12 responses so far ↓

• 1 Scotty The Body // Mar 12, 2003 at 1:48 pm

  I haven’t read the article yet, but it appears to be about the domination of the Persian Gulf.

  Being purely objective here in terms of world opinion and assuming the basic fact that the U.S. must act in its best interest, and thinking in broad geopolitical terms, it’s obvious to me that it wouldn’t be bad strategy to do so, and I don’t, for a second, doubt that our nation has plans in place to do so on a “just in case” basis.

  The slow encirclement of the Arab OPEC nations is something that seems to be coming to being.

• 2 nic // Mar 12, 2003 at 2:02 pm

  OK, as I have said before in this forum, oil is a valid US national interest. It is NOT, however, our only interest. I read the article and it struck me as yet another screed about the evil Administration plotting an unnecessary war to gain control of Iraqi oil. Yes, increased access to Iraqi oil reserves will probably be a positive externality of this war. But if you want to understand why we are going to invade Iraq, listen to what Tony Blair has to say on the subject.

  To be honest, bowever, through the Oil For Food program, we can buy as much oil as we want from the Iraqis.

  If you want to find the player in this game with the real oil interest, I suggest you turn you attention to France. TotalFinaElf (a French oil company) currently has the OFF contract. They are making money on the sanctions. What possible interest does France have in giving up that monopoly?

  The rhetoric is getting really bad.

• 3 47hinge // Mar 12, 2003 at 2:34 pm

  yo nic, please post a link to some quality blairspeak so’s i can read for myself. reuters reports don’t cut it. preesh

• 4 scotty the body // Mar 12, 2003 at 2:36 pm

  A really good one was posted here on halfass by tone. Look for and entry called “Bush and Blair”

• 5 Elliott // Mar 12, 2003 at 2:55 pm

  I think the article is not so much a screed, although the bias does show, explicitly, in the choice of closing quotes from analysts explaining that even the oil companies don’t think this is a good idea. The article does have a high proportion of sourced material, and makes an effort to present facts with historical context. Some of the screeds I have seen are really absurd, come without facts, or with one context-free fact serving as the stepping-off point, and consist almost entirely of slanderous characterizations on the part of the author and absurd quotes from non-entities.

  After reading this article, I am very curious about the way in which a long term strategy is passed from administration to administration. I imagine two scenarios.

  In the first scenario, the incoming administration is briefed by the outgoing administration. This implies a great deal of trust between administrations. No administration could be in the position of saying publicly that they intend to occupy states in the Persian Gulf in order to control the flow of oil. How could the policy be comunicated frankly?

  In the second scenario, one administration puts the United States in a postition from which it cannot extract itself gracefully. The example of the no-fly zone illustrates this case, as it implies an expanded military presence and commitment to provide it.

  The article outlines strategic expansions of US military presence over thirty years, and tries to make the case that it is the result of intelligent design and crafty implementation, mostly along the lines of the second scenario of communicating long term strategy. I think where this article tips its hat to the screeds that are passed around at peace marches is its implication that this is a single-minded pursuit of a thirty-year old strategy.

  One problem with this article, and a problem with the anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-business screeds I have read at peace marches is that they sell short the complexities of the past. If it has been a thirty-year policy to strangle the states of the Persian Gulf with American military might, how could this be a secret? One would have to make a very strong case to convince me that the government is really run by people who shape and implement global policy without challenge for thiry years.

• 6 nic // Mar 12, 2003 at 3:54 pm

  The simple fact is that policies don’t pass from administration to administration. Even at the level of the bureaucracy, the new Administration injects its own policies by filling the political appointments (and they are in every office) with their own people. I know for a fact, for example, that the policies concerning export controls have changed dramatically since the Clinton years.

  I’ll find Blair’s comments in Parliament today.

• 7 Tikihead // Mar 12, 2003 at 8:04 pm

  It is cabal-ism.. Ultra weird players from 30 years ago resurface with diabolical plan to seize blah blah blah.. The U.S. could buy up all the oil much cheaper than invading countries.

• 8 trav // Mar 12, 2003 at 9:34 pm

  I think that the article is an excellent long-run policy analysis, and it’s largely on the money.

  One part that particularly impressed me was the very concrete understanding that the initial impulse of populating the Rub-al-khali with Pistol-whipping texans was obviously assinine, but that the effectual result of Iraqi consolidation would be about the same.

  If anyone out there thinks that policymakers don’t make concrete multi-decade strategic plans, then they should just go back to folding burritos and kicking out the punk rock jams.

• 9 Anonymous // Mar 13, 2003 at 9:56 am

  Trav, luv, aren’t you too busy to expend effort on nonsensical conspiracy theories?

• 10 Chico // Mar 13, 2003 at 10:08 am

  I had a conspiracy theory once about how big corporations were playing an accounting shell game to inflate earnings. Long story. Had a lot to do with deregulation and consolidation in the financial services industry too. Silly me. If only I’d kept everything in the market instead of pulling out in 2000!

• 11 trav // Mar 13, 2003 at 2:09 pm

  Nic dear, it’s typically hard to find ex-FSOs willing to corroborate conspiracy theories.

• 12 nic // Mar 13, 2003 at 6:07 pm

  Trav, darlin, that is because they know how silly those theories are.

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