And don't forget the Iraqi dead. I understand that between the first Gulf war and this on that over 1 million have died, many of them civilians.

We are appaled by the 150,000+ dead in the Asian tsunami, but we ignore the Bush father and son tsunami crashing on Iraq. Good thing we whites, blacks etc. here in the USA are all racist so we don't care about the deaths of those of whatever race those Iraqi's are.

I am not sure if any of you have come across this before, forgive me if this is old news. It is an extremely interesting article written in 1999 by Army officers and published on a government website.

Here is the link: http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/JulAug99/MS406.htm

And here are a few highlights for those of you too lazy to read the whole article:
"But the problem remains: regardless of price, oil supplies are finite and running out quickly."

"Many conservative estimates indicate that conventional oil supplies will not be able to keep up with production demands through the next decade, and certainly not past the year 2020." (bold not in original)

"This suggests that crude oil may remain abundant and inexpensive for the next 43 years. This report, however, rests on three poor assumptions. First, it relies on a distorted estimate of the remaining oil; second, it assumes that oil production will remain constant; and third, it presumes that the last barrel drawn from a well is as easy and cheap to extract as the first."

"The first poor assumption made by the oil industry is their estimate of the reserves and the oil left to be discovered. Calculating the amount of oil left in an oil well is not an exact science; it is a bit of a statistical guessing game. Since it is possible in these guessing games to "work the numbers" in different ways, it is in the oil companies' best interests to work them so that oil reserves come out looking abundant. Thus, they predict 43 years of cheap supply."

"One can also see from this graph that the world's production of oil may crest around 2004, and that by the Army After Next time-frame of 2025, it definitely will be on the decline."

"So, although the world will not be out of oil by the year 2020, production will most likely be on the decline, and prices will be rising steadily."

"AAN planners propose a distribution method called the Remote Energy Replenishment System. This system is based on a "Star Wars" concept in which energy is beamed from a satellite and converted to fuel at a ground replenishment station (gas station)."

"The Hubbert curve for world oil production indicates that world oil production will begin to decline around 2005."

"Given projections of declining oil reserves coinciding with implementation of AAN technologies, it is short-sighted strategic policy to continue our reliance on fossil fuels. Even if these predictions are 5 or 10 years premature, we still face the prospect of having vehicles that depend on a diminishing fuel source. This policy would leave the United States vulnerable to countries that control petroleum production. This also forces the United States to make protection of petroleum resources a national security issue. Few would argue that protection of this resource was the strategic objective of Operation Desert Storm."

This article touts hydrogen as the do-all miracle fuel...I thought hydrogen was an unsuitable alternative to oil. Why would the government think differently?

HEY! I resemble that remark! thanks for the run down.

According to John Ross at counterpunch.org, there are 37,000 non-US- citizen soldiers in the US military. I'm having trouble locating info that will make it clear whether we are getting soldiers from South of the Border or not. Rumor has it that the buzz on the street in Mexico is 'todos tienen papeles.' 'They all have papers.'

By the way (this is completely off-topic but hey, this is the open forum) speaking of South of the Border, consider this old song:

South of the Border
Down Mexico Way
Thats where I fell in love
While stars above
Came out to play

For it was fiesta
And We were so GAY
South of the Border
Down Mexico way

Now I'm not a homophobe, but I do wish they hadn't stolen that lovely English word from the language.

Here is the graph for injured. December number looks low because it was only up to the 9th or 10th of the month.

I also posed that same graph on another forum, might be interesting to see how others respond:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showth ... d=17346529

opps! Too late.

I hope so. Maybe soon it will go home and stop dropping bombs on people.

Kind regards,

Spot5050 (in the UK)

I've seen quite a few articles, many of them headlines, in the past 3 weeks that seem to hint at some sort of announcement on or around January 30th when the first Iraqi elections will take place. I’m thinking these planted articles are test balloons to gauge public opinion before the elections take place. If there are visible problems in Iraq on January 30th, I think the administration will announce its intention of withdrawing large numbers of troops in timely manner (1-2 years I assume) soon afterwords.

We will see of course, but that’s my prediction.

I find it fascinating to speculate on the outcome of the upcoming Iraq election. It appears that all the manipulations possible by the U.S. and Iraqi expats (apparently mostly Shiites) may not be able to get the U.S. temporary puppet legally Allawi elected as Iraq's next leader. Cancelling the elections may be the only way Bush & Co. can keep a U.S.-friendly government (Allawi) in power. Then what would they do? How will Condi Rice, the new U.S. Secretary of State, deal with the situation. Will she stand up to Rumsfield and Cheney, or will they roll over her like they did Colin Powell?

If a Shiite leader other than Allawi is elected - as is likely, and the new, "legally elected" government insists that the U.S. leave (and vacate all military bases), will Bush & company stand by their word? Or will they find an excuse for yet another regime change in Iraq?

Word is leaking out the the U.S. already has operatives in Iran, and believes that "internal" regime change, i.e., throwing out the mullahs, can be accomplished by a few surgical air and ground strikes THIS SUMMER to take out nuclear and military targets!! Since Iraq is the only nation run by Shiites and likely to be religiously aligned with Iraq (even though the Iranians are Persians, and not Arabs) , how will the U.S. deal with two Shiite nations?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Dave

From Juan Cole's blog (Dec. 31, 2004)

Will the US occupation forces take orders from the democratically elected government of Iraq?

I’d say "orders" are risky at best. Iraq will become a proxy state, there is no doubt about that. The US economy is dependant on this maneuver. Venezuela and Nigeria are becoming less secure sources of cheap energy. I don't know how, but US multinationals will serve as "advisors" to the Iraqi government for a long time. When it comes to Iraq’s wealth, I guess it all depends how well those MNC’s disguise their resource extractions and redistributions on world markets. The legitimate press is watching, and will tell the story. If the standard of living doesn’t evolve at an acceptable pace in Iraq, I’d say ruff waters are ahead for the US government as well as US MNC’s within the region. I'm not an expert on Middle Eastern cultures, but I do know people there will not bend over for elite US interests if they feel they are being taken advantage of.

If the US government continues to provide the obvious appearance of an occupier to the Iraqi people, the same people that the Bush administration continues to claim to this day are "free," I see only further degeneration of the state. Talk is cheap Mr. Bush, lets see some action... Then there is the “terrorâ€

My guess is that US troops will have to stay there for a long time. You have lots of interesting factors all playing a part.

The US troops cant pull out and leave the situation in the hands of the Iraqi National Guard because then the situation worsens.

They can't pour more troops in there without implementing a draft.

They've made matters worse for themselves by flattening Fallujah.

The insurgency is getting more organised and more members.

The oil pipelines are constantly under attack.

The amount of wounded and killed soldiers is badly affecting the morale of troops who are there.

The Army is not meeting it's targets for new recruits.

The "Coalition of the Willing" is falling apart as Ukrainian troops pull out and the Polish are due to leave soon too.

To say this is interesting is an understatement.

This is just the situation that Osama (in his wildest dreams) was hoping to create. The next stage is to provoke the US into invasion of Iran and Syria and to get the US more directly involved in propping up the unpopular regimes in Saudi, Kuwait, Jordan and the Gulf states.