classes are also much more practical than the Nobility, since they have a smaller margin of error and can’t persist in stubborn idiocy quite so long as the nobility can. All that means the middle class is the only place a society can find competent mid-level economic leadership, the sort than can generate, and make use of, “the wisdom of the masses.” A society without that will fall back to subsitence level aggriculture or civil war.
The middle class also provides the innovators. Pesants don’t have the time or resources to tinker and experiment. The Nobility fears change since any change in status for them would be downhill. It’s the middle class that has, so to speak, motive and opportunity, to commit an innovation.
250. Tamquam
“I’m just glad I don’t have to live with him” …yeah, many times my wife feels the same way so I just usually shut up since she is a very acccomplish 2nd degree black blet in Tae Kwon Do, has won many tourney’s and can shoot a .45 better than I can..she rides better than I do and knows how to do home electrical work ..so I just go to the skeet range.
Now let’s return to our regular programming..tonights episode is ” Fighting the Evil Islams” starring Pee Wee Herman sans trenchcoat.
232,248,250–Munchausen?
I replied to a number of posts but my post didn’t come up. So, I’ll be brief but try to reply.
#220 speak easy – I agree with your assessment of the American mode – but that it didn’t spring ‘fully formed’ from American soil but was a result of years of thought and work in English political thought. The US situation gave this new form of political organization the opportunity to start-from-the beginning, so to speak, with that focus on the individual which began to emerge in Europe in the 13th c.
#221 Blastfrom the past – I completely disagree with your view that the primary cause of social organization is the culture and language. The basic cause is first, the ecological reality (soil, water, climate, domesticated plants and animals available) to which the economy must adapt..and which must be organized by the political system. The culture and language are the end expressions of the former. I totally reject your cultural and linguistic determinism as a superficial outline.
#222 Peter Boston – I stand by my outline of the emergence and expansion of Islam in the 7th c as a reaction to the Byzantine and Sadash expansion of settlements and trade takeovers of that era.
The pre-Islamic ‘pagan’ peoples were engaged in trade and the group of nomadic pastoralists – who became the early Muslims – were engaged in pastoralism and trade with the more settled Quraysh. I reject your view that the pre or post Muslims were bandits for that doesn’t explain either the movement into the Muslim ideology nor its spread. After all, if the pastoralists were already bandits before Islam then, why bother to take it on? How did its ideology help them …to become better bandits? I stand by my opinion that there was some problem with the economic viability of the pastoralists – and that led them to become militant.
#252 JMH – yes, I agree; the middle class is the site of innovation. A two class society is unable to adapt; it provides great stablity which is why it endured so long in human history. But, when the populations began to rise beyond the carrying capacity of the basic agricultural economies – the people had to develop new ways to interact with the envt; new sources of energy; new ways to increase harvests…and that requires a set of people who, as Abelard said ‘dubitando’…who doubt. Who question and innovate. That’s why growth and progress societies need that middle class..and why the ME has to allow them to emerge.
Addendum: I’ve known a fair number of combat vets, including some SF and Force Recon, and I’ve found they are extremely reluctant to talk about all they’ve done. I’ve never known one who went around broadcasting his exploits to the world at large.
Down below amidst the crumbling rustbelt ruins there is another life. I live there. We can sleep wherever we want, the houses are near free. The highways are clear of traffic because most of the people have gone. We have freedom because there is not much to lose. We have our faith, and have gained and lost that so many times that it cannot be taken away. We are presumed armed and so no need to use our weapons. A beatup F-150 is not difficult to replace. We love, not like bunnies all soft and fluffy, but like men and women.
***
That’s over on the “Style” thread at #71, by spindok. It’s just an excerpt from the comment. Change a few words and it could have been written in a Conestoga wagon 150 years ago, rumbling westward into the wilderness.
232. A Rogue Wave Called Bruce
“Perhaps that phony loud-mouth Habu and some of the other blowhards will find something useful and productive to do, like getting a job”
Rogue Bruce…geez how butch..anyway you haven’t been paying attention you naughty boy..I’m retired..did it at 60 ….had my adventure period in my youth and suffered through being a stockbroker for 15 years…hated every day but the money was really, really good…dot-com and all, plus the boomers starting to save after the kids graduated from college. Sold my book and still get a percentage of it every year.
Llife is great…ah, BTW I don’t recall you producing anything of note here …like a coherent comment…come on , give it a try, only a few of us will shred your offering, naw, I won’t even read it.
Plus, who cares what I write as long as it’s not too profane. Heck, half the contributors here are equallly incoherent. If it bugs you , when you see “HABU”, just run the other way or hide under the sheets. See how easy it can be. Oh yes please download and fill out the HURT FEELINGS REPORT…two more and I go on double secret probabtion….. http://tinyurl.com/6cer8hg
BTW..did ya like my new car?
256. Jockstrap
Yeah, I agree..if you haven’t been there,you usually don’t share it with the outside world..the real nitty gritty..but you knew they were SF or whatever, right?…well now you know that I was a courier+, but what you don’t know is any of what the SF’s shared amoung themselves or what former CIA hands share with each other ..they’re all closed fraternities, secret handshakes and all.
Gee, if you were a SF or SEAL you’d talk with you buds about various tasks .. but not to strangers.
But I’ll bet when you were in sports, or debate, or glee club you talked about the old times at reunions, didn’t you? But if some “outsider” from say the chemistry club tried to join in you’d clam right up ..see no connection, no shared moments etc…..
h/258; vaudeville tip: leave ‘em wanting more. Great speakers know this –for example, here’s the last section of Patrick Henry’s famous speech. Note that he got such a positive reaction on the ”liberty or death” line that he concluded there, eschewing his intended summary.
Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! Actually, we have more characteristics of herbivores than we do carnivores. Just because we have the ability to occasionally eat meat for survival does not mean it is what our body is designed for. We have the same chemicals in our saliva as herbivores (but different than that of carnivores), our intestines are proportional to those of herbivorous creatures (much longer than our bodies, whereas carnivores do not have that), our “canine” teeth are only in canine teeth (cows and horses have the same thing but they eat only plants), we have sweat glands rather than perspiring through our tongues as carnivores do.
Tell ya what folks…W deserves to have his threads talked about, dissected,etc so I’ll sign off for a few weeks and allow you folks to settle your nerves and refocus on the threads W offers …I can get in some snowmobiling in Yellowstone or other fav spots back in Montana …have fun, I know I will.
Habu
another Cobra pic …. http://tinyurl.com/4ups76x
And my next target for the stable …. http://tinyurl.com/4bmvykb
260. buddy larsen
On the Parick Henry speech, and BTW I agree I often go a sentence too far, but back to Patrick… Note that he got such a positive reaction on the ”liberty or death” line that he concluded there
Well few know it ended there because ole Patrick had just had a litre of lager and really really needed to end the speech there …his next move was to water the tree of liberty. A flat out patriot and an avowed Anti-Federalist…in fact the leader of that faction. He did not like the original draft of the Constitution one bit….but damn-it he loved that tree.
And Buddy you know how I can be…a total ass one day and serious as a hemlock cocktail the next.
Best
Habu
read ya in a few weeks…..
h/262; –be careful up there –Chris Pettit was a hotshot snowmobiler too –
Bubu, dommage, I was one in your chicks fan club
262. HABU & 260 buddy
There is another quote from Patrick Henry which is relevant to these discussions, and the squeamishness of some towards the hard, dire and, I believe necessary language and characterizations of the issues:
“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.” – Patrick Henry
Miztah Buddy,
Miztah Habu dun take a rid en his new caw…man it be loud. but when he get back i be say’n dat you warn him about snowsmobillying. i knows him right gud afta all dees yeers and he still a ruff cob. hez daddy traned him up dat way bein a tough tough man and miztah habu lurnd it up gud.
hope you iz do’in gud. bin soum long time since we done taulkd but i remembers you as a right fine man
frum the land o’ da coon ass
‘Tater
Sigh. To think I used to worry that I was a hotcake short of a full stack.
Miztah H dun sho me dis tric
De Borchgrave: Mideast $400 Oil Imminent With Mideast Upheaval
Award-winning journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave tells Newsmax that the increasingly volatile situation in the Middle East could push the price of oil quickly to $300 or even $400 a barrel.
Such a price would mean a gallon of gasoline costing as much as $15 at American pumps, perhaps higher depending on local, state and federal taxes, according to analysts interviewed by Newsmax.
De Borchgrave, who has interviewed Moammar Gadhafi six times, also says the Libyan leader is manic-depressive who is going through a manic phrase where he is “taking on the world.”
A 30-year veteran of Newsweek magazine, de Borchgrave now is director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, editor-at-large at United Press International and The Washington Times, and a Newsmax correspondent.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, de Borchgrave discussed the impact that the uprisings in Libya, Iran, and other Middle Eastern nations could have on the price of oil. Some economists also have speculated that, if oil surged to $400, the pump price for gasoline could hit $15 a gallon.
Oil was selling at more than $95 a barrel on Wednesday, and there’s no telling where prices at the pump — currently around $3.17 a gallon — could rise to if per-barrel oil prices soared to those levels, according to de Borchgrave.
“This could get pretty bad because of what’s going on in Libya,” he says. “Libya pumps about 1.8 million barrels a day,” some of which is pumped out of the eastern region around Benghazi “which has now in effect seceded.
“Libya supplies around 74 percent of Europe’s oil and if that is cut, which it could very well be in the next few days, oil will be spiking again.”
The United States does not buy oil from Libya, but de Borchgrave points out that “oil is a global commodity and what hurts in one part of the world is bound to have an impact on other parts of the world.
“If you remove 1.8 million barrels per day, that’s taking quite a chunk out of the world oil market. To tell you to where the prices could spike, I really can’t tell. But if we were to have any trouble in the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, you could see oil going up to two or three hundred dollars a barrel very quickly.”
Events in Iran, which also has been rocked recently with popular unrest, could in fact “drive oil up to $300 or $400 a barrel very quickly because we’re dealing with the Straits of Hormuz through which about 28 percent of the world’s oil passes every day,” de Borchgrave tells Newsmax.
If the United States or Israel launched an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he adds, “it wouldn’t be difficult for the Iranians to sow a few mines, and the Iranians today have the capability of landing a missile on the deck of an aircraft carrier.”
Reports out of Libya say hundreds of people have been killed in the Libyan government’s crackdown on protesters, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on Moammar Gadhafi to stop the bloodshed. Asked whether Gadhafi cares what the rest of the world says about him, de Borchgrave responds: “Not really. The man is not normal mentally.
“I’ve interviewed him six times and have no hesitation in calling him a manic-depressive. I’ve seen him through his manic phases and his depressive phases. What he’s going through today would seem to be a manic phase, where he’s taking on the world. He’s talking about thousands of casualties, and his son is on television talking about fighting until the last drop of blood. It’s to be taken seriously.
“The man is now in a manic phase and he thinks he’s going to take on the giant, the United States.”
De Borchgrave warns about the danger the Muslim Brotherhood poses in the Middle East.
“A lot of people are going around saying the Muslim Brotherhood has changed its colors, they’re a totally different political animal, they’re willing to work through the democratic process and fight fairly in elections. I would say, don’t believe that for a second.
“We’ve just seen in the past few days some very extreme Muslim Brotherhood leaders showing up in Cairo for the first time in 50 years, in the case of one of them, and speaking about how much they hate the Jews and their American protectors.”
Pirates killed four Americans off the coast of Somalia. Asked whether the U.S. Navy should do more to head off pirate attacks, de Borchgrave says: “I think we should all be doing a lot more than we’ve been doing.
“We’ve been dealing with legal technicalities far too much up until now,” and the piracy will be curtailed “the minute that word gets around among these pirates that two or three of their boats have been blown out of the water by the U.S. Navy or any of the other navies in the area.”
Read more on Newsmax.com: De Borchgrave: Mideast $400 Oil Imminent With Mideast Upheaval
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama’s Re-Election? Vote Here Now!
Conventional wisdom claims oil can’t climb much over $150 which is the estimated “drop dead” point for global economic activity. Everything grinds to a halt.
So says the CNBC tribe.
Here’s the temptation the 0bammunists must be slavering over (that is, if they haven’t been setting it up ever since Rahm Emanuel and BP became an item):
Big crisis in mideast, to oil supply squeeze, to another emergency ‘requiring’ another enabling act (maybe tea congress will be spent out of political capital via their murderous attack on innocent schoolteachers), to nationalization (“too important to the American People to be left in greedy private hands”) of the US oil industry.
After which , using the same dilatory fabian passive-aggression deployed in the Gulf of Mexico as we speak, somehow certain failing blue states get more energy than the growth-oriented red states, and voila, the too-embarrassing-to-discuss problem of Democratic state abandonment per the degree of Democratic party dominance, would be solved.
If the govt owned the industry, it could googlefacebooktweet all the greenies and wobblies and youngsters (who inexplicably support with great vigor the very same people murdering their economic future) and tell them, “oil is good for the environment now, due to some new research from the UN IPCC!”
Be fun to see the vast claim of alt energy become Ron Zeiglerized: “That theory is now inoperative”.
possumtater! Long time no see! –cepten oncet awhile ifen th moon is bright en i ketches a glint down yonder to the mash pit. Reckon hits you a grinnin like a tomfool a eating sourmash agin.
Anyhoo son es much es I preciate palaverin wif a feller Non-Rhotic, as it air Febberwarry yore at leas a honnert an thutty days pas yor bedtime as you IS a marsupial or ye wuz ennyways the las time I seen ye