[Humungus]

On the lighter side and falling into the “What the hell were you thinking” category:

Angry Shi'ites Storm Schlumberger Camp at Iraq's Rumaila Oilfield

Some footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJRSXGbFYU

One of the security got beaten pretty badly. With the uprising going on in Iraq right now I wonder how long before they start attacking the oil fields and pipelines?

[Subjectivist]

I think the current rioting in Iraq makes the chances they will meet their export goals for 2014 doubtful. Way back in 1982ish National Geographic magazine published an extra issue dedicated to energy, especially fossil fuels. I kept my copy for about 20 years and read it front to back several times before it was lost in an apartment flood. The beginning of the issue was a scenario about a page long about a Iranian style revolution erupting in Saudi Arabia and causing world oil prices to quadruple when the revolutionaries blew up pipelines and refineries.

That hasn't happened, but then again the rumors and promises that Iraq would be selling 6,000,000 barrels of oil a day by now.

[ROCKMAN]

Sub - I make a point of not trying to predict the unpredictable. But given the ME upheavals over the last 40 years it's difficult to not imagine even worse events in the next few decades given the PO path we're on. As the title of the movie title predicted: "There will be blood".

[Subjectivist]

Sounds like

Past performance does not garuntee future returns

Obi-Rockman Kenobi!

The more I look around the more warning signs I see warning of danger ahead. Don't worry too much about making specific predictions our general outlines of the situation we find ourselves in are more than scary enough.

[SeaGypsy]

Did anyone here read the news that Fallujah fell to Sunni Jihadis yesterday?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo ... 6795159174

How many US & Allied soldiers died and made disabled for life in the battles for Fallujah? Baghdad won't be long. What a fucking waste of lives time and money.

[Keith_McClary]

current rioting in Iraq

That's a bit of an understatement:

But ISIL went far beyond its usual bombings and hit-and-run attacks when it seized parts of the Anbar province cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, west of Baghdad, which it has held for days.
A senior security official said Saturday that Fallujah was completely under ISIL control, with witnesses reporting ISIL militants in both cities, including fighters patrolling them in vehicles.
On Friday, hundreds of gunmen, some bearing the black flags often flown by jihadists, gathered at outdoor weekly Muslim prayers in Fallujah, where one militant announced that "Fallujah is an Islamic state."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... c11ca6d272

[dissident]

Did anyone here read the news that Fallujah fell to Sunni Jihadis yesterday?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo ... 6795159174

How many US & Allied soldiers died and made disabled for life in the battles for Fallujah? Baghdad won't be long. What a fucking waste of lives time and money.

But Bush W. sure did bitch about the costs (running into the hundreds of billions of dollars according to him) of doing something about climate change. Spending trillions of dollars to grab some mythical oil prize is truly the only rational approach for a world leading superpower.

Not to nitpick, but I think that before Baghdad falls to Al Qaeda affiliates the Shi'ites will split from the Sunni controlled part. Fallujah is in the Sunni part of Iraq. I guess the Salafi jihadis are pissed off America did not prop them up in Syria and the quiet truce is over.

[rockdoc123]

But Bush W. sure did bitch about the costs (running into the hundreds of billions of dollars according to him) of doing something about climate change. Spending trillions of dollars to grab some mythical oil prize is truly the only rational approach for a world leading superpower.

Not to nitpick, but I think that before Baghdad falls to Al Qaeda affiliates the Shi'ites will split from the Sunni controlled part. Fallujah is in the Sunni part of Iraq. I guess the Salafi jihadis are pissed off America did not prop them up in Syria and the quiet truce is over.

do as I say, not as I do:

t's a political debate after all. You are not to be taken seriously if you ignore facts in science. In politics you can believe whatever you want and cherry pick the facts that suit your belief system.

I don't do political debates. Wake me up when there is some actual science.

Not to "nitpick" but I thought you didn't do politics?

[Keith_McClary]

Not to "nitpick" but I thought you didn't do politics?

I think he was referring to silly political conspiracy theories, such as people supposedly getting PhDs in climate science so they could get rich on government research grants.

[SeaGypsy]

Did anyone here read the news that Fallujah fell to Sunni Jihadis yesterday?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wo ... 6795159174

How many US & Allied soldiers died and made disabled for life in the battles for Fallujah? Baghdad won't be long. What a fucking waste of lives time and money.

But Bush W. sure did bitch about the costs (running into the hundreds of billions of dollars according to him) of doing something about climate change. Spending trillions of dollars to grab some mythical oil prize is truly the only rational approach for a world leading superpower.

An excellent point barely noticed despite it's glaring obviousness.

Not to nitpick, but I think that before Baghdad falls to Al Qaeda affiliates the Shi'ites will split from the Sunni controlled part. Fallujah is in the Sunni part of Iraq. I guess the Salafi jihadis are pissed off America did not prop them up in Syria and the quiet truce is over.

My outrageous prediction for the year about a week back was the west backs out and lets the Sunni Shia lunacy do it's inevitable thing. If it comes to pass- the genocide will be on a scale unseen since WW2. The partition of India comes to mind. Except this time there are maniacs on both sides sitting on the world's largest reserves of it's most vital commodity.

[ROCKMAN]

Gypsy – Just this morning I listened to the opinions of a member of an international think tank. He’s amazed to the degree to which the MSM (perhaps supporting the various western govt’s) is ignoring exactly the point you bring up. He wouldn’t offer his sources but that AQ and its affiliates are almost giddy over what they see as a level of capitulation by opposing forces. In particular the complications brought about by intercountry politics as well as intracountry instability. In particular he strongly disputed the US claim that AQ has been nullified. In his view AQ simply waited until the day came when they could focus their efforts on the softest targets first. And today is the beginning of the AQ “surge” in his opinion.

You and he seem to be on the same page.

[RobertInget]

Everytime I write about the Mideast that situation deteriorates .
Israel and KSA have all but declared war on Iran for daring to possibly aspire to nuclear weapons when neither will cop to their own arsenals.
Call it Premature Disarmament.

Instead of Mideast, I'll comment on other oil wars.
One in Southern
Sudan is in full swing. This began internally with a President and Vice President arguing about how to divvy up oil revenues. While press makes more of all the casualties than motive, calling S.Sudan situation a palace coup. To complicate matters the UN is sending 5,000 troops
to see that nothing bad happens to oil.

The second (secret it seems) POTENTIAL oil war between China and Vietnam and Japan and the Philippines has all sides primping for
war over what most people 20 years ago considered worthless rocks.
Needless to say: What possibly could go wrong with ancient adversaries
fighting over ownership of underwater oil and gas?

In Northern Iraq the Kurds have thrown in with Turkey. Good move too.
Needless to say Southern Iraq is not crazy about losing oil revenue but are currently too busy killing one another to go after Kurdish PKK.

If Nigeria gets electrification in this decade it, like Turkey and Indonesia, Nigeria will be the next big growth stimulators. If not,
poverty motivated fighters will close down oil exports cause poor see nothing coming their way.

[SeaGypsy]

Gypsy – Just this morning I listened to the opinions of a member of an international think tank. He’s amazed to the degree to which the MSM (perhaps supporting the various western govt’s) is ignoring exactly the point you bring up. He wouldn’t offer his sources but that AQ and its affiliates are almost giddy over what they see as a level of capitulation by opposing forces. In particular the complications brought about by intercountry politics as well as intracountry instability. In particular he strongly disputed the US claim that AQ has been nullified. In his view AQ simply waited until the day came when they could focus their efforts on the softest targets first. And today is the beginning of the AQ “surge” in his opinion.

You and he seem to be on the same page.

Interesting. Got a link to a podcast? I haven't come across anyone saying what I am saying directly- so would have to agree on MSM ignoring it. I visit a lot of fringe sites- especially those monitoring jihad. Most of these are run by Americans in America- so the theme trends to be more about wing nut muslims being a threat to the west- the attitude to what they do in their own countries is along the lines of 'well what else should we expect'- not a lot of compassion pr caring for the victims.

There is very little awareness of oil dynamics in the anti Islamic Jihad lobby- they are almost never mentioned. There is very little awareness of Islamic Jihad in the oil dynamic and economic/ geopolitical lobby- it is almost never mentioned. Our area of focus here tends to be dominated by left of center folks who are used to writing off anti Islamic positions as being 'Islamophobia' or something along those lines. The further right one observes, the more likely to come across abiotic oil theorists, tech conspiracy nuts etc- who hate Islam but don't spend any thought on peak oil- which they see as a contrived manipulation rather than a concrete fact.

My position benefits by not being at all beholden to left/ right dichotomies, but weighing areas of concern for myself. Islam is becoming a problem in Europe and may become one in the good ole' USA (beyond 9/11). It already is a problem for US Constitutionalists . But compared to the odd suicide bomber, psycho cut ups and car burnings going on in the west- the places where the Sunni and Shia are neighbors are infinitely more tense and dangerous.

A quiet (almost silent in the MSM) exodus is going on- that of Christian diaspora leaving Muslim lands. The Christians in the middle of the Sunni- Shia conflict are already seeing what is going on and are getting out as quick as they can by any means possible.

This time- the S is really about to H the F.

[SeaGypsy]

Aussie MSM article today on ISIL:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-07/i ... 29/5186134

...Drug smuggling, arms trafficking and oil fields keep money flowing

Despite AQI presenting itself as a paragon of strict Islamic virtue, the bulk of ISIS's financing, experts say, comes from illegal black market activities in Iraq, including robbery, arms trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, and even drug smuggling.

In the northern Iraq city of Mosul ISIS nets upwards of $8 million a month by extorting taxes from local businesses, according to the US-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Meanwhile, ISIS's spread across the northern and eastern provinces of Syria bordering Iraq and Turkey has enabled it to take control of Syria's oilfields, the Economist magazine points out.

[dissident]

Aussie MSM article today on ISIL:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-07/i ... 29/5186134

...Drug smuggling, arms trafficking and oil fields keep money flowing

Despite AQI presenting itself as a paragon of strict Islamic virtue, the bulk of ISIS's financing, experts say, comes from illegal black market activities in Iraq, including robbery, arms trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, and even drug smuggling.

In the northern Iraq city of Mosul ISIS nets upwards of $8 million a month by extorting taxes from local businesses, according to the US-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Meanwhile, ISIS's spread across the northern and eastern provinces of Syria bordering Iraq and Turkey has enabled it to take control of Syria's oilfields, the Economist magazine points out.

All these heroic rebel groups degenerate to this level sooner or later. This is true around the world and only in the Mickey Mouse MSM narrative do you get fairy tale rebels fighting evil. The MSM's darling KLA in Kosovo trafficked in organs harvested from Serbs. Even the ICTY grand Inquisitor Carla Del Ponte made this into an issue but media ignored her and eventually she faded into obscurity.

[SeaGypsy]

In some circles Islamic Jihad in this era is being compared fairly convincingly with Nazism in the 1930's and WW2. A fringe exists who believe that despite being a regular church attending Christian- Obama is in fact an active member of the Islamic Brotherhood. Not far removed from this is the collective who believe there has been a secret government in place in the USA since shortly after WW2- controlled by remnants of the Nazis in that period. Where a secret government tilting towards supporting Jihad fits with the supposed origins in Nazism- probably only an insider could tell- and there probably aren't many of those- and if they actually exist, they probably have everything to lose by becoming anything resembling a whistleblower.

[Plantagenet]

I'm a bit surprised the Shia government in Iraq is asking the US for help in fighting the Sunni al quadi rebels in fallujah instead of relying on their Shia friends in Iran

[Keith_McClary]

I'm a bit surprised the Shia government in Iraq is asking the US for help in fighting the Sunni al quadi rebels in fallujah instead of relying on their Shia friends in Iran

The US was keen to sell Iraq fighter jets. I think the Iraqis understand that it is quick and easy and cheap to get weapons from US if they say the magick "AQ" incantation. (Also they should mention that they want McDonalds and Kentucky Fried and Starbucks restaurants - Americans love to hear that and will happily hand over tons of armaments).

[Keith_McClary]

Anybody understand this? :

A victory by the FSA against the radical Islamists would be a major reversal of fortunes from just a month ago, when the FSA appeared to be in disarray.

But any progress by the FSA in its battle with the ISIS extremists, Mr. Tabler says, would also underscore the extent to which the FSA now depends on its coordination with the more moderate Islamists of the Islamic Front (IF).

The last week “shows that when the FSA bandwagons with the IF against the far-right extremists, together they’re able to do quite a bit,” he says.

The IF’s principal benefactor is Saudi Arabia, which envisions the coalition of seven Sunni fighting forces as the key opponent of both the Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters and the Assad regime, which is receiving assistance from Saudi archrival Iran.

Any sustained reversal of ISIS fortunes at the hands of an FSA-IF fighting partnership would certainly be noticed by the United States, which last month suspended nonlethal aid to the rebels after IF forces overran an FSA base and took control of warehouses of US-supplied vehicles and other equipment. Since then, US officials have held meetings with IF representatives, but America does not seem to be about to embrace the IF, which coordinates with al-Nusra Front, a group the US lists as a terrorist organization.

“Will the US be able to come out and directly support the Islamists? Probably not,” Tabler says. “But will the US find a way to support the FSA while allowing the IF to work alongside it? Yes, that I think it probably could.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security ... sing-video