Another Sign of Another Layer in the Oil Wars? - 2

"The OPEC" oil cartel is acting up like "the innertubes" electronic cartel where "the Google" thrives.

Neither OPEC nor the Internet want to be governed by the outside dynamics that have lately been orchestrated by outsiders.

The "U.S. frackers" pushed at OPEC and now OPEC is holding a steady course of crude oil pumping, which is pushing back at the U.S. frackers.

In the previous post of this series we wondered about the intentions and motivations of OPEC for not cutting its oil production in the face of an oil glut.

(What we did know when we asked that question is that their tactics and strategies have nothing to do with solving the problems that form the pillars of the global warming paradox which their crude oil drug peddling is causing.)

But we do know more about OPEC's intentions, led by Saudi Arabia, based on their own statements made at the recent OPEC gathering.

A gathering that had some observers expecting a drop in crude oil production, along with some OPEC members urging a drop in production as a tactic to increase oil prices.

The cause of the problem of dropping prices is an oil glut ostensibly caused by the U.S.

Oilah Akbar! or a Judas Kiss?

"fracking boom" which now faces the potential of becoming a U.S. "fracking bust" in this ongoing, now out-in-the-open kerfuffle:

Saudi Arabia's oil minister told fellow OPEC members they must combat the U.S. shale oil boom, arguing against cutting crude output in order to depress prices and undermine the profitability of North American producers.

(Naimi Declares Price War on U.S. Shale Oil). How far this will go is anybody's guess, but those who follow the money say the price is too tight for a lot of the "tight oil plays" out there.

Others note that there is also some "domino business" (a.k.a. unintended consequence) taking place:

Oil prices that reached a five-year low on Friday are starting to take a bite out of profits at TD Bank and are raising concerns for the rest of the country's top lenders.

Canada's biggest banks earn up to 20 per cent of their revenues through providing investment and corporate banking services, with oil and gas companies an important part of that client base.

(Oil Price Drop Threatens Bank Revenues). How long the "steady as she goes" OPEC production strategy continues will determine most of the outcome.

That is, it will determine the damages to the U.S. fracking business, and perhaps whether the citizens will be required to bail the frackers out (or their banksters).

Stay tuned.

The previous post in this series is here.

Another Sign of Another Layer in the Oil Wars?

Perhaps the title of today's post should be "Honey, I shrunk the Petrodollar."

Let's speculate on a couple of events taking place within a long line of events that have and will continue to have global impact.

There is speculation that Saudi Arabia's continuation of its oil production levels (rather than easing up so that oil prices will stay high) and lowering some prices (rather than letting market forces determine price) is part of a larger strategy.

Was it aimed at Russia's oil competition, the U.S. fracking surge, or mid-eastern nations that do not have the "proper Islamic faith?"

Technically, the Saudi's can pull a barrel of oil out of the depths at about $30 per barrel, while its competitors I just mentioned tend to have to spend as much as double that or more (e.g. @fracking).

There is a lot of scuttlebutt about what the Saudi thinking means, but as a cautionary tale, remember this:

Back in March 1999 "The Economist" magazine carried a cover photo of two men drenched in oil as they attempted to close a faulty valve that was spraying a huge stream of crude skyward. Over the photo was the headline: "Drowning in oil." At the time it really did seem as if the world were drowning in oil.

The previous December crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange touched $10.72 per barrel. That month U.S. gasoline prices averaged 95 cents per gallon. "The Economist" opined that oil might go down to $5 per barrel.

But, of course, in retrospect the magazine's cover proved to be the perfect contrarian indicator, for oil had already begun its historic ascent toward $147 per barrel. The 2008 price spike was the culmination of a 10-year bull market that had begun in December 1998.

(Oil Price). That said, one can see that fracking prices and Canadian tar sands extraction costs (analysis here) is scary-close to the about $77-$85 bbl. sales price, and could shake things up:

Oil prices tumbled to their lowest point in more than two years after Saudi Arabia unexpectedly cut prices for crude sold to the U.S., likely paving the way for further declines and adding to pressure on American energy producers.

The decision by the world’s largest oil exporter sent the Dow industrials into negative territory for the day amid concerns about the pace of global growth.

The move heightened worries over the resilience of the U.S. oil industry, which has expanded rapidly in recent years. But that growth, driven largely by new production technology used to extract oil from shale-rock formations, has never been tested by a prolonged slump in prices.

While lower crude prices generally help consumers by reducing the amount they pay for gasoline, analysts said falling energy prices will squeeze profit margins at many U.S. energy companies, particularly smaller firms or those with large debt loads.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia raised the prices for its oil in other locations, including Asia, where the country had cut its prices for four consecutive months.

(WSJ, emphasis added). At any rate, these possible price wars between oil producing nations could be eclipsed by something else that has less fluctuation, and has been gaining speed and strength.

That would be the reserve currency struggles that have been ongoing for years (see e.g. First Shots Fired In The Currency Wars, Phase Five Of The Currency Wars? - 2, Phase Six Of The Currency Wars?, The Government Catastrophe Has Already Happened).

These paper struggles can be as devastating as actual shooting wars in some cases, so recent events are worth watching:

Energy-exporting countries are set to pull their "petrodollars" out of world markets this year for the first time in almost two decades, according to a study by BNP Paribas.

Driven by this year's drop in oil prices, the shift is likely to cause global market liquidity to fall, the study showed.

Brent crude futures have fallen 23 percent this year, with 2014 promising to be only the second year since 2002 that crude prices will end the year lower than they began it.

This decline follows years of windfalls for oil exporters such as Russia, Angola, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. Much of that money found its way into financial markets, helping to boost asset prices and keep the cost of borrowing down, through so-called petrodollar recycling.

This year, however, the oil producers will effectively import capital amounting to $7.6 billion. By comparison, they exported $60 billion in 2013 and $248 billion in 2012 ...

(Petrodollars leave world markets for first time in 18 years, emphasis added). Regular readers know what I think about economists in general (Economists - Aliens From Cygnus?).

But, perhaps some squeals in posts from Jim Willie are half worth reading (Shanghai Shock to Shatter the Gold Market!, The Economic ENDGAME Has Arrived, The Crash Heard Round the World- Saudis to Reject USD for Oil Payments).

Don't buy anything from them, just ponder their (maybe shrilly, maybe not) rhetoric indicating that something is afoot (could be a scam).

Then, as usual, you decide.

The next post in this series is here.

Is The McTell News Malaise-ian Frenzy Related to Guilt?

Why does the U.S. mass media go nuts over certain (by comparison) minor stories, but not cover much more serious stories?

Why do they major in the minors?

Why do they have the poor judgment that even dictators can see through ("One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic." -Joseph Stalin)?

The current media furor over the tragedy of the passenger jet evidently shot down over the Ukraine is a case in point.

The vagaries are being presented as the structural members of the story, while the knowns are tending to be presented as the twigs, therefore, it is likely that this is a brain washing exercise being attempted by a profession that operates like a panicky herd inside a laundromat (MH17: World See Tragedy, US Sees “Game Changer”).

Some professionals are quick to notice the hypocritical approach to this media frenzy:

Before you say Washington is too sophisticated to mistake one airliner for another, keep in mind that when Washington shot down an Iranian airliner over Iranian air space, the US Navy claimed that it thought the 290 civilians that it murdered were in an Iranian fighter jet, a F-14 Tomcat fighter, a US-made fighter that was a mainstay of the US Navy. If the US Navy cannot tell its own workhorse fighter aircraft from an Iranian airliner, clearly the US can confuse two airliners that the RT report shows appear very similar.

(Sanctions and Airliners — by Paul Craig Roberts). Professor Roberts was pointing out a related event that took place some 26 years ago:

"Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai that was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on 3 July 1988. The attack took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from the Vincennes.

All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, died. This attack ranks seventh among the deadliest disasters in aviation history, tenth if including the 9/11 attacks, which includes ground casualties; the incident retains the highest death toll of any aviation incident in the Persian Gulf and the highest death toll of any incident involving an Airbus aircraft anywhere in the world. The Vincennes had entered Iranian territorial waters after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.

According to the Iranian government, Vincennes negligently shot down the civilian aircraft: the airliner was making IFF squawks in Mode III (not Mode II used by Iranian military planes), a signal that identified it as a civilian craft, and operators of Vincennes mistook for Mode II.

According to the United States Government, the crew incorrectly identified the Iranian Airbus A300 as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter (a plane made in the United States and operated at that time by only two forces worldwide, the United States Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force).

The event generated a great deal of controversy and criticism of the United States. Some analysts have blamed U.S. military commanders and the captain of Vincennes for reckless and aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment.

The United States did not apologize to Iran."

(Wikipedia, "Iran Air Flight 655", emphasis added). The U.S., some ten years later, paid about $200k ("without admitting guilt") for each man. woman. and child that the U.S. military admittedly killed.

But now the media is trumpeting this recent incident in the Ukraine like those people are worth $100 million each because the U.S. military did not do this one (cf. Facts Needed, by Ray McGovern and also Fact Free Zone).

President Obama has admitted that he believes in U.S. Exceptionalism very strongly, but does his definition mean "when we do it it is ok but when others do it that makes it wrong," as the neoCons do?

To the neoCons, "exceptionalism" means that those who are not us ("you are for us or you are against us") are the barbarian hordes:

The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets; to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines.

(As We Go Marching, by John T. Flynn, 1944, page 222). The news media is a very essential member of MOMCOM, so, this exceptionalism dogma driving the Russia bashing appears to be the reality of the case.

The most pressing issues are not pressed upon by the presstitutes (The Damaged Global Climate System - 3, Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, The Deceit Business - 3).

Perhaps, then, the current media frenzy is bread and circus dynamics designed to keep our minds occupied with things that are trivial compared to the big picture, things that direct us away from guilt.

Or any number of other illegitimate propaganda goals (What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner?, Dear Fellow American) which Europeans have become aware of even if Americans have not.

For example, a leading member state of the EU (The United States of Europe - 4) is joining with Russia to develop methods in order to properly investigate the Malaysian MH17 crash (Merkel, Putin Agree on International Probe of MH17 crash).

No doubt that is not what Washington wanted.

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One Trick Pony, Paul Simon

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Iraq's April 30 4th Of July & Iran's Win - 2

Middle Eastern Protesters

Today I am reposting a post of five years ago to show how our foreign policy has been frozen in You Are Here machinations for decades.

It is from July 1, 2009 where the issues of Iraq and Iran were discussed.

The mess is still a mess all these years, dead bodies, dead policies, public anger and endless wars later.

It is like the movie "Ground Hog Day" where we keep waking up the the same old same old every day.

Here is the nostalgic text from that 2009 post:

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The results of the 8 year war are now in.

Iran won.

Iraq and Iran fought an 8 year war in the 1980's during Saddam Hussein's reign, which ended as a stalemate that cost a million male lives and left a population composed of a majority of women in Iran.

The U.S. backed Saddam Hussein in that war.

When the luv affair with Hussein ended after he invaded Kuwait, and the U.S. later invaded Iraq during Bush II, things began to change.

The Shia radicals who had been expatriated to Iran and elsewhere became activated and they returned to Iraq.

Soon they embedded themselves into the Iraqi government when the Baathists were banned, during the Bremer leadership, soon after the U.S. invasion and at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Bremer, like Bush II, knew nothing of the Shia v. Sunni dynamics and the religious struggle between them so he, like most Americans, had no idea what was going on in that regard.

Today and back then the Shia of Iraq and Iran are aligned against the Iraqi and Saudi Sunni, and the Kurds to the north care not a lot for either; hence the U.S. has sown the seeds for the future political crop which will not be and is not now pro-American.

The Iraqi April 30 celebrations about the Americans leaving can be compared to the U.S. 4th of July alignment against the British Empire and for U.S. independence from Britain long, long ago.

Nationalism held the U.S. together then, after its independence, and will hold Iraq together for awhile now, but so will closer ties to Iran mixed with a hatred of America they now share.

These types of energies too, however, will wane eventually and those ancient divisions within Iraq will sprout once again, helping the greater problems to return to the surface and blossom.

Shia, Sunni, and Kurd will march again with Shia support from Iran, and with Sunni support from other neighbouring countries.

The U.S. civil war took a long time to develop following the exuberant 4th of July, but it came, and the April 30th Iraqi exuberance will also give way to Iraqi civil war in due time.

But it will not be as bad as the U.S. civil war was.

From an oil baron perspective, all that remains to be seen is whether the oil barons can keep a hold on the Iraqi oil they greedily went for under the oil baron regime of Bush II.

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The original post is here.

"We Would Not Cheat" - Iranian Mullah - 2

On this date in 2009 Dredd Blog looked at one of the problems of nations that attempt to utilize election systems as one form of allowing the people of a nation to express themselves.

Regular readers know that the Dredd Blog System posts project the notion that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely" in the offices of governmental power.

The Mullahs of Iran, the pols of England and America, and those of the other nations, all want us to believe that fantasy.

The recent Iranian elections were seen as pure by both the Mullahs of Iran and the diplomats of Western Cultures.

For historical and review purposes, here is the text of the Dredd Blog Post expressing a contrasting view on this date in 2009:

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The Iranian mullahs are demanding that everyone keep the faith baby and realize they would not cheat, being holy men and all.

These leaders demand this trust in them as they use guns, clubs, water cannon, and disrespectful rhetoric on those who are protesting the results of the Iranian election. In other words they cheat as they say they do not cheat. A sure pattern, meme, and characteristic of a neoCon.

Immature democracies and mature despotic regimes call for faith and trust in the government often when their regime is being questioned.

Mature democracies, like the U.S., use the same spirit when they go into decline and want to hide the truth from the people; "state secrets", executive privilege, congressional privilege, and similar notions are advanced as reasons the government should be trusted while the evidence is being hidden from the people.

In our system the people consider that to be a failure when a government has to ask for or demand faith from the people in place of the evidence.

Faith is something for the gods, not government in the hands of mere mortals.

The congress yesterday unanimously impeached a federal judge in Texas for such behaviour, since he had demanded trust while he lied to federal investigators and sexually abused staff members.

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Doesn't "we would not cheat" sound like Obama's explanation of the NSA state secrets debacle of recent days?

Origin of the Classic Nuclear Bully

The Iran and North Korea situations can be used to envision the similarities between nations that are bullies and individuals who are bullies.

Much of McTell News is all aTwitter about whether or not their bully idol should or should not hit the victim harder.

Or instead, should they simply continue taking their lunch and goodies from them?

This portion of the chatter is not in contention much in the ongoing chattering class's waste of time, but what is sorely disputed is who the bully is.

The media in the various nations are and have been the propaganda mouthpieces for the agenda of epigovernment; an agenda that includes, among other things, dividing and conquering the thinking of the masses (Epigovernment: The New Model).

In that pursuit, in general the media support their government's script faithfully, giving new meaning to "lip service."

For example, consider the actual recent middle east nuclear proliferation history:

High-level talks between Israel and its Muslim neighbors regarding a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East have been cancelled by the US and Israel.

A nuclear weapons-free zone has been repeatedly proposed, only to have Israel – the only state in the region with nuclear weapons – reject it in favor of maintaining this nuclear monopoly, further destabilizing the region, and keeping the threat of others’ nukes as a primary excuse for its militarism.

Diplomats tell the Associated Press that the US, one of the organizers of the meeting on this latest NWFZ proposal, would likely make a formal announcement of its cancelation soon, claiming that “the time was not opportune.”

While Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has publicly pledged its opposition to nuclear weapons development, has subjected itself to thorough international inspections, and in fact has exactly zero nuclear weapons, Israel has done none of the above and has approximately 200 nuclear warheads. Iran is being severely punished and threatened with attack, Israel is supported with unparalleled economic, military, and diplomatic support.

(The Peak Of The Oil Wars - 8). What makes it all the more bully ludicrous was caught and pointed out in the British press yesterday:

By coincidence two clashes over nuclear issues are hitting the headlines together. North Korea and Iran have both had sanctions imposed by foreign governments, and when they refuse to "behave properly" they are submitted to "isolation" and put in the corner until they are ready to say sorry and change their conduct. If not, corporal punishment will be administered, since they have been given fair warning by the enforcers that "all options are on the table".

It's a bizarre way to run international relations, one we continue to follow at our peril. For one thing, it is riddled with hypocrisy, and not just because states that have hundreds of nuclear weapons are bullying states that have few or none. The hypocrisy is worse than that.
...
Rami Khouri, the distinguished US-trained Lebanese writer, calls it "professionally criminal". After a month in the US recently, he found that coverage of Iran was based on "assumptions, fears, concerns, accusations and expectations almost never supported by factual and credible evidence". In as much as these distortions build public support for a military attack on Iran, he finds it as culpable as the media's role in the runup to the attack on Iraq a decade ago.

(Guardian, "... it's the US that's the rogue state", emphasis added). Drugs ruin an individual's mind eventually, and the drug of oil mixed with propaganda destroys a nation's "collective mind" as well.

Eventually that toxic combo pigeon-holes a nation into using bullying as its foreign policy.

The next post in this series is here.

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An Iranian Band:

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The Peak Of The Oil Wars - 8

Here's the deal Barry

This month, December, was the month that the Mideast nuclear weapons-free zone conference was scheduled to take place.

Iran was in agreement to having such a nuclear weapons-free zone, as were all the other Muslim nations in the area.

That treaty involves the idea that no nation in that region will have any nuclear weapons.

It is somewhat similar to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty signed by Iran and all of those nations -- except one -- Israel.

Iran and other significant nations in the area signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty years ago --  a treaty which gives any nations that are signatory to it the legal right to use nuclear power plants to generate electricity for their citizens.

To add insult to injury, the government of Israel, backed by the U.S. government, has cancelled its participation in the talks:

High-level talks between Israel and its Muslim neighbors regarding a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East have been cancelled by the US and Israel.

A nuclear weapons-free zone has been repeatedly proposed, only to have Israel – the only state in the region with nuclear weapons – reject it in favor of maintaining this nuclear monopoly, further destabilizing the region, and keeping the threat of others’ nukes as a primary excuse for its militarism.

Diplomats tell the Associated Press that the US, one of the organizers of the meeting on this latest NWFZ proposal, would likely make a formal announcement of its cancelation soon, claiming that “the time was not opportune.”

While Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has publicly pledged its opposition to nuclear weapons development, has subjected itself to thorough international inspections, and in fact has exactly zero nuclear weapons, Israel has done none of the above and has approximately 200 nuclear warheads. Iran is being severely punished and threatened with attack, Israel is supported with unparalleled economic, military, and diplomatic support.

(Anti War, quoting AP). This is rank hypocrisy on steroids and is a foreign policy debacle that is sure to diminish the good standing of the U.S. in the eyes of the other nations.

You may be wondering what this has to do with oil or with oil wars, so let's tie it together.

For decades the foreign policy of the U.S. in the region has been one of controlling the oil reserves for western use:

QUESTION: Is there a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East?

CHOMSKY: Yes. There's been a very consistent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, at least since the Second World War, whose primary concern has been to ensure that the energy reserves of the Middle East remain firmly under American control. The State Department noted in 1945 that these reserves constitute "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history."

Basically it is a policy meant to keep Saudi Arabia, which has by far the largest known stores of petroleum, under American control. This has been quite explicit since World War II. In fact, during the war the government tried to expel Britain, and later France, from the region. There were forms of chicanery used to achieve that end, which was achieved, certainly, by the formation of ARAMCO [Arabian American Oil Company] in 1947.

Given U.S. control over Western Hemisphere resources, the United States thus effectively controlled the major energy reserves of the noncommunist world, with all that implied with regard to the organization of international society. A number of years later, the American position in the Middle East was extended. Following the CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953, American oil companies controlled 40% of Iranian oil. By the mid 50s, American dominance of the region and total dominance of Saudi Arabia was virtually complete.

American penetration of the Saudi economy and military has been extensive. There are now about 30,000 Americans in Saudi Arabia, mostly ARAMCO employers. U.S. exports to Saudi Arabia and Iran amounted to $28 billion each in 1976, with sales to Saudi Arabia projected to reach $4.8 billion in 1977.

(Chomsky, 1977 interview). Chomsky, over thirty years ago, envisioned exactly what was taking place then, and why it was taking place, referring in a footnote to:

U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States. 1945, viii, 45, cited in Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The limits of power, Harper & Row, 1972, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of U.S. policy at the time.

(ibid, 1977 interview, footnote 1). Likewise, he foresaw what is taking place in foreign policy today which we currently read about and hear in the media:

Suppose the U.S. had 100% of its own energy right here. That wouldn't affect in the least American desire to control the Middle East because we want to make sure that nobody else has access to those cheap resources of energy. One of the ways the U.S. keeps control over Europe and Japan is by having a stranglehold on their energy supply. Therefore, if there was a solar energy or shale breakthrough, giving the U.S. its own energy supply completely independent of Middle East oil, we still would want to ensure control over that region as long as Middle East oil remained cheap and accessible.

(ibid, 1977 interview, emphasis added). Solar energy and shale fracking for oil is a common theme in the media today, consistently presented in the context of U.S. oil independence (pro fracking here; contra fracking here).

Yet, as Chomsky presciently said thirty five years ago, the U.S. and Israel do not want to give up the nuclear weapon advantage because they want use it to help control the lifeblood of economies of the world - oil.

That is why the U.S. and Israel will not attend the nuclear weapons-free zone talks that were to take place this month.

Chomsky reiterated this reality in a recent speech (see video at Epigovernment: The New Model - 2).

Other Dredd Blog series give additional information on these subjects (see Series Posts under "OIL").

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Play Pretend Missile Offense Rejected - 2

Give money a chance

From time to time regular readers know that Dredd Blog replays some oldies to see if they are still goodies.

It is amazing sometimes, when we do this, to notice how things stay the same even though we have a perception, created by the propaganda media, that all things are changing.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has pointed out that the oil wars have been the same for a long time (The Peak Of The Oil Wars), and Dredd Blog has pointed out recently that the war propaganda about Iran has been the same for a long time too:

That plank is old and rotting, but fundamentally, so is most of their illusive platform of ideology:

For more than quarter of a century Western officials have claimed repeatedly that Iran is close to joining the nuclear club. Such a result is always declared "unacceptable" and a possible reason for military action, with "all options on the table" to prevent upsetting the Mideast strategic balance dominated by the US and Israel.

And yet, those predictions have time and again come and gone. This chronicle of past predictions lends historical perspective to today’s rhetoric about Iran.

(Christian Science Monitor). Celebrity has even morphed into a propaganda tool that is used to forge our ideas about war (see The Government of MOMCOM: Wartocracy).

(The Fruits of A Celebrity World of Illusion). So, here is the post from today's date in 2009 showing the 2009 version of that redundant, tiring propaganda:

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The Bush II regime had a "you are with us or against us, bring it on" foreign policy that seemed to implement an "offend everybody except oil sheiks" type of result. One of the pieces of that puzzling dogma was to put up a missile base near the Russian border but within Poland and the Czech Republic.

That ill fated move was propagandised as a safety shield from Iranian missiles, a nation so mighty that it fought Iraq for 8 years, resulting in the two nations taking on a million or so casualties, but gaining not an inch of either nation's territory.

Some threat. Gotta build them star wars gadgets to "purtek Amurka" was the ruse that fooled only the fools.

They created a mega-department that liked searching Americans who were only trying to get on aircraft to go to a business meeting or vacation, like they had for decades before.

In the Bush II movie they were to be accosted by Mr. I.M Purtekting-Yoo who had a runaway paranoid imagination and a low paying job. Mr. Purtekting-Yoo once netted Senator Ted Kennedy trying to get on a plane home to rest up. Big Fish!

Bush II was strongly "guided" by military oil media complex participants, and was acting out their screenplay scripts constantly.

This see-through plot was one of those puffing moments they do to scare up some new, unnecessary, and money wasting boy toys.

They religiously hoped to scare them up some citizens who would eventually be whipped up into a frenzy of rhetorically glorifying them.

But instead, the war gained in being more and more unpopular, and the used car salesman media did too for spouting bad propaganda.

In what sane people everywhere hope signals a return to reality based fiscal policies, before we are bankrupt beyond recovery by military spending, this ill advised plan has been stopped:

The Obama administration is shelving an Eastern European missile defense plan that has been a major irritant in relations with Russia, a U.S. ally said Thursday. The Pentagon confirmed a "major adjustment" of the system designed to guard against Iranian missiles.

Jan Fischer, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, told reporters that President Barack Obama phoned him overnight to say the U.S. "is pulling out of plans to build a missile defense radar on Czech territory."

The missile defense system, planned under the Bush administration, was being built in the Czech Republic and Poland.

(AP Yahoo, The Daily Progress). This ranks up there with shutting the abominable GITMO, pulling out of Iraq, and stopping torture; all gestures to the world showing that the United States is recovering from its decade long bout of dementia.

Even Israel acknowledges that Iran is not an existential threat to them, so Poland, the Czechs, and even podunk Arkansas can give up the bull.

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And that was the way it was is.

Oilah Akbar! Oilah Akbar! - 2

The AP is reporting that Iran seized Oil Well # 4 which the Iraqis claim as theirs.

It is a border dispute in theory, but the reality is that it is an addiction dispute.

Drug dealers are very territorial and drug users are very dangerous.

Oil addiction and Copenhagen are linked in the sense that oil addiction is the disaster that is causing the impending climate disaster governments of the world seem too weak to prevent.

Oilah Akbar is the real religion behind all this madness.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Bravery Of The Real Kind

I don't think I would have the guts that a young Iranian student has.

He criticized the leaders of Iran in public:

Mahmoud Vahidnia is a math student at Tehran’s Sharif Technical University where he recently won the gold medal at the country’s National Math Olympics (yes, geeks have an Olympics of their own). Vahidnia, however, has become a political icon in Iran after he publicly chastised the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the brutal crackdown of protesters.

At first, Vahidnia was blocked by organizers from speaking and then one of the organizers tried repeatedly to cut him off. However, to the surprise of many, Khamenei allowed him to speak in a televised encounter. The government is now using the incident to show that freedom thrives in the Islamic republic, which is being described as “The revolutionary leader’s fatherly response to critical youth.”

The exchange lasted 20-minutes and Khamenei appeared taken aback at first. The criticism followed Khamenei denouncing the questioning of the presidential results as the “biggest crime” since he personally found Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the winner.

Mahmoud then raised his hand and launched into a criticism of the crackdown with such memorable statements as “I don’t know why in this country it’s not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you . . . In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader.”

(J. Turley). It is scary enough to criticize the military industrial complex power brokers in the United States, but to do so in Iran takes the real stuff.

Listen To The Music

The ambassadors of peace make music not war.

I ran across Shahin & Sepehr in the 90's when an Iranian friend introduced me to their music.

They came to the U.S. on a peace mission. They are Persians.

They felt our countries were better off exchanging the good things of life rather than the bad things of death.

So they speak the language of music which is more often than not the music of peace.

Like the Doobie Brothers said, Listen To The Music, not the drums of war.

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Sarah Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

This blog has been pointing out the neoCon aspects of Iran's Ahmadinejad, the front man for the dictatorial robe wearers who care nothing for fair elections or democracy for that matter.

The similarity Sarah and Mahmoud have is getting all mavericky, we pointed out.

There are some others who are warming to these comparisons:

Is Sarah Palin America's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The two differ in many key respects, of course, but it is remarkable how similar they are. There are uncanny parallels in their biographies, their domestic politics and the way they present themselves -- even in their rocky relationships with party elders.

Both are former governors of a northwest frontier state with great natural beauty (in Ahmadinejad's case, Ardabil). Both are known for saying things that produce a classic Scooby-Doo double take in their audiences. Both appeal to a sort of wounded nationalism, speaking of the sacrifice of dedicated troops for an often feckless public, and identifying themselves with the common soldier. They are vigilant against foreign designs on their countries and insist on energy and other independence.

(Juan Cole, Salon). It is not flattering when one thinks about it and realizes that Ahmadinejad is putting his political rivals on trial for trying to show that the elections were rigged.

Some of these similarities are lost on people here in the U.S. who think Ahmadinejad is progressive but Palin is not.

Neither one of them even comes close.

Iran Makes Like Stalin

Iran began public trials of citizens who protested the past election.

Stalin, the dictator of Russia a long time ago, once said those who cast the votes decide nothing but those who count the votes decide everything.

That is how the fascist theologians who run the country with dishonesty and an iron fist see things now.

Too bad because the Iranian people expected more and are better than that, and they were courageous to take to the streets.

We won't forget the democratic minded people who are being oppressed by those dictators in Iran.

But war against the dictators is for the people of Iran, not for the United States.

It is their own independence they will engineer, then we can be allies.

President Mahmoud Is All Mavericky

Even in Iran the president is supposedly able to choose a Vice President.

Ahmadinejad did just that and chose a relative in a bit of mavericky nepotism.

The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said it was a bad choice and forbade it because the man had said Iran really had no quarrel with Israel.

Once again Ahmadinejad got mavericky and said he was not going to fire his VP:

Reporting from Beirut -- Iran's president, under attack by reformists after his disputed election victory last month, on Tuesday openly defied his most powerful backer, refusing an order by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to dump a newly chosen vice president who is despised by hard-liners for insisting last year that Iranians had no quarrel with the Israeli people

(LA Times). Some who call themselves election progressives here in the U.S. had become mavericky themselves, alleging that the election in Iran was a bona fide election.

They got mavericky again when they saw massive Iranian street protests, and they immediately decided that those protests were CIA induced, which shows once again how fooled they have been by Iranian politics.

UPDATE: Perhaps Mahmoud got all moody which replaced his all mavericky when he heard that Sarah "All Maveriky" Palin was resigning.

He has now become all moody and lost his all mavericky soul and bowed down to the Supreme Islam Being and has fired his VP choice.

Who Would Allah Vote For?

My recent take on the Iranian election was that the Iranian neoCons had fooled some progressive election integrity folk here in the U.S.A.

Evidently many mullahs in Iran have not been fooled, however, and they are now making more noise:

The most important group of religious leaders in Iran called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.
...

“This crack in the clerical establishment, and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi, in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember, they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”

(NY Times). This seems to be evidence of a difference of opinion which the neoCon crushers of the demonstrators will not be able to subdue willy nilly.

This dissent comes from a substantial Iranian source.

A source that can mould opinion, and which has the type of respect which the Ahmadinejadians will not be able to taint by frivolous references and allegations of ties to external western corrupting influences, such as the CIA or MI5; nor can they pin this on the Mossad of Israel.

The plot thickeneth.

Iraq's April 30 4th Of July & Iran's Win

The results of the 8 year war are now in.

Iran won.

Iraq and Iran fought an 8 year war in the 1980's during Saddam Hussein's reign, which ended as a stalemate that cost a million male lives and left a population composed of a majority of women in Iran.

The U.S. backed Saddam Hussein in that war.

When the luv affair with Hussein ended after he invaded Kuwait, and the U.S. later invaded Iraq during Bush II, things began to change.

The Shia radicals who had been expatriated to Iran and elsewhere became activated and they returned to Iraq.

Soon they embedded themselves into the Iraqi government when the Baathists were banned, during the Bremer leadership, soon after the U.S. invasion and at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Bremer, like Bush II, knew nothing of the Shia v. Sunni dynamics and the religious struggle between them so he, like most Americans, had no idea what was going on in that regard.

Today and back then the Shia of Iraq and Iran are aligned against the Iraqi and Saudi Sunni, and the Kurds to the north care not a lot for either; hence the U.S. has sown the seeds for the future political crop which will not be and is not now pro-American.

The Iraqi April 30 celebrations about the Americans leaving can be compared to the U.S. 4th of July alignment against the British Empire and for U.S. independence from Britain long, long ago.

Nationalism held the U.S. together then, after its independence, and will hold Iraq together for awhile now, but so will closer ties to Iran mixed with a hatred of America they now share.

These types of energies too, however, will wane eventually and those ancient divisions within Iraq will sprout once again, helping the greater problems to return to the surface and blossom.

Shia, Sunni, and Kurd will march again with Shia support from Iran, and with Sunni support from other neighbouring countries.

The U.S. civil war took a long time to develop following the exuberant 4th of July, but it came, and the April 30th Iraqi exuberance will also give way to Iraqi civil war in due time.

But it will not be as bad as the U.S. civil war was.

From an oil baron perspective, all that remains to be seen is whether the oil barons can keep a hold on the Iraqi oil they greedily went for under the oil baron regime of Bush II.

"We Would Not Cheat" - Iranian Mullah

The Iranian mullahs are demanding that everyone keep the faith baby and realize they would not cheat, being holy men and all.

These leaders demand this trust in them as they use guns, clubs, water cannon, and disrespectful rhetoric on those who are protesting the results of the Iranian election. In other words they cheat as they say they do not cheat. A sure pattern, meme, and characteristic of a neoCon.

Immature democracies and mature despotic regimes call for faith and trust in the government often when their regime is being questioned.

Mature democracies, like the U.S., use the same spirit when they go into decline and want to hide the truth from the people; "state secrets", executive privilege, congressional privilege, and similar notions are advanced as reasons the government should be trusted while the evidence is being hidden from the people.

In our system the people consider that to be a failure when a government has to ask for or demand faith from the people in place of the evidence.

Faith is something for the gods, not government in the hands of mere mortals.

The congress yesterday unanimously impeached a federal judge in Texas for such behaviour, since he had demanded trust while he lied to federal investigators and sexually abused staff members.

The NeoCons Of Iran Fool Progressives

While world leaders react cautiously to the Iranian election, many young and politically active Iranians who feel that the election was a sham do not react cautiously.

For the record, from my perspective Ahmadinejad is the Iranian Bush II, and his supporters are the Iranian neoCons; the song The Universal Soldier, by Donovan, comes to mind; but I would morph it into "The Universal neoCon" to help make the point.

Ahmadinejad has the fundamental memetic pattern of Straussian neoCon "scholarship", one of which is to revise history to fit one's own historical misconceptions and dogma. Ahmadinejad denies the holocaust as do some fake progressives.

UPDATE: Reza Aslan has an interesting post on this issue at The Daily Beast.

UPDATE 2: The "street recount" taking place massively is decisive to me.

Ahmadinejad lost and zillions of people are risking their safety to vote again in public, not in secret.

Sorry, but I give full credence to those who will vote while staring down the barrel of neoCon weaponry and declaring who they voted for.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets across the land, with none of Ahmadinejad's people there (except those shooting protesters) to counter, tells the story loud and clear.

This is the people's recount, and I give it all due respect and credence, but I cannot do the same for the pronouncements of a government repressing and shooting those who are declaring their vote out loud.

Message to Iran: Do a re-vote with the two major candidates, and do it with international oversight, or be considered an illegitimate government.

Iranian Intercontinental Missile - ICBM?

We expressed some doubt about this in an article a while back.

In that article we wondered out loud if the real Iran was much like that Iran we read about in the news.

After all, since the real Iraq was not much like that Iraq we read about in the news just prior to the Bush II regime invading it, don't we have legitimate reason to doubt?

Nevertheless there is an article in the India edition of Reuters that says Iran did launch a long range missile.

For Real - Iran Launches A Satellite?

If this is true what does it portend?

Israel must be very nervous, Secretary of State Clinton must be very nervous (because Israel is trigger happy), and the rest of the Obama Administration does not need these distractions at this time.

I can't believe at the moment that a country which fought eight years with Iraq when Saddam Hussein was Iraq's emperor (neither gained one foot of territory, not one village was captured, and not one victory either could point the world to as a sign of its glory) did this satellite thingy "homegrown".

Iran vs. Iraq in their last war killed each other for eight years, during that war, while standing in place. They are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier you know.

So what is up with this? Was it Russia, China, North Korea, or all of the above, who gave Iran the gadgets to pull this off (assuming it happened)?

Are they all getting a little "jiggy wid it" because of our post Bush II woes these daze?