Hoarding is exactly what the government is doing right now by filling the SPR, and frankly it's the best thing that could happen. It drives prices up. High prices encourage demand destruction. They also finance new well development. The hoarded oil gives us a buffer to fall back on once shortages become more prevalent. High prices are what we need in order to adapt to what's coming, and the sooner they happen, the better.
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 7:12 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
seahorse wrote:
Maybe then, if the last 30 years teaches us anything, its this: if we want democracy to take root in the Middle East, we should get the Fark out of there.
I don't think you can say with any authority that a complete abandonment of the middle east by the US would solve all the problems in the middle east. The middle east can and probably will start WWIII with or without US influence.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
mos6507 wrote:
I don't think you can say with any authority that a complete abandonment of the middle east by the US would solve all the problems in the middle east. The middle east can and probably will start WWIII with or without US influence.
Yeah, but the West hasn't done much good to the region for the past 100 years or so.
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2449 Location: The Entropisphere
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
btu2012 wrote:
mos6507 wrote:
I don't think you can say with any authority that a complete abandonment of the middle east by the US would solve all the problems in the middle east. The middle east can and probably will start WWIII with or without US influence.
Yeah, but the West hasn't done much good to the region for the past 100 years or so.
Btu
Yes when the place was united under the Turkish Empire things were so peaceful. Totalitarian Empires do have that one advantage. And if that empire I wonder how much of the world's oil wealth it would be sitting on:
And in case you need a reminder let me show you where the Saudi's largest field is:
that would be in addition to the oil fields of Iraq.
That, I think would be a much larger threat to everyone living outside of the region than a bunch of states and interest groups killing each other.
If the Turks could have just held on for another 40 years it is hard to tell the resurgence the Empire could have managed.
My guess is that they would have turned first to the Nile and then to Europe (lets face it old dreams die hard).
A US warship, which was deployed off Lebanon in February amid concern over Beirut's political crisis, crossed Egypt's Suez Canal on Sunday on its way to the Mediterranean, an official with the canal authority told AFP.
"The USS Cole has crossed the Suez Canal and is headed to the Mediterranean," the official said, adding he did not know its exact destination.
The United States sent the guided-missile destroyer to waters off the coast of Lebanon on February 28, in what US officials said was "a show of support for regional stability" amid concerns over Lebanon's protracted political crisis. _________________ In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 8:38 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
the_sword wrote:
tagehey,
"Bukhari's material is but of very little importance when compared to other materials in Islam, including Quran."
To sunni muslims, Bukhari's book is ISLAM, and in day to day living Bukhari has MUCH more effect than Quran. Without Bukhari, sunni Islam wouldn't anything like what it is today. I have lived/studied sunni for 10 years.
I am not going to question your study of the subject, but I will definitely challenge the factuality of what you say. Quran is the holiest of holiest of book for all Muslims regardless of their sects. Sahih Bukhari is one of the sixth sunni hadees books. To Shias as I mentioned, its not authentic. And those sunnis that you demonize, have all been Western allies since before the fall of the Ottomans.
That being said, this is a peakoil forum. Its more efficient to concentrate on peakoil realities than the peakoil realities' politics. ME got the oil and US wants it. The rest is not even important to discuss.
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 8:49 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
mos6507 wrote:
seahorse wrote:
Maybe then, if the last 30 years teaches us anything, its this: if we want democracy to take root in the Middle East, we should get the Fark out of there.
I don't think you can say with any authority that a complete abandonment of the middle east by the US would solve all the problems in the middle east. The middle east can and probably will start WWIII with or without US influence.
The pro apartheid camp used to also argue along the same lines. They also used to argue that the blacks couldnt rule themselves. They also had this arrogant air of superiority about them with such absurd notions. They also ignored that it was their weapons and money that created the evil men of Africa.
Middle East has got the oldest culture in the entire world. They can, like they did, and most likely they will do without the US. The only problem in ME (and even Africa) today is related to Anglo American policies. All the bad men in the region- from Reza Shah to Sadaam to Mola Omar, to Bin Laden- have been US puppets. Yes, ME culture is not a jungle culture but a cooked one. Islam is their constitution. They lived with it rather honorably and in peace before and they want to do so in future.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 4877 Location: Oklahoma
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 9:54 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
{Off topic discussion about posting etiquette split. Images are limited to 450 pixels by CoC so they don't cause problems for people with low resolution monitors. Posts void of content are subject to deletion. You guys are even. Please carry on with the topic. -Shannymara} _________________ The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." - George Carlin
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 9:57 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
wisconsin_cur wrote:
Yes when the place was united under the Turkish Empire things were so peaceful. Totalitarian Empires do have that one advantage.
You forgot to mention a few details:
1. The West promised independence to the Arabs (Lawrence etc) but England, France etc divided the spoils after WWI (the mandates and all that). Oil was part of the story.
2. Israel was created
3. The area was under indirect western control up until after WWII
4. It became a playground for the cold war
and the rest of the niceties, such as the coups d'etat and so on.
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2449 Location: The Entropisphere
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 10:56 pm Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
btu2012 wrote:
wisconsin_cur wrote:
Yes when the place was united under the Turkish Empire things were so peaceful. Totalitarian Empires do have that one advantage.
You forgot to mention a few details:
1. The West promised independence to the Arabs (Lawrence etc) but England, France etc divided the spoils after WWI (the mandates and all that). Oil was part of the story.
2. Israel was created
3. The area was under indirect western control up until after WWII
4. It became a playground for the cold war
and the rest of the niceties, such as the coups d'etat and so on.
But life marches on triumphant.
Btu
Oil was discovered after 1938 (in S.A.) so it could not have been part of the partition plan of WW1. No doubt it was a consideration afterwards.
Israel was also created in the aftermath of the WW2. Yes Zionism is older and there was movement to Palestine before the 2nd World War but would there have really been a state without the European guilt complex after the war combined with the a whole lot of landless refugee Jews who never wanted to see Europe again? Hard to tell but Zionism seems like it was a spent force before the events of the 3rd Reich.
What I am trying to get at is that while the west is not without guilt, I have a hard time with the villianization of one group (in this case the west) as if things would have been better if we had never gotten involved. We only know the history that we have, we cannot know what might have been.
So are we guilty, sure I guess so. Would things be any better if we had never been involved? I doubt it. It would just be different but that does not equate to better.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 4:17 am Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
wisconsin_cur wrote:
So are we guilty, sure I guess so. Would things be any better if we had never been involved? I doubt it. It would just be different but that does not equate to better.
I am not trying to blame the West for all the problems in the history of the middle east. All I said is that the West did not do the region much good, which I think is rather obvious.
I'd like to correct a statement you made about oil. Here are a few pointers to how it got started:
Quote:
1911: First international exploitation of oil in Middle East, after British discovery at Masjid-i Sulayman, Persia in 1908: the Anglo-Persian oil company (APOC) is established. Britain controls all of Persia except for the mountainous north (which came under Russian domination, in accordance with a 1907 agreement between Britain and Russia).
25Apr 1920: San Remo Peace Conference of Allied Powers endorses the French & British mandate over the Levant, with Britain holding the mandate in Palestine, Transjordan & Mesopotamia (renamed Iraq, created out of the Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad & Mosul); Syria & Lebanon to France, plus a 25% share in the proceeds of Iraqi oil.
1927:British strike oil at Kirkuk, N.Iraq, the largest find in the world so far. Its exploitation is transferred to the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1929 (formerly the Turkish PC; part owned by Anglo-Persian Oil Company, Royal Dutch Shell, Mobil and a US consortium; operating on a concession granted by Iraq in Mar25) which built pipelines to Tripoli and Haifa by 1934.
1932: The beginnings of international oil exploitation in the Arab Gulf: the Standard Oil Company of California (Socal; from 1944, Arabian American Oil Company, Aramco) makes discoveries in Bahrain; obtains (through the mediation of St John Philby) an exclusive 60 year concession in the Hasa region of the Saudi Arabian Gulf shores (May 33; half of it subsequently sold to the Texas Oil Company) & makes discoveries, firstly at Dhahran (1935) and then much more substantially in eastern Arabia (1938); commercial production began at Dammam.
Oil was a consideration for Britain already in the San Remo peace treaty. At that time they already suspected the existence of reserves of oil in the region.
There are many people who think that the region could have been treated differently, Lawrence (of Arabia) was one of them.
Isn't it ironical that the Ottoman Empire was dismembered by the British Empire after a war in which the latter had been allied with the Russian Empire while the Ottomans had been allies of the Habsburg Empire ?
Did I mention that the Russian Empire continued to exist and even expanded under the name of the "Soviet Union" and still exists under the name of the Russian "Federation" ?
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2449 Location: The Entropisphere
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 7:18 am Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
I think, if I understand you correctly that both of our points are valid and only tangentially related.
It would be curious to read the accounts of the day (if one had the time to do the research) to see the emotion of the time about the partition of the Ottoman Empire. I focused on Saudi Oil but neglected Iraqi oil. Thank you for the correction.
Joined: Sep 24, 2007 Posts: 2584 Location: third from the sun
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 7:41 am Post subject: Re: The Reality of Lebanon
wisconsin_cur wrote:
It would be curious to read the accounts of the day (if one had the time to do the research) to see the emotion of the time about the partition of the Ottoman Empire.
As far as I understand most of the subject nations (in particular most Middle Easterners) were quite happy to be freed from Ottoman rule. However many were dissapointed that Britain and France proceeded to divide the spoils, contrary to the promises made before and during WWI.
T. E. Lawrence himself was quite disgusted by the whole thing.
The Ottomans were certainly not loved there, but Britain betrayed its former allies rather shamelessly.
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