Tilting the balance...the Saudis weigh in

[307 MMS]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122106D.shtml

Now the Saudis are pissed. Not good.

[closeupready]

1. People have been saying for years, that our oil addiction

is dangerous. We have done little to research alternative energy sources, and "conservation??? What's that. That's for hippies and liberals."

This is just one development which bears out those forecasts.

[307 MMS]

2. Hammer

That's the hammer they hold over our heads. Now jr. has gone and set us up to be even more screwed. I worked for a fuel cell company and we couldn't get squat from Bushco for funding. Now, my former company's got a deal worth $300 million with the Russians. The Russians will fund this and we won't!? Huh?!

[Disturbed]

3. The Oil Corps who own Busholini say that oil will

last another 50 years so there is no hurry for Alt. Energy.

[Bitwit1234]

4. Can you imagine

the consquences for the oil countries, if the United States had an alternative energy source. If we did not buy oil from the rest of the world, how long would they still be RICH AND POWERFUL. If we had the energy we would be the ones setting the rules. I really truly think that if we could get that energy a lot of the conflict in the world would end. There wouldn't be a lot of money for the Middle East to put into these weapons, and equipment.

[cdnwannabe]

5. It's a good point you make, however...

my understanding is that virtually all (if not all) alternative energies would need to get off the ground or be run in some way through a fossil-fuel platform. If the oil supplies will last another 50 years (I doubt it will be that long, at least not on the cheap like we are used to) all the more reason to start using the alt energies now. Of course, we should have listened to Jimmy Carter back in the late 70's, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Carter will look like a prophet some day soon.

[307 MMS]

7. Good point

"my understanding is that virtually all (if not all) alternative energies would need to get off the ground or be run in some way through a fossil-fuel platform".
Exactly...but it's got to start somwhere. To use what we now have to get us off the ground, so to speak, is what we have to do. Then, we can break away from that source. But, we best get to it. And as another post states, Jimmy Carter was right. But, he had the best interests of the country in mind, not the best interest of the "company", as in "oil". Plus, he's a Dem, so screw him, was their thinking. We should be so much farther along with alt. energy, it's real shame. Having worked at a start-up, it was very frustrating to not get the gov't on board. An administration full of oil, gas and coal people certainly didn't help!

[cdnwannabe]

10. Good to know that we have some folks on here with some experience...

on the subject (i.e. you worked for a start-up). I know it's a bit of a frightening alternative, but is it possible that nuclear energy would not need the fossil fuel platform? I understand that as much as 40% of France's energy is generated through nuke power. And they are ramping it up, too.

[stillcool]

6. Interesting article on the Sunni Iraqi's...

US Writes Sunni Resistance Out of Anbar Story
By Gareth Porter *
Inter Press Service
September 26, 2006

.........The disappearance of Sunni resistance forces from these papers' coverage of the situation in Anbar mirrors the view presented by the U.S. military briefers for the past six months, which has systematically ignored what has become, in effect, a third force in the war in Iraq -- a Sunni resistance to both the occupation and al Qaeda. That third force emerged last year out of the struggle in the Sunni heartland of Iraq over the constitutional referendum and December parliamentary election. Al Qaeda in Iraq threatened anyone in Anbar province who participated in the referendum with death, but the major Sunni armed groups broke openly with al Qaeda and supported full participation by Sunnis to defeat the referendum.

Sunni resistance groups then began attacking al Qaeda forces in Ramadi, Husayba and other towns in Anbar. By early 2006, these armed groups had captured 270 foreign infiltrators, according to the London-based Al Hayat newspaper. U.S. military command spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch publicly confirmed in January that the insurgents had killed six "major leaders" of al Qaeda in Ramadi. From late November 2005 to February 2006, U.S. command spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch made the fundamental conflict between the Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda a major theme of his briefings. Lynch told reporters, "The local insurgents have become part of the solution."
But the Sunni solution included the demand that the United States set a date for withdrawal in return for their ending the insurgency and cooperating with an Iraqi government against al Qaeda. And in the interim period before a final withdrawal, the Sunnis wanted the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Anbar, along with the largely Shiite army units they had sent in to control the city.

At a meeting at a U.S. base in Ramadi in December 2005, reported by the London Sunday Times last February, a former Iraqi general, Saab al-Rawi, representing the Iraqi Sunni insurgents in the province, asked Gen. George Casey, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Ramadi and their replacement by a brigade of former soldiers from the area. But Casey angrily refused, accusing al-Rawi of wanting a U.S. pullout so the insurgents could take over the city. The Iraqi general recalled that his forces had protected the city for six months after the fall of Saddam's regime. "You have not protected this city and can never do so," said al-Rawi, "for you are foreigners here -- unwanted and unwelcome."

About the Author: Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in June 2005.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resist/2006/0926sunniresist.htm

[BadgerKid]

8. What's the Saudis' game plan?

Is it that the Saudis are draining the US's financial strength directly by oil and indirectly by involving the US in a protracted battle? Seems as if they've double crossed Bush. (Who's the benefactor? The Saudis? Cheney?) Would a Saudi threat of withholding the oil be a factor in Bush ("having to") invading Iran to save his/our butts?

[IDemo]

9. The Saudis aren't talking of withholding oil, but of flooding the market

and 'cutting the price of oil in half' to harm Iran's ability to fund Shiite militias in Iraq -> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2957321

my response -> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2957321&mesg_id=2957962

[Disturbed]

11. Busholini is stupid, arrogant and ignorant

The Sunnis and Shiites don't want foreign fighters in their country. They may tolerate al Q in the shortrun but if the US/UK Occupiers left Iraq al Q would be fought against and thrown out of Iraq. All the Busholini Regime cares about is the Oil distribution. By fighting the Sunni Insurgency the US Govt is aiding Iran.

[FogerRox]

12. Exactly, its a regional proxy war, Iran, Syria vs Saudi Arabia & Isreal

[SoCalDem]

13. So basically, we will be fighting a proxy war against our dear ally Saudi Arabia

We will back the shia (allied with our enemy, Iran) as they fight the sunni, whose biggest and best ally is Saudi Arabia..

:eyes:

Way to GO, Georgie !

[catzies]

14. In a nutshell. Shout it from the rooftops for it is the truth.

:applause:

[annabanana]

15. or.. as Jon Stewart would have it : a catastrofuck. . .n/t

[FogerRox]

17. SoCalDem.....I think you got it, >gulp<

[FogerRox]

16. This sucks....Confirmation of the Truthout story

http://rdanafox.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-middle-east-gets-interesting.html

[Imagevision]

18. the Saudi's will back the Sunni's - The US. will be the peacekeepers...

[pberq]

19. Kick & Nominated

See this outstanding analysis of the situation by Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL14Ak01.html

". . .Although the House of Saud's Interior Ministry will deny it, the ISG had to admit that Sunni Arab guerrillas are being financed - to the tune of tens of millions of dollars - by wealthy, private Saudi and, to a lesser extent, Gulf state donors, following instructions of powerful Wahhabi clerics. Thirty-eight of these have just released a statement on Saudi websites calling on Sunnis worldwide to "mobilize" against Iraqi Shi'ites. This has stopped short of being a formal declaration of jihad not only against Shi'ites in Iraq but also Shi'ites in Iran, as well as US troops. The guerrillas' Russian Strela anti-aircraft missiles in Iraq have been paid for by Saudi money (according to Khudair al-Murshidi, a Ba'athist spokesman based in Damascus, "We have stockpiles of Strelas.") There's no US pressure capable of reverting the situation: this is a matter of Arab tribal solidarity - not a state affair.

"There can be no direct negotiation with the Sunni Arab muqawama (resistance) because in essence what they want is the breakup of the Washington/Shi'ite majority government collaboration and their return to power. The Nuri al-Maliki government - in fact, any Shi'ite majority government - cannot possibly quash militia hell and the non-stop carnage because the Saudi-financed Sunni Arab guerrilla identifies any government as an occupier's tool. . . "

(Much more at link)

[IDemo]

20. Wow, outstanding analysis indeed

-- "The new Greater Middle East hot war is already on. Baghdad is its horrific microcosm - public executions, non-stop ethnic cleansing, the Tigris as the Sunni/Shi'ite border with Shi'ite district Kadhimiya and Sunni district Adhamiya as ghettos under siege on the "wrong" sides of the river. Maliki is as irrelevant as Bush - who at least has his own militia, the US Army, just one more militia in militia hell or, as Hunter Thompson would put it, "just another freak in a freak kingdom"."

This should be required reading ->> http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL14Ak01.html

[Disturbed]

21. The Baathists in Iraq were secular.

The Shiites want a Theorcacy. Fiasco only begins to describe what the Busholini Regime has wrought.