Archive for the Category » Iran «

August 24th, 2008 | Author: akagaga

If you remember back to June, I posed the possibility that the real motivation for our invasion of Iraq was to regain American control of their oil fields, which Bush has finally accomplished. I’ve also been sounding off that Iran is just as good a target, for the same reasons, despite political rhetoric to the contrary.

Well, this article in the NY Times provides some additional motivation.

Oil production has begun falling at all of the major Western oil companies, and they are finding it harder than ever to find new prospects even though they are awash in profits and eager to expand.
Part of the reason is political. From the Caspian Sea to South America, Western oil companies are being squeezed out of resource-rich provinces. They are being forced to renegotiate contracts on less-favorable terms and are fighting losing battles with assertive state-owned oil companies.

And much of their production is in mature regions that are declining, like the North Sea.

The reality, experts say, is that the oil giants that once dominated the global market have lost much of their influence — and with it, their ability to increase supplies.

Bush has only got 148 days left to make big oil happy. Think he’ll get the job done?

Category: big oil, Bush, Iran, war | Leave a Comment

War with Iran

August 11th, 2008 | Author: akagaga

At the risk of repeating myself again and again, I can’t just sit back and shut up. Joe Parko says Bush must be stopped before he starts a war with Iran. I say there aren’t enough people in Washington who can see past the next election. James Madison said, “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

Parko issues this warning:

The instant we attack Iran, oil prices will double, perhaps triple. This price increase will devastate the U.S. economy. The ensuing retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well as on U.S. military installations in Iraq, will leave hundreds, maybe thousands, dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, will see an attack on Iran as a war against Shiism. They will turn with rage and violence on us and our allies. Hezbollah will renew attacks on northern Israel, while Hamas increases its attacks in southern Israel. And the localized war in Iraq will become a long, messy and protracted regional war that, by the time it is done, will most likely end the American empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins.

Is he wrong? Go read the whole articl e.

Category: big oil, Bush, Iran, war | 3 Comments

Cheney Looking for Ways to Provoke a War with Iran

August 01st, 2008 | Author: akagaga

About a month ago, I went out on a limb and posted that, sooner rather than later, we will be at war with Iran. Today, Think Progress posted an article stating that Cheney recently had a meeting in his office, looking for ideas on how to provoke a war with Iran that “the people” will support. The information came from Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

Hersh argued that one of the things the Bush administration learned during the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz was that, “if you get the right incident, the American public will support” it.
“Look, is it high school? Yeah,” Hersh said. “Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.”

Once in a great while I am rendered speechless, so I’ll let God talk for a while.

Do not be a witness against your neighbor without cause, And do not deceive with your lips. (Proverbs 24:28)

Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. (Romans 16:17-18)

Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:7-8)

Category: abuse of power, Bush, Iran, libertarian | Leave a Comment

Writing on the Wall: War in Iran is a Certainty

June 30th, 2008 | Author: akagaga

At the behest, I’m sure, of some back-room strategist from the Bush regime, the news is now full of stories that point to the coming war with Iran. Perhaps the thinking is that people will get tired of hearing about it, so when we invade, Americans won’t care. Then again, this is Bush. Maybe he really believes he can convince someone we need another war zone. Just google war and Iran, and you’ll have reading material for the summer. Here’s a sampling.

The latest Newspeak out of Washington is that CIA operations, which legally require disclosure to congressional leaders, are really military operations, which don’t need disclosure. Specifically, escalated covert operations in (you guessed it) Iran are nobody’s business but the Commander-inChief’s. [Picture Bush sticking his tongue out, and saying, nah-nah-na-nah-nah.] Of course, the military generals are also left in the dark, which tends to hinder the war on the ground. The New Yorker has an in-depth article on all this, and it will undoubtedly turn your stomach.

The House is in the process of passing Resolution 362, the “Iran War Resolution.” The Senate is working on the similar Resolution 580. One of the key passages calls for an economic blockade to pressure Iran. A unilateral naval blockade without UN sanction is an act of war.

We mustn’t forget the Israeli point of view in all of this: “If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,” Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

This whole package, not surprisingly, has led to another exchange of threats.

Chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards: “It is natural that when a country is attacked it uses all of its capabilities against the enemy, and definitely our control of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz would be one of our actions,” Jafari said.

Vice-Admiral Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet responds:
“They will not close it … They will not be allowed to close it.”

And, once again, we get to the crux of the matter: oil. Specifically, BIG oil. If you substitute “weapons of mass destruction, Iraq, and Saddam Hussein” for the current “development of nuclear weapons, Iran, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” you can’t help but notice a pattern.

Could it be that Bush’s plan is to topple another odious leader of another very oil-rich sovereign nation? Could it be that Bush thinks he owns all the mideast oil, and he’s got the military to prove it? Or maybe he’s thinking of his mark in history. Maybe he wants to go down as the first president in the history of the US who started three separate wars. It doesn’t really matter what his justification is. War is still war, and the price is still death.

Current cost of oil in Iraq:

civilian deaths: 85,325 – 93,067
US coalition deaths: 4,427
US wounded: over 29,000

Interesting link: A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS by Dr. Zoltan Grossman at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, has charted the US tendency to invade other nations. This is a digest-it-in-a-minute, suitable-for-Americans-who-don’t-have-time-to-read national history of war.