0230 GMT May 31, 2008

 

• Conakry Still Besieged says Afrol News. Guinea Army soldiers mutinied demanding more pay and and end to what they say is theft of rations and other items by senior officers. Though gunfire was heard in the capital, observers says both mutineers and loyal soldiers were firing into the air, not at each other.

• The mutineers took prisoner the Army's Number 2 senior officer who was attempting to negotiating with them.

• Afrol says the government had offered soldiers US$1000 and subsidized rice in an attempt to head off simmering unrest, but this was insufficient to appease the mutineers.

• UK has advised its civilians not to travel to Guinea, the world's largest bauxite exporter.

• Troops from three bases are involved. The Conakry garrison looted shops and blocked roads.  Mutineers also drove three trucks to the international airport and force a USAF aircraft delivering diplomatic goods/supplies to abort its mission

• There is some speculation that should the mutineers engage the Presidential Guard, the rebellion might soon be over. So far the mutineers have not proceeded to test the Guard.

• President Musharraf Denies He Will Resign He is the president, he says, and will carry out his duties according to the constitution. He said a "certain party" was spreading these rumors. That reference is to the the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's part, now the majority member of Pakistan's ruling coalition.

• Just to show he has mastered current doublespeak jargon, the President said he wanted the present government to continue ruling as it had the people's mandate. The present government of course, wants him impeached, tried, jailed etc. We assume the President will, in that event, voluntarily agree to the ruling party's plans? A lot of people are scared to death if they back the ruling party on this the Army will stage another coup to protect its man - once you start impeaching military rulers where do you stop? - and they will get it in the neck for having cooperated with the ruling party.

• Latest On Israeli PM Investigation Haaretz of Israel has a detailed article on the corruption investigation concerning Israel's Prime Minister.

• Apparently the Prime Minister used to tell organizations that wanted his presence at overseas functions that they should house him in a luxury hotel and pay for first-class travel. This sounds quite innocuously reasonable to us. He is, after all, a Prime Minister. This is no evidence of his taste for high living.

• Of course, as far as investigators are concerned, they are looking into allegations that he took money from party funds to pay for personal jaunts. His assistant of 30 years who handled his travels etc. says this was never the case.

• The travel issue is only one of several investigators are looking into.

• From James P. Freemon Like you, I too believed we were being lied to, that there was hidden agenda behind it. But my thinking about the reasoning behind the lies was somewhat different. I personally lean toward accepting the arguments of the Peak Oil theorists. I suspected the oil money behind the President may have also believed that odds favored the theory being accurate.

• I looked at the positioning of our military power since the end of the cold war as the execution of a grand strategic plan to gain undisputed control over the Gulf, source of much of the world's oil. In an oil tight world, he who controls distribution of the oil will control the world. Look where US military power is now concentrated. The only military threat left in the entire region is Iran. We also have the only navy capable of escorting oil tankers to destinations of our choice.

• It was the only thing that made sense to me for our going to war  there. Maybe I've played too many board games.

• Editor's note If psychosis is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, may be that while the administration is caught in psychosis, so are those of us who keep trying to find rational excuses for Gulf II.

• Congressperson suggests former Press Secretary be subpoenaed Congress has various hearings going on about Iraq. One Congressperson suggested that Mr. Scott McClelland be subpoenaed. Executive privilege would not be involved as Congress would ask questions about a work in the public domain. We've asked some law types to comment on this matter.

• Meanwhile, the President's Press Secretary, Ms. Dana Perino (she of the rapid-fire speech) says she cannot say if the President would oppose Mr. McClelland's subpoena.

• People are asking why Mr. McClelland, one of the most loyal Bush staffers, has suddenly turned coat. There could be many explanations. The simplest is that Heck Has No Fury Like A True Believer Scorned.

   

  0230 GMT May 30, 2008

   

  • Mr. McClellan's Memoir We have no particular interest in Mr. Scott McClellan's thesis as discussed in his memoir, which says President Bush knew the American people would not accept the real reasons the President wanted Gulf II, so he faked reasons. Why? Because we knew the US President was faking.

  • Why didn't we say anything? Because we thought the lies were for a very good reason, which was  US intended to destroy the House of Saud, the financier of Islam terrorism and to bring the 21st Century to the Middle East. We thought the idea of occupying Iraq was to create a bridgehead from which America could strike East against Iran, West against Saudi, and North against Syria. And we thought that since this grand effort would inevitably disrupt oil supplies, the US planned to ramp up Iraq's production back to at least 6-million bbl/day and to build up reserve stocks so as to reduce the impact of a disruption. Then the revolution to democratize the Middle East could begin, a process that might have taken from 20 to 50 years depending on the target country.

  • Nor did we know at that time that the President/Vice President/Karl Rove were deliberately suppressing dissenting views so that they could not be challenged by other high officials who were every bit as patriotic as the above-mentioned

  • Mr. McClellan says all that Mr. Bush wanted was to spread democracy over the Mideast. In other words, what we thought was the secondary objective was not even the first objective, it was the only objective.

  • If Mr. McClellan is right, we're afraid we'll have to return to an old theme at Orbat.com: there needs to be an impartial inquiry conducted into the fiasco that Gulf II has become; indictments have to be handed down; indicted personnel have to be tried by special courts; and sentences have to be carried out, regardless of the rank of the person on trial, and including death sentences.

  • Because it's not just that the Administration has failed in its objectives, its objectives were incorrectly defined, incorrectly executed, and have proved detrimental to American interests.

  • Whoa, Whoa, you say. You want high-ranking officials all the way to the top to be tried and if found guilty imprisoned or hanged for incompetence? Isn't this completely off the wall?

  • Not a bit. The Commander-in-Chief holds the power of death over the whole country. This power is not as total as it was in the Nuclear Age, where we handed over to the President the authority  - if he decided it was neccessary - to risk incineration, injury and death by fire and radiation, and a slow death for the survivors because our society would have collapsed. This authority existed not just over some small percentage of the population, but over 20-60% if an all-out exchange with the Soviets had occurred, to 99% if nuclear winter came about as a consequence.

  • Suppose now that such an exchange had resulted because the President had one objective which he hid while pursuing a second, on which he invited no debate. Now suppose that thanks to his incompetence, everything went wrong with his plan, so that nothing was achieved, and further, America suffered direct and indirect casualties running north of 270-million. Suppose further - as would have happened in the nuclear winter scenario, that 90% of the world's population died as a consequence. All for nothing, absolutely nothing, because of the president's whims and fancies.

  • Would you then, if you were a survivor, object to putting the President and all his high officials on trial for their life because of their incompetence? we don't think you would; indeed, you wouldn't be a person of honor if the very least you demanded was death for those who killed the country. Incompetence would not be a plea you would have accepted, had your parents been burned to death, your wife died painfully of radiation burns, and your children were dying because there was no food, no clean water, no shelter, no medical treatment. We wager you'd have been among the first over the White House barricades screaming for blood - and for justice.

  • So then where is the problem with putting the Administration on trial over Gulf II? Well, you might say, ONLY 4000 Americans have died; ONLY 20,000 have been wounded; we've ONLY lost a current and future $2-trillion dollars; and not to mention that ONLY unknown tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, become refugees, or live in daily terror in their country. After all, who REALLY cares about a bunch of dirty, sniveling, sand-eaters, right?

  • Okay, to heck with the sniveling sand-eaters. But if you argue against the toughest action to be taken against our leaders, it will only be because you feel the degree to which America has suffered is insufficient for hanging people.

  • Right. In that case, what exactly is your threshold? 40,000 dead and $20-trillion? 400,000 dead? 4-million dead?

  • And please also tell, what is your threshold if the Editor had directly caused the death of your child and done so on your credit card for which you are liable, and done all that on his whim, what would be your reaction? Just let him go free? We don't think so.

  • So why should America collectively not hold its high officials responsible for their errors and lies? Allowing them to resign, and simply standing by as they finish their terms in office is hardly holding them responsible.

  • Okay, so may say "This whole argument you're making is a huge stretch." Yes, it is a stretch if we give God-like immunity to our  leaders/officials. But where does it say that we required to give them immunity? Men made the laws by which this Republic is governed. President Bush and Company do not have the divine right of kings. They are ordinary people like you and me. And they should be punished just as you and me would be punished if we made similar mistakes - not due to bad luck, but simply because we didn't want to listen to anyone.

  • Looked at it that way, our argument is neither off the wall, nor a stretch, nor inane. It is a good first step among many that are required to make America a great nation once again.

   

   

  0230 GMT May 29. 2008

   

  • 100+ Nations Ban Cluster Bombs including most US allies: UK agreed at the last minute. US, Russia, China, and Israel have not signed. The US is unlikely to do so at this point, but over the years will face more and more pressure as a "rogue" state in this respect.

  • The argument is that between 10-40% cluster bomblets fail to explode and civilians fall casualties to them after hostilities - they are difficult to clean up. Further, because they are wide area munitions, any civilians in or around the battle area are going to become casualties.

  • US position is that the weapons have legitimate uses on a battlefield, for example, to stop massed armor attacks or to deny vast swaths of ground to enemy movement.

  • The simplest way for the US to handle this is to make the weapons more reliable, and to create mechanisms for disarming them after a set time as passed. You can do that with land and sea mines. Also, US would have to agree not to use them where civilian casualties can result. It's not good enough to say "we don't target civilians" because in places like Iraq cluster bombs have been major causes of civil casualties.

  • It's not a bad idea to make these things better and to avoid civil areas simply because anything that kills civilians is increasingly being seen as illegitimate in warfare. Whatever the US decides, these days are not good times for the US to keep defying public opinion. Right or wrong, you don't want a situation where foreign courts start indicting Us officials for violating the laws of war. Just as the US has an independent judiciary, many countries do too, so you can't sit on the foreign government and force it to quash proceedings.

  • US Businessman Testifies He Gave Israeli PM $150,000 in cash over 15 years, including personal loans for the apparently perennially cash-strapped Israeli PM.

  • If you're expecting a rant directed at Prime Minister Olmert, you're going to be disappointed. Israeli courts will decide his fate and that is none of our business. Our comment is rather directed at the American businessman, who now piously declares he gave money because he was blinded by admiration for Mr. Olmert and thought he (businessman) was helping the cause of Zionism. He says he was worried about the morality of the PM asking for cash loans.

  • If this rat was so worried, why was he handing over cash? Why not drafts or cashier's checks? Now he says he thought he was giving money to help Israel. Really? Then why not have given the money so it was traceable, again, in the form of checks etc. Blinded by admiration our foot. This man is pathetic.

  • When anyone undertakes to make repeat cash payments to any politician, only one inference can be drawn: he is doing something illegal. This businessman deserves to go to jail for bribing a politician just as much as Mr. Olmert - if found guilty - deserves to go to jail for accepting bribes.

  • While Israeli authorities say there is no immunity deal, we are not encouraged by reports that say he is being deposed early because of fears that he might not return from New York when required. Huh? US would refuse to extradite this gent if he refused to go and a warrant for him was issued? We don't think so. To their credit, some Israeli law enforcement officials are saying they don't buy the businessman's story that his motives were pure.

  • We are still unclear on why he is not being detained as a material witness, or whatever steps the Israelis need to take to keep him in Israel.

  • Ms. Basic Instinct Wonders If Karma Caused The China Earthquake The lady being, of course, Ms. Sharon Stone. She wonders loudly if a karmic connection between China's Tibet repression and the recent earthquake existed.

  • Orbat.com wonders why this ditz is being given any notice at all. Just because she appeared in a movie scene sans underpants gives her the stature to have her inanities publicized across the world?

  • Okay folks, the Editor informs the mainstream media he will appear sans culottes on Friday next on his front lawn. Please be sure to photograph him so he also can talk about the bad karma the world has incurred to be stuck with Ms. Sharon Stone. Out of concern for the media, the Editor suggests they put away a few strong ones before arriving en masse for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, because the Editor Sans Culottes is not a sight even the bravest can endure without liquid fortification of the 200 proof kind. Maybe the Editor will get enough media attention to attract money to get Orbat.com going.

  • So we can already hear Mrs. R saying "Darling, you're not anywhere as attractive as SS. To say nothing of the age disparity." Okay, so if anyone gets ageist, sexist, and attractive-ist on the Editor, he will sue under the Americans With Disabilities act. Be warned.

  • By the way, when did ditz become a pejorative word? We always think of Ms. Goldie Hawn when the word ditz is mentioned, and no one will deny she's one smart cookie.

  • Also by the way, a plea to Ms. Stone: we have enough ditzes of the male sex in Washington. Why are you insulting the female sex, which manifestly is smarter than its male counterpart? Shame, Shame. We say "In the name of the Divine, just go." (Cant say "in the name of God" - violation of a Ten Commandments, taking the Lord's name in vain."

  • Independent of UK has it right: it says Ms. Stone's discussions on karma have brought her bad karma because advertisers who do business with PRC are bailing out in droves.

   

  0230 GMT May 28, 2008

   

  • Eritrea And Djibouti In Border Confrontation International Herald Tribune says that Eritrea has occupied a disputed region between the two countries which is supposed to be a sort of DMZ that both are required to avoid. The troops are eye-ball to eye-ball in the true sense because there is no buffer. Instead, the Eritreans have demarcated their claim line with stones, and the opposing forces are on either side of the stone line. They do not have to move any closer if they want to shake hands - or if they want to stick their gun barrel in the other fellow's face.

  • Khartoum Overruns South Sudan Border Town This town sits smack in the middle of the southern oil fields. Under the peace agreement, South Sudan is an autonomous area that can decide to secede after a certain period, and secede it will. The border town is to hold a referendum on which side it wants to join. and it is expected it will join South Sudan. That is, until the Khartoum offensive which has forced 100,000 people to flee. Now northern settlers will move in and you have an entirely different outcome of the referendum if it is held.

  • Just the other day, Khartoum was asking for troops from South Sudan to help put down the attempted coup by Chad-based Darfuri militia. South Sudan agreed in principle to help. Khartoum sure has a peculiar way of returning favors.

  • Energy News Just to keep readers better informed:

  • Deep-Drilling Rig Shortage One reason very promising new offshore oil fields in a number of countries are not coming on line at an acceptable speed is the shortage of deep-drilling rigs. There are only 70 of them in the world, and the reason is the collapse of oil prices in the 1990s destroyed the rig market.

  • But another 70 are now under construction and should soon be coming on line. What if another price collapse occurs? The run-up is so extreme that oil would have to fall below $50/bbl before exploration takes a major hit. There seems little chance the price will fall anywhere that low.

  • Things we did not know: I Canada refuses to allow new N-reactors; the energy to extract Canadian tar sands oil is, therefore, coming from natural gas (which we did know). But that is taking a whole load of natural gas off the market.

  • Things we did not know: II And Mexico's constitution forbids foreign ownership of oil; we'd thought it was simple nationalism. We checked, and there is no chance the constitution will be amended until Mexico starts running out of oil to export, which could be as soon as five years. By the time the constitution is amended and foreign operators explore/discover/extract oil, at least another decade will pass, so in a worst case, you may not see Mexican oil exports in significant quantity recovering till 2025 or so.

  • The problem is not that Mexico is running out of oil, but that due to mismanagement its output is falling. Keep your eye on Mexico. And on Venezuela too, because output is falling due to mismanagement (Hugo says its because of American sabotage in concert with anti-national elements) AND Hugo is draining so much money from oil coffers for his pet projects that reinvestment to keep production steady or expanding is not taking place.

  • Reader Mike Warns That Wind Energy Projects Will Require Subsidies We're wondering if wind has reached the point that it can operate without subsidy: so far we haven't seen anything that suggests T. Boone Pickens' projects need subsidies, but that could be because that news has not been yet made public. Still, we subsidize oil companies via tax breaks, and we subsidize our oil consumption via defense of the sea lanes and protecting American interests in several rather unstable oil producers.

  • Mike also notes that generally wind is unavailable 67% of the time. Correct, except North Texas is a different story. We promise to check this up over the weekend. Also, people are working on ways to store wind, solar, and hydropower energy.

  • Mike suggests a logical use for T. Boone's wind is to power oil extraction pumps. We are reasonably sure the canny old bird is going to look to extract secondary oil from his 620 square miles of leased land: there is quite a revival in Texas oil now that new techniques permit recovery from previously depleted fields. By the way, what may be the largest gas field in the US was recently found - a few miles outside Dallas. No one had the least clue all that gas was just sitting there next to what used to be the world's oil capital. Its astonishing how much of the world has not yet been explored.

  • Mike also says no way alternate energy is going to provide baseload power. No disagreement there, Mike is right. But we have to make a start on alternates, and who knows where they will go in 50-100 years. This is a field that is just taking off. Until it takes off, of course King Coal will rule for baseloads.

  • By The Way The French colonel's balloon got away from the ground crew as his record breaking attempt to jump 40-miles was being remedied. Bad. He is said to be livid; we'd be too.

  • And the new Mars explorer landed at the North Pole in great condition. and it has started to send back photos. There is a minor problem with articulating the digger arm, but NASA says not to worry, they'll have everything shipshape even if it takes a day or two lower. Luckily your Editor does not own land in the Martian North: from what we here, land prices have crashed ever since NASA arrived.

  • The neighborhood is so totally gone, dudes; just a matter of time before the trashy Earthling immigrants move in with their couches, kegs of beer, bags of potato chips, and giant screen TVs. Yes, we know you're going to say but the air is not breathable - what little there is of it - and its goshdarned cold. What you don't know is latest research shows that if 70% of the water/fluids in your body is replaced by beer, you will be toasty warm on Mars and breathing no heavily than Lance Armstrong cycling down the National Mall. Its for information like this people need to read Orbat.com.

   

  0230 GMT May 27, 2008

   

  • Global Terror Falling, Current Tallies Misleading says Fareed Zakaria, an editor for Newsweek and columnist for the Washington Post. Mr. Zakaria takes moderate positions and has no particular axe to grind. His multicultural background as well as his commitment to America make a good mix in appreciating all points of view, none of which are pushed down the reader's throat.

  • Mr. Zakaria's analysis is simple. He says that Iraq is wrongly being included in terror statistics. Iraq is a civil war, and terror committed during the course of the war should not count any more than terror committed during the course of other civil wars in progress. Leaving aside Iraq, the incidence of global terror is falling.

  • Mr. Zakaria says that perhaps the most significant development is the sharp fall in support for Islamic terror in the Islamic world.  He feels that as public support for Islamic terrorists wanes, so will their effectiveness.

   

  Our Comment

  • This is great news, and it exposes a peculiarly American tendency which is spreading to the rest of the world. People become vested in a point of view, they earn their daily bread and get importance on account of their issue. So even when things start improving, those vested in a point of view need to keep their issue alive, healthy, and if possible, growing. Such people are rarely intellectually honest and tend to systematically exclude evidence contrary to their position. When all else fails, they happily select data that supports them even if that data is wrong or biased.

  • In our opinion, the great majority of American public policy research by advocacy groups is not worth the paper it is printed on. We are amazed that people have been counting Iraq in their count of global terror incidents. If you are going to do that, you need to include other wars.

  • You can now legitimately ask: "Orbat.com says the US is losing the GWOT, but here you are accepting Zakaria's thesis it is being won. How come?"

  • The answer is simply that we've been guilty of accepting the US's conflation of global terror and the war against militant Islam, not through ill-intent, but because of a lack of precision.

  • GWOT may now be able to claim many victories, but as far as we're concerned, we were never particularly interested either in terror or counter-terror. Our concern has been more about Afghanistan and Iraq primarily as wars in which the US is engaged, not about terror. The original title of this blog is "America Goes To War".

  • Because of our focus on Afghanistan and Iraq, we've come to see there is an ever cascading rise in Islamic fundamentalism. This began with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but has now spread to Pakistan, Sudan, and Bangladesh. Struggles that began in other ways have been infiltrated over the years by fundamentalists, for example, Algeria, Indonesia, and the Philippines. There are other wars where no Islamists are involved, for example, the take-over of Nepal by the Maoists and the rising tide of Maoism in India courtesy of the Naxalites. We have paid them only casual attention, because while a Maoist is by our western liberal definition an extremist, he is not a religious fundamentalist.

  • Of course, you can say Maoism is a religion, but it is a failed religion rejected by the country where it was born, China. The Nepal/India Maoists are quaintly retro, and there is hardly any need to guess the Nepal Maoists will become pragmatic leftists, because there is no future in Maoism. The rise of India's Maoists is more a reflection on India's general tendency to ignore security threats for as long as possible than the viability of Maoism as a political framework for running a country.

  • We could have a big debate on whether the rise of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas is primarily about Islamic fundamentalism or nationalism wrapped in the green Crescent and Star flag. A complication is that while fundamentalist Islam seeks to completely control the economic and social life of a state, so do countries like Saudi Arabia.

  • But after recognizing Islamic fundamentalism as relevant to America's dominance of the world does not permit every country to be neatly slotted, there is a growing problem from the American view; this war is not being won by the US, and every year there seems to be another front the fundamentalists open. This war is spreading, and its seeds of evil are being sowed in a hundred countries around the world. Many of those seeds will not sprout. Many may take decades to show any results. This is not an area in which we, or anyone else, can make predictions.

  • Here is another "but": we have absolutely no compunction in accepting the US must use all means neccessary to destroy Islamic fundamentalism just as it needed to destroy Soviet Communism, we are starting to wonder if the people who say the US is wrongly focusing on purely military responses to this new Hundred Years War, or Clash of Civilizations, or whatever you want to call it, are not right.

  • After all, no American killed a Soviet soldier or the other way around. Yes, an expanding military might was needed to show the Soviets they could never win, because the Soviets equated military might with global dominance. And yes, the two antagonists engaged a long series of vicious proxy wars, only twice getting involved themselves, Second Indochina and First Afghanistan.

  • But there is not, never was, and never will be a military threat from Islamic fundamentalism. This is primarily a war of ideologies. The first time around when the West and Islam collided, say 1000-1500 AD, there were very sound economic reasons for the wars which were disguised as ideological conflict.

  • This new war, however, is not about economics any more than it is about about military might. It is purely a war of ideology, and simple logic says you cannot win this sort of war by military means.

  • We wonder what Marx would have made of the Islamic fundamentalists. Of course, his Best Friend Forever Lenin would have had a simple solution: kill them all. In the year of our Lord 2008, we cannot contemplate such clean, simple solutions. so any solutions will necessarily be extremely messy.

  • But shouldn't we start thinking of possible solutions? That will mean identifying Why They Hate Us as a very first step. We need to get inside the heads of the fundamentalists, we need to think the way they do before we can understand them.

  • Our personal theory, which we will elaborate another day, that the problem and the solution lies in Respect. Muslims of all stripes believe they have been disrespected; the only difference between a Muslim fundamentalist and a plain vanilla Muslim is that the latter believes the only way he can get respect is by killing you. We, on the other hand, are not prepared to give any respect till the fundamentalists renounce violence.

  • Sort of reminds one of the British and the American colonists, no? Us being the Brits and the Americans being the Islamic fundamentalists. strange thought, but there it is.

   

  0230 GMT May 26, 2008

   

  • T. Boone Pickens' 4-GW Wind Farm The oil baron is investing $2-billion in setting up the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. For the first phase, Mesa Power, Pickens' company has ordered 667 x 1.5-MW turbines for 2010-11 delivery. The full project will be on line by 2014.

  • 4 GW worth of coal-fired plants would use 40,000-tons of coal a day, so this project is all-around a Good Deal. Nonetheless, we are a bit disturbed to learn the wind farm will eventually cover 625-square-miles. That is a lot of land. Equivalent coal plants would cover less than than one square mile. Still, its likely the land will be used for grazing and it will also be available for solar power when Mr. Pickens gets into solar, something he says he plans. And the wind project is only the first of others he plans.

  • A second source, an industry newsletter says the project will involve upto 310-square-miles. Perhaps Mr. Pickens plans to expand further than 4-GW and is leasing land in advance.

  • Texas currently produces 5-GW of wind-power and 2-GW under construction.  Royal Dutch Shell is thinking of a 3-GW wind-farm in Texas.

  • The Us has 18-GW installed capacity with 5-GW under construction in 2008. At 23-GW without counting future projects, you are talking serious alternate energy, ~2.5% of US demand.

  • In 2007, 5-GW was installed in the US; the same amount is expected in 2008

  • Interestingly, Mr. Pickens's project also involves pumping an annual 200,000-acre-feet of water from the four counties the wind farm will cover. We trust this is a renewable quantity because America is running short of water. Something impossible to imagine 40 years ago.

   

  Lebanon: The Rise of Hezbollah and the Rise of Iran

  • Lebanon swore in a new president after Hezbollah finally agreed to the candidacy of former Army chief Michael Sulieman. Hezbollah had blocked him for seven months.

  • There is great relief in Lebanon that the current crisis seems to have been peacefully resolved and a once seemingly inevitable slide to civil war has been averted.

  • But what we did not realize till we read Israel's Haaretz is the resolution of the Presidential crisis actually represents a massive Hezbollah victory. Hezb withdrew its opposition only after several concessions. Hezb now has 11 cabinet seats, giving it an effective veto over cabinet decisions which must be passed by a two-thirds majority. It also managed to get election laws changed to favor its candidates in the next general election. Hezb's militia is no longer a subject for discussion; in return, it has agreed never to fight Lebanese again.

  • So now the government cannot legally put restrictions on Hezb - since it will not have a 2/3rds majority. Any attempt to impose restrictions can legitimately be rejected by Hezb as illegal actions.

  • A new election is due next year.

  • So from being a regional movement in South Lebanon, Hezb became the all-Lebanon hero for standing up to the Israeli Army. After the recent crisis, it has shown all Lebanon is vulnerable to its militia. And now Hezb has become the final arbiter of Lebanon.

  • So are we being pessimistic when we predict what anyone can predict: that the next stop is Hezbollah Lebanon and those who don't want to live there can secede. after which Hezb will eliminate cantons its does not rule.

  • This is the defeat that Washington people were talking about a week ago? This is the defeat Washington people were talking about when the ceasefire was rung down on the Second Lebanon War in 2006?

  • We are frankly amazed at how easily Teheran is expanding its influence in the Mideast and how clever are its successes. Since most of the Mideast including most of the oil states are ruled by brutal dictatorships in which the Shia have very large minorities, how much does anyone want to be that the next 20-years are going to be ones of great turmoil in the Mideast?

  • And the reason? Because US in Iraq eliminated the one leader/party who could block - and had blocked - Iran, and because the US then settled down to make a massive hash of its occupation.

  • How does it help the US military is succeeding in bringing some measure of peace to Iraq - at least as of now, who knows what/where the new eruption will take place? All of America's sacrifices are in vain because - has Washington noticed? - the majority of Iraqis are Shia, and Iran has very close ties to all three Shia factions. The Arabs have refused to partner with Iraq, and why should they, given they are Sunni-ruled. All of Washington's make believe diplomacy will not change this reality.

  • The sad reality is that the balance of power in the Mideast has turned against America because of oil. You need no further proof of this assertion than the recent Saudi decision to tell their best friend Mr. Bush to "b----- off".

  • Need more proof? Emirates have decided to bet a tenth of their pot -metaphorically speaking - on the French. Paris is to establish its first military base in the region, previous a sparkling Red, White, and Blue area.

  • More proof? The United Nations launched a desperate appeal for more food money as its programs were running out of resources on account of the world commodity price run-up - which is starting to reverse, BTW. Was it the US that came to the rescue? No. It was the Saudis. They wrote a $500-million check with the same nonchalance as the Editor writes one for five dollars. We are very surprised the Saudi action, which represents an explosively seminal development, has not received more attention. The check represented 12 hours worth of Saudi oil revenues.

  • Yet more proof? Check out what PRC is upto in the area. We'll give a hint: if the US decides to attack Iran in 2023, it will be deterred. Not by Iran's N-weapons, but by PRC. Think we're kidding? Most of our readers will be very much around in 2023. You can then decide for yourselves if your Editor is right.

  • That hint is just for PRC/Iran. Beijing is up to a great deal more.

   

   

   

  0230 GMT May 25, 2008

   

  • Israel is preoccupied by two developments. First, Prime Minister is certain to be indicted for accepting large cash sums from a New York based buisnessperson, according to law enforcement sources. Meanwhile, the PM has been cleared by investigators of charges he took money to private an Israeli bank.

  • It appears these things are down differently in Israel, because in the US the media and everyone plus his brother would by now have being baying for the PM's blood and we'd have had non-stop analysis and coverage. The Israelis seem to be calm about the matter. Maybe they are more pragmatic and less moralistic than we are.

  • The second development is the news that Israel and Syria have been in secret talks for a peace treaty. Haaretz of Israel says that Israel wants to break up the Iranian-Syrian partnership. We're wondering why the US is not going berserk at its closest Mideast ally's perfidy. Syria, after all, is part of the Axis of Evil and here the Israelis are discussing a peace treaty. And please note that Syria has several times warred directly against Israel, whereas no shots have been exchanged between Syria and the US. No doubt Americans will say "Ah, but this is a chance to undermine Iran". Well, you can come up with any excuse, but the reality remains: either the US believes in negotiation as a tool, or it does not. If the US says it will not negotiate with terrorists, then surely Israeli negotiations with Syria amount to betrayed America. If the US says its okay for Israel to negotiate with direct enemies, then how is not okay for America to talk to DPRK, Iran, Syria, Cuba?

  • Not to be snarky, but how come the US entered into a peaceful settlement with DPRK on its N-weapons - anyone remember the little fracas called the Korean War that cost the Americans 33,000 dead over 2 1/2 years - but wants to bomb Iran's N-program? Come on, Washington, Orbat.com will support you whether you fight terrorists and enemies or you negotiate. We simply want a little consistency and clarity. Barring that, it's hard to avoid the suspicion that Washington is expressing irrational petty pique.

  • There is hardly a non-American that believes other than Washington's animus toward Cuba is based on a half-century of failure to overthrow Castro. And now the old coot has retired on his terms, poking America in the eye by saying: "I outlasted 8 American presidents, I survived every attempt of the mightiest superpower the modern world has seen though I rule just a postage-stamp sized country that is as poor as America is rich." Are Americans simply sulky, bad losers? They made peace with Vietnam - after being defeated. What's the big deal with making peace with a bunch of third-rate countries?

  • Israel scrambled two fighters against a private plane carrying former UK Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair to Bethlehem because its air defense saw an unidentified intruder in Israel-controlled airspace and the intruder refused to respond to demands it identify itself. The aircraft crew says their radio had failed and so they could not communicate.

  • We're a bit confused. Did Mr. Blair not file a flight plan with precise times? And how did the Israelis figure out the plane was not hostile, in the air? It was not forced down; it could not communicate; so did the crew and Mr. Blair hold up Smiley Faces at the windows or did they hold up a Peter Brookes cartoon of the ex-PM? Also, in the very few minutes the ex-PM's plane was in Israeli-controlled airspace, how did this all get worked out?

  • We're very wary of conspiracy theories when they involve any large organization leave alone the military, because there is more than enough that could go unbelievably wrong without conspiracy theories. Still, one wonders if the Israelis knew all along who they were dealing with and were perhaps doing a little bit of intimidation; the civil plane's inability to communicate just adding another twist to the story?

  • Colombia Says FARC Commander Dead He appears to have died of natural causes after 44 years as FARC's leader. A successor was appointment in March. The BBC says the commander has been declared dead on other occasions, but if the news is correct it could deal a blow to FARC which has also lost two top commander recently and is under heavy military pressure from Colombia.

  • AFP reports that shortly after the government's announcement, Bogotá also said it had received messages from FARC leaders saying they were willing to release all hostages if their freedom is assured.  Colombia says it will honor any such agreement if reached.

   

  1400 GMT May 24, 2008

   

  • Pakistan Taliban Leader Vows To Fight On In Afghanistan regardless of the peace accord with the Pakistan Government. Baitullah Mehsud says he does not want to to fight the Pakistan Army because they are fellow Muslims, but he will continue to fight to drive out the foreigners from Afghanistan.

  • We assume Mr. Mehsud spoke rhetorically about not fighting the Pakistan Army, because the government has decided to pick up its few remaining marbles and go home, ceding Pakistan Taliban-controlled areas. The Army is pulling out.

  • Since 9/11, thanks to contact with the Americans, the Pakistanis have picked up the art of double-speak. So according to the Pakistan Government, the army is not pulling out - despite evidence it is doing precisely that - but only "adjusting" positions to allow the return of 200,000 tribal zone refugees. Not coincidentally, the process of "adjustment" requires the Pakistan army to return to its peacetime cantonments.

  • Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Returns home from a tour spent appealing for help in staging a fair run-off election. Morgan Tsvangirai came home despite fears for his life, and rejected the idea of a national unity government. With Mr. Mugabe's terror squads on the loose, and with foreign intervention unlikely, it's hard to see a fair election.

  • Another Twist In The Oil Game Washington Post quotes industry expert as saying that high prices should drive down demand, but half the world has yet to feel the pinch thanks to government subsidies. India is specifically mentioned as paying $20-billion/year toward petrol/diesel subsidies. We estimate the sum suffices to pay off the loans of between 10- and 20-million destitute farmers. India has at long last begun a program to help these marginal agriculturalists.

  • Another twist: exploding domestic demand in oil-producing states means that exporters may soon become importers. Mexico is superficially mentioned.

  • British Conservatives Score Another Win taking away a by-election seat in Crewe, north of London, that was reckoned as one of Labor's safest. Estimates are that if the general election to be held by 2010 were held today, Conservatives would win by 150 Parliamentary seats.

  • Events in the UK are converse to those in the US, where Democrats have taken Republican seats in three by-elections.

  • 64-year Old Frenchman Planning 40-kilometer Jump We are always happy to lay any American sin at the Baby Boomers' door, but one thing the Boomers have to be congratulated for is changing the notion of behavior in old age. Of course, the Boomers have been helped by the extraordinary medical/health advances of the last 40 years; if our fathers believed they were old at sixty, it was because they lived in old, bashed up bodies.

  • Nonetheless, advance congratulations to an "old" French ex-Army officer, who plans to take a balloon to an altitude of 40-kilometers over Canada's Saskatchewan, and make a 15-minute jump to earth. Details in the International Herald Tribune.

   

  0230 GMT May 23, 2008

   

  • Pakistan Government Surrenders Swat To Pakistani Taliban You can read the International Herald Tribune for the details. The Pakistan Army is to leave Swat, and the Taliban will enforce Sharia law in the region. The deal is brokered by - guess who? - the same party that people were saying had defeated the extremist candidates in the North West Frontier Province. The party is an ally of the ruling coalition, and there was a lot of blah about "moderates" gaining power and so on. Pardon us while we barf, but anyone who is involved in implementing Sharia law is no moderate, unless we want to be like Alice's Red Queen.

  • You aren't going to get a certified bona fide Orbat.com rant on this development because, after all, we've been saying for months now the North West Frontier is a done deal for the Pakistani Taliban. As far as we've been concerned, only the formalities remained, and here you have the first of the formalities concluded. Yes, Swat is only one of several areas of the NWFP, but now the infection will spread.

  • No point in blaming the civilian government, either. The military government had decided to pull out long before the civilians came to power. Indeed, if we are brutally honest about it, the military government was only the NWFP Shuffle because the United States was beating up the Pakistanis. America, you wanted a democratic government because, you said, that is the only way to deal with extremism in Pakistan. You got a democratic government, and the first thing the democratic government said to you "Kindly exit stage Right, where you go is your concern, just stop bugging us." The Pakistanis are dealing with extremism: they've hauled up the white flag.

  • Remember when Hitler came to power? He did so through the medium of democratic elections.

  • And certainly we aren't about to tell Pakistan: "You cannot decide for yourself what is best for your country, we Americans will tell you what's good for your country."

  • Should America have continued to back the military government? No, because regardless of what America did, that government was going to be overthrown by Pakistanis who'd had enough. The big criticism you used to hear was "you Americans kept Musharraf in power, we'd have thrown him long ago except you went against the will of the people." At which point your Editor inevitably has to do the Orbat Shuffle: "Hey, don't blame us, we aren't Americans." That's pretty pathetic of us, but then we've never been much for continuing to fight lost causes, and Pakistan was pretty much lost the day after 9/11.

  • So all we can do is to wave to the GWOT and say "bye now, its time for us to do our thing, and for you to do yours. It's been real." Because first you kicked the bad guys out of Afghanistan, then you started to kick them out of Iraq, so they went off to Pakistan - where the whole Taliban/AQ thing started anyway."

  • So all those gains of the last 7 years are being nullified, and we can all sit around in a circle clutching our pink blankies and sucking our thumbs because whatever fantasy the US Government entertains about American power we don't think the Government has the guts to take on the extremists in the NWFP against the opposition of the Pakistani people and government.  And were you to succeed, they'll simply migrate to Baluchistan. When you know them out in Baluchistan, they'll move to Sind, Kashmir, and Pakistan Punjab.

  • As long as Americans entertain the fantasy that "limited" wars can be won without pain, and that GWOT can be fought as a limited war without pain imposed on the American people, then all we can say is: "You guys are smoking the good stuff; no fair, because it aint legal for the rest of us to smoke it."

  • And as long as the Americans think wars can be won by machines and there is no need to risk flesh-and-blood men/women, the enemy is going to keep winning.

  • Not that our readers need more bad news but remember Somalia? A Grand Victory 'twas when the US backed Ethiopia to smash the Islamic Courts. and the Grand Victory was followed up with what? A return to the pink blankies and thumb sucking. America did not have the will or the troops to send to Somalia to keep it pacified.

  • Every report about Somalia reader Marcopetroni sends us has the same boring theme: the Islamic Courts are staging a comeback. And it doesn't look like the Ethiopians are willing to oblige America again by sending another 20,000 troops to Somalia. The Ethiopians have hung tough, they have fought back every attempt by the Islamic Courts to push them out, but the Ethiopian troops in the country number 15-25,000 and that is not anywhere near enough to hold Somalia.

   

  0230 GMT May 22, 2008

   

  • The Dance Of The Unblessed Spirits: Sadr City We advise two aspirin before attempting to read this because for sure you're going to get a headache.

  • United States is backing Iraq Army to take Sadr City, but with crossed fingers because the Americans have benefited hugely from al-Sadr's ceasefire, without which the success of the Surge would have been problematical. US doesn't want to provoke Sadr, even as it hunts for important Mahadi Army leaders. Basically, US wants to cut off Sadr at the knees but in a way he doesn't notice he has no legs left. As part of this strategy US has been consistently saying it is gunning only for rogue elements of Mahadi Army, enabling Sadr to keep face. We'd mentioned earlier there are no rogue elements of the Mahadi army. Much to our surprise, American officers finally admitted this to the Washington Post (May 21, 2008 newspaper). The official posture, however, continues to be action against "rogue elements". US understands perfectly that big battles and soaring American casualties just as the elections are comings is not in its interest.

  • Iraq Government Mr. Al-Malaki is desperate to weaken Sadr as the latter is the greatest threat to his government, and it wants this job done before the October elections. He also needs to prove to the Americans he can actually govern: President Bush, with his unlimited patience for incompetent foreign leaders (think Mr. Musharraf of Pakistan) is on this way out, and the new president will not be so patient.

  •  But even though Al-Malaki is using mainly SICRI and some Kurd troops - the army is structured that way, the paramilitary/police are heavily Mahadi Army - not even he thinks the government can defeat the Sadrites in their lair, and he is doing his best to avoid a show-down.

  • So Al-Malaki is pushing into Sadr City on the pretext he wants only to restore order and weed out criminal elements and that he wants to provide basic services to the people. Part of the reason Sadr et al are against him is precisely because he has never done anything for Sadr City.

  • Al-Sadr shouldn't take this personally, because Al-Malaki hasn't done anything for anyone, Kurds, Shias, Sunnis, whatever, except those that are part of his Loot-And-Rape-Iraq Squad. But, to move on:

  • Mahadi Army is watching this penetration with a jaundiced eye. On the one hand, its instinct is to fight the enemy. On the other, Mahadi Army knows the ordinary people are fed up because they have neither peace nor services. Mahadi Army has done its best for its people, but there is little it can do for stuff like power, roads, water. Mahadi army doesn't want to be blamed by the locals for their woes; nor does Al-Sadr want to give Al-Malaki an excuse to remove him from the political process, particularly with elections coming up. And Mahadi Army does not want to get into another super Bang-Up with the Americans.

  • So, The Baghdad Shuffle: Americans are bluffing, Al-Malaki is bluffing, Al-Sadr is bluffing. All three parties are 100% determined to get their way without openly warring with each other because the chances of things going very wrong is too high All three parties are also determined not to take the blame if something goes wrong. And the BS is so finely balanced that none of the three sides has much maneuver room if the thing blows up. Sure, any of the three or any combination of the three can always pull back to "talk", but our assessment is this a very high stakes game, and if anyone has to "talk", they're going to lose much face. That in turn can seriously weaken the side that wants to "talk" instead of fight.

   

  0230 GMT May 21, 2008

   

  We have to do a short update at this time. Check Reuters for developments concerning the Iraqi move into Sadr City. Its wrong to call it an offensive as some media has been saying; and so far its going moderately well.

  • Coals To Newcastle - Or Is That To Emiratescastle? Something is definitely wrong with this picture: the UAE is planning to import coal, probably from South Africa says Times London. The modern world is so messed up nothing should surprise anyone; nonetheless, we confess we lift an eyebrow by 1-millimeter.

  • The reason is actually quite simple. Power demand in the Emirates is growing by 15% annually - doubling every 5 years; demand for natural gas is doubling every six years. There is a shortage of natural gas for new power plants under construction because the NG infrastructure is underinvested. Plus, you need gas to inject into oil well to get the black gold out. UAE last year cut oil output by 600,000-bbl/day to meet the peak summer demand for power. So UAE was losing $50-million/day. Enough is enough, UAE decided, so it is planning two coal plants for peaking power. N-power stations are on the way, but they take years to operationalize. Meanwhile, Emirates are importing natural gas from Qatar to meet shortages.

  • We don't know if anyone is in a mood to listen to us, but the development above is an exceeding bad augury. It is the same thing as the US having to import wheat. If the US did that, you'd have no trouble accepting something has gone terribly wrong somewhere. You wouldn't be much interested in explanations, either. Well, its the same story for UAE and gas.

  • Letter From Walter E. Wallis On The French And Nightmares Tell your annoyed French lady reader that I was liaison radio operator with the BFONU at the battle of Chipyong-ni, February 1951, and their English was far superior to my French. Their cooking was pretty good, too. They served a chien ragout, whatever that was, that beat C rations all hollow.
    
     

   

  • Afghanistan: IHT Reports Mixed Picture A balanced article from the International Herald Tribune on the Afghan situation - the first we've seen that provides a reasonable picture of the entire country.

  • North and Center Afghan officials say these areas are peaceful.

  • West No mention, but we are told the picture is mixed: the government is weak in the face of renegade warlord types and the Taliban are establishing outposts.

  • East Very slowly coming under control, more districts are stable, but insurgents are spreading in others.

  • South The Badlands and the situation is precarious in the extreme. NATO clears villages one month, the Taliban are back the next. Civilians are caught in the middle and are suffering. Paradoxically, NATO success when it is on the offensive is making things worse: the Taliban commanders being killed are replaced with younger radicals with few or no ties to the local communities, and they are taking it out on the locals.

  • Some Overall Points NATO is succeeding - slowly - but the Euro people want their troops back. Seven years later of lifting their little finger once every three months has exhausted them. Taliban commanders and even Public Enemy Number One, warlord Gulabdin, are opening contacts with the government to say they'd like to ceasefire - they too are exhausted. Criminality and drug-related violence is spreading. Afghan Army is doing well where deployed (this is us saying it, not IHT). Police are absolutely corrupt and are specifically targeted by the Taliban because they are in isolated outposts with little firepower.

  • Our Assessment Not quite the 100-year war, but certainly a 25-year war. Americans will hold the course. Euros have given up. Pakistan's frontier is in terrible shape, with the civilian government already pulling troops out and getting angry with the US. Will take two more years before situation fully develops; our guess is that the Taliban will stage a major counteroffensive in 2010 or 2011.

  • The IHT Photograph It seems nowadays we get very few visuals from Iraq or Afghanistan of American troops in action. We like this photo of two Marines from 24 MEU because you can see the men are throwing everything, morally, spiritually, and physically into the fight. They absolutely believe in what they're doing, no angst here.

  • That one Marine is engaging with his rifle indicates the Taliban are a lot closer than one might think.

  • Now, of course someone - probably British - is going to say, "Look, these are boys fresh to the fight. Lets see what they look like five months into this never-ending action. A valid point. But these are Marines. In five months they will look exhausted, but just as enthusiastic.

  • BTW, if you go over the old fotos from Vietnam, you will see every American - draftee, volunteer, soldier, Marine - acting as if he is fighting for his life. In that war, the press could where it wanted: if you wanted to be right at the front with the troops, if the unit commander agreed that's where you went. That accounts for much of the immediacy of the Vietnam foto. The other thing is that those boys were fighting for their lives pretty much all the time. The enemy was not a bunch of jeans-clad, sandal-shod amateurs who fight for a few hours and then relax for days or weeks. The enemy was the Viet Cong and the NVA, probably the best infantry the world has seen in the 20th Century with the exception of the Germans. Against the VC/NVA you either fought for your life, or you died.

  • We get quite annoyed at times with all the weeping and wailing about Iraq casualties and stories about how a battalion in Baghdad lost twenty soldiers on its last deployment or whatever. In Vietnam if a rifle company got into a real mix-up with the enemy, the combat was very close range or hand-to-hand much of the time, and that company would consider itself lucky to come out with only 20 dead. We love our boys serving in Afghanistan/Iraq, but they're not in Vietnam. [We exclude World War I and II, because there the stakes were so high we're talking national survival. We're talking only expeditionary warfare here.]

  • Annoyed Letter From A French Lady Reader No Frenchman would ever speak English, not even in people's nightmares.

   

  0230 GMT May 19, 2008

   

  • A Paradigm Shift In Land Warfare We are excited that the US's Army infantry exo-skeleton has moved to a higher level of development. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/05/15/robotic.soldier.ap/index.html

  • The exo-skeleton weighs just 150-lbs and magnifies a soldier's ability to lift weights 20-fold - and to continue lifting them. The company developing the exo-skeleton has managed to substantially reduce reaction time - the gap between the human's movement and the machine's reacting.

  • Of course, this project is a long way before operationalising exo-skeletons. Cost, endurance, operation/maintenance under combat conditions and so on remain to be substantially improved. Though this unit has only 30-minutes battery life, it can be recharged using a small generator built into the suit.

  • Soon you are going to have a superhuman infantryman who will be able to travel long distances at high speeds over any terrain, provide the human with superb armored protection, carry any number of sensors and links to other units of any sort, and - very important - to carry large payloads.

  • We've never favored the pure robot that many advocate. There is nothing cheaper and more effective than a infantryman's human brain. The problem always has been his endurance and his vulnerability on an increasingly lethal battlefield.

  • By the way, the new infantryman will not resemble a Star Wars stormtrooper. That lot has good armor protection but nothing else. And of course, despite his armor protection, the good guys have no problem felling stormtroopers left and right without any protection for themselves.

  • Iraq Mosul Offensive Going Well...  Iraq says it is progressing on its Mosul offensive which is being overseen by Prime Minister Al-Malaki in person. He did fly back to meet Mrs. Nancy Peolsi, the House Speaker, who made an unannounced visit. Iraq says it has detained 1000 suspects and released 75 after questioning. It has given a 10-day ultimatum for laying down weapons, for which insurgents will be rewarded.

  • ...But AQI Says It Evacuated In Advance AQI had plenty of warning, it says, due to the loud announcements of the impending offensive by Baghdad. Only six of its men were killed from stay-behind forces. The detainees had nothing to do with AQI. it says.

  • Our suspicion is that despite worries that AQ is relocating to Fallujah AQI gets weaker each time it is forced out of a stronghold. There have been a few bombings in Fallujah, previously quiet. But at present we believe that constitutes no serious threat. Only time will tell if we are right, of course; it's early days.

  • A Nightmare Your editor has to stop worrying about America's decline. It's making him nuts. Last night he got into a nightmare where he accidentally fell into a parallel earth where the French were the hyperpower, to the extent the exchange rate was 1 Franc = USD 500. That's about 2500 times the exchange rate on this earth, so the US ranked considerably lower than - say - Chad. A single croissant and a coffee at a Paris corner cafe would cost $25,000 for an American visitor. Assuming the French let the riff-raff into their country.

  • No World War II had taken place, and no nuclear weapons had been developed, which one supposes is a good thing. But the really upsetting  part was that your Editor, being a curiosity, was invited to give several lectures, and at each lecture he became an object of not-so-polite fun when he explained in his earth the Americans were the hyperpower. "That's impossible" and all that.

  • Oddly the French all spoke English as their first language. The Editor spent a lot of time trying to escape by leaping off mountains and flapping his arms on the theory he could fly off back to his earth, but each time the French officials assigned to accompany him would pull him back and explain that flying off to America was not allowed for his own well being. He then appealed to the American Ambassador, who occupied a two-room apartment in a Paris immigrant slum. The Ambassador said: "You've got to be kidding. Why would we ever want you back on our earth? We're better off with you making trouble for the French, and serve them right; we wish them the joy of you.

  • Okay, so the Ambassador's response has nothing to do with the Editor's worries about America's decline, but readers will still get the point. Time to retreat to a Happy Place and put on a Happy Face. Seems to work for the nation's elite.

   

   

  0230 GMT May 18, 2008

   

  • More Unpleasant Oil Facts Question: Who makes $1-billion+ every day in oil revenue? Answer: Saudi. Since its oil is the cheapest of all to produce, even though it produces high sulfur grades which are priced lower than the benchmark West Texas Intermediate Crude, it's likely that 90% of the oil revenue is profit. Per capita GDP due to oil alone is ~$13,000. Where are the surplus funds going? We'd like to know, but we don't.

  • Question: How much oil does the world produce and consume? Answer: The estimate used is 84-million bbl/day - slated to increase by 40% by 2030. Actually, the estimate has several big question marks after it. For example, no one really knows OPECs output and no one really knows China's consumption. No one really knows world oil reserves and no one really knows how much oil the US may or may not have. No compulsion exists requiring everyone be truthful about how much oil they own, produce, and consume.

  • Question: You said yesterday the Saudis refused to up oil output when asked by Mr. Bush. But news media says Saudi announced a 70,000-bbl/day increase. Answer: True. Two ways to look at that.

  • One: It's less than one-tenth of one percent of global demand. Oil prices actually went up after US said it had halted buying 70,000-bbl/day for the SPR and the Saudis announced their hike. That's because these tiny sums make no difference to the market.

  • Two: the Saudis went out of their way to say the increase was not on Mr. Bush's account. Their long-term customers such as India and China have the right to ask for output increases to meet particular situations. Saudi obliges; after some weeks or months the client's need is met, and they drop output. Remember, it's not as if a shortage of oil exists. You can buy as much as you want - provided you pay market price. Shortage implies that people want to buy but the oil is not there.

  • Question: Which major oil producer is set to steadily increase output?  Answer: It isn't Iraq, its the US. It's the world's third largest producer, but till recently output has steadily fallen each year - a 3% annual decline has been mentioned to us. This is because for years American oil has been gravely under-investing back home. Now because of the runup in prices, and because of instability overseas, and because of greedy oil-owners demanding more and more of the cut, and many other factors, the oil majors are stepping up US output. In 2008 domestic oil output will go up 4% and is likely to continue increasing. The new extraction technologies have a lot to do with this.

  • Question: You've mention new sources of American oil such as the Bakken field which can substantial reduce reliance on OPEC. When are these new sources going to become available? Answer: 10 years is required to bring major new fields into play. That's after the go-ahead is given. But keep in mind that (a) it will take years to build back exploration capability which was cut back when oil prices crashed in the 1990s/early 2000s; and (b) the new oil costs $40-$80/bbl to extract. If oil falls back to $80/bbl - as it could - anyone investing in opening new fields is headed to Bankruptcy Court unless they up production very cautiously. Also, the US lacks the political will to say: "National security imperatives now override environmental concerns and after - say - 12 months of hearings a project will be given permission to proceed unless the environmentalists prove the damage overrides national security interests." In other words, shift the burden of proof to those opposing drilling. And the US lacks the political will to say: "We guarantee a floor price of $80 - whatever - for the next 30 years because of national security."

  • Of course, if you want to take this argument one step further, you can say US lacks the political will to give the go ahead to N-power on a scale that will make the need to find more oil irrelevant. Democracy is undoubtedly the best system of government - except in in crisis, and the longer the crisis, the worse equipped is democracy to find solutions.

  • The sad truth of the matter is that the free market is not always the best way to allocate scarce resources. For example, left to itself, why should a corporation worry more about the environment than about its quarterly bottom line? And the sad truth is that American oil producers hugely benefit from the crazy oil prices as much as any Camel republic. And even more sad is that likely you - yes, we mean you - is benefiting from high oil prices if you own an IRA or a mutual fund: these two instruments are among the biggest owners of oil/energy stocks.

  • We are intrigued the Saudis so emphasized they were not doing anything for Mr. Bush, considering he and the House of Saud are BFFs. To us this suggests they know the balance of power between them and the US is shifting against America. Gone are the days when oil cost $1-$3/bbl and each night the House of Saud went to bed without assurance they would still rule next morning, and they bought security by kissing Uncle's Big Butt. Now they call the tune, and there are plenty of people willing to take over the US's security role just in case the Saudis need to put the Americans in their place. Who are these people? Well, right now PRC is ready, willing, able.

  • Yes, PRC doesn't have the ability to project two divisions, two fighter wings and two carrier groups into the Gulf. But it doesn't need to because the Americans have been playing their Saudi cards carefully. For example, after 9/11 the US needed to invade Saudi rather than Afghanistan. But US has successfully taken Saudi's role in supporting global terror out of sight. True, there are a few grumbles from time to time, for example, people upset with how the Saudis treat their women, and these people put pressure on their Congresspersons to pressure Saudi. The Congresspersons temporize and use smoke/mirrors to get their constituents off their back: Congress knows better than anyone else that a large part of their lunch is due to Saudi Arabia one way or the other. No one's going to bite the hand that feeds them etc.

  • Still, if the Saudis are willing to disrespect their Best Friend, something is going on and the Saudis are letting America know it is not kowtowing low enough. We have no clue what is that something.

   

  0230 GMT May 17, 2008

   

  • President Bush's Pilgrimage To Saudi As A Supplicant We are utterly amazed that a man as patriotic and sure of himself as President Bush actually asked the Saudis to raise oil output to help America. How humiliating that the Saudis gave the expected response, a polite variant of "go date a donkey and (Censored)."

  • Surely the President knew this would be the response? Why did he even publicly say in advance he was going to discuss this?

  • The gracious Saudi response is something to be heard to be believed. We heard on NPR some Saudi say - not a direct quote - "they know our policies" which presumably means, as the Saudis keep saying, that there is no shortage of oil on the market so why should they produce more. Hmmmm. So a price rise from a median of $25 in 2000 to $125 heading to $140 indicates there is no shortage?

  • Well, that sounds absurd, and one definitely wants to tell the Saudis to date donkeys, but look at it this way:

  • (a) Why should Saudis destroy oil pricing by pumping more. This turns business practice on its head: you sell at the maximum price consistent with consumers not going for alternatives. The Saudis seem to have realized (clever them, that's what happens when you allow the natives a Harvard education, they no longer show you respect) that the west is at least ten years away from the point where alternatives would cause demand to start falling.

  • (b) Saudis bank on rising demand from China/India to offset any reduction of demand in the west. The alternatives are so expensive in terms of capital cost that China/India cannot afford them for 20 years, so the Saudis are safe for two decades before they have to start worrying. And given how the American political process works, it may well be 30 years before they have to worry about alternates eating their lunch.

  • (c) Saudis say "it's not out fault that your speculators are bidding up oil futures," and that is 100% true. It's not just speculators, it is the US investment funds with trillions of dollars to invest looking to replace the now fairy-tale returns they got from derivatives. When will they ever learn and all that.

  • (d) Privately the Saudis say "It isn't our darn fault that you messed up in Iraq so badly, and what's happening in Nigeria is not our fault, and mismanagement of the Venezuela and Mexico fields is not our fault, and your environmentalists who wont let you drill for your own oil are not out fault." That too is 100% true.

  • (e) The Saudis don't say this loudly, but there is substantial support for the thesis that "while we Saudis are happy you are containing Iran, no one told you to be so belligerent about it that a combination of Iraq/Iran creates a $20-$30 fear premium." (They weep crocodile tears in their lemonades when they say this.)

  • Yes, its aggravating when the Saudis act like so many drug exporting nations who say "Why are you bothering us, if your people didn't want drugs, no one in our country would produce them". In the Saudi case the drug is oil, and America has failed to wean itself off foreign oil 30+ years after stating that was national security priority.

  • So really, who is to blame, the Saudis (may they all be forced to again live in tents and eat sand-covered dates) or ourselves?

  • Sadr City Quiet, But In Wait-Watch Mode Agencies say with the latest ceasefire, Mahadi Army militia have vanished from the street but everyone is wary about the prospects of a real peace. Some aid has reached the residents of this impoverished Baghdad district.

  • Meanwhile, Senator McCain Issues Surprising Forecast saying the Iraq War will be won by 2013 and the US will have most of its troops home. AQ in Iraq will be defeated and Osama Bin Laden will be captured or dead.

  • Supporters and critics alike of Senator McCain are scratching their heads at why he felt compelled to put dates on situations that are absolutely not under US control.

  • Senator Obama And Hamas A story that so far has failed to get traction concerns a Hamas spokesperson saying that an Obama presidency would be good for the people of Palestine because the senator has the vision and courage to forge new paths, like John Kennedy a half century ago.

  • A colleague mentioned that CNN had two days ago carried the story. We had not heard about it, despite our constant checking of the news, and we were baffled when we learned the Hamas statement had been made as long ago as April 19, 2008. We'd have expected this statement would have raised a Grade A hue and cry, with anti-Obamists baying for his blood.

  • Instead, nothing much seems to have happened. Could it be that any attempt to say "Barack Hussein Obama gets Hamas endorsement" is thought by most to be so ridiculous that aside from the fringe, no one is buying this line? In fact, Senator Obama has even said he understand why Hamas would say such a thing, and he has no problem with it providing Hamas/Arabs understand his unflinching commitment to Israel.

  • When you add this to the failed attempt to get a controversy going because Mr. Obama refuses to wear the American flag on his coat lapel - on the grounds that (to paraphrase a famous saying) Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel - we wonder if America is finally growing up and learning to see intermediate shades between black and white.

  • Now, one thing did hurt the good Senator. That was his wife saying that she was proud of America for the first time because an African American could make it so far in a race for the presidency. That was a very dumb thing to say, considering the good lady graduated from Princeton and then from Harvard Law school, and is a millionaire - not exactly ghetto, if you get our drift.

  • While you can be sure this will be replayed endlessly when/if the fight becomes McCain vs Obama, and while people were for sure offended by her, there seems to be overall a sense of "well, she's the wife and she's being stupid, but she's not the one running, so it doesn't matter." We suspect that people are keeping in mind that another would be presidential spouse, Mr. Bill Clinton, has also made extraordinarily stupid statements while campaigning for his wife, and instead of people attacking her, the general response was a roll of the eyes and a "what that poor woman has to put up with."

  • But: believe us: even just 8 or so years back such statements would definitely have stuck to a candidate.

  • Parenthetically we note that Mad Dog Bill has been muzzled securely by his wife. We hear a few frustrated growls but as he cant get his jaws open, there is no more of the foot-in-mouth disease that likely cost Mrs. Clinton a substantial number of votes.