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Post by matt on Feb 22, 2011 21:35:50 GMT
Goodness, gracious, Matt, what are you doing... playing the troll? If sabotaging oil production facilities can ENHANCE profits for somebody, why in the world would they NOT do it? Morals? The threat of death or incarceration?
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Post by pidgey on Feb 22, 2011 21:41:51 GMT
Morals?
You think sovereigns make business decisions (yes, war is a business decision) using... MORALS?!?
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Post by matt on Feb 23, 2011 2:18:24 GMT
Morals? You think sovereigns make business decisions (yes, war is a business decision) using... MORALS?!? We were talking about sabotage for profit. Sovereigns have no part in that.
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Post by stranger on Feb 23, 2011 2:59:48 GMT
Age and maturity are two entirely different things. And the last time I looked Sovereigns; the king, prince, czar, Kaiser, President and Congress, ruling oligarchy, etc., are the ones who declare war.
To see instances of sovereigns having sabotage committed for profit, one need look no further than the nearest history book. "Remember the Maine" was the rallying cry following one probable case of the Sovereign throwing a shoe of sorts in the works. And a very profitable case of sabotage it was, at that.
Stranger
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Post by sigurdur on Feb 23, 2011 3:02:41 GMT
There was a Gulf of Tonkin issue as well.
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Post by pidgey on Feb 23, 2011 16:19:07 GMT
The examples are endless besides the fact that history revisions abound to guard the ruling elite from exposure ad infinitum.
But all that blather is truly a non sequitur... declaring Force Majeure (look it up if you need to) on what at first glance would be an insignificant portion of the world's energy supply is actually no small thing due to its disproportionate relationship to the world's SPARE capacity. Herein, the problem truly lies. It's basically that last 5% of production capacity that can cause horrendous volatility in oil prices. If we graph the oil spot prices against world GDP over time, we find that the spikes back in 1981 and again in 2008 caused nearly catastrophic perturbations in the world of High Finance that keeps the (rather corrupt) system going.
During the stable periods, the cost of oil has stayed pretty near 2% of World GDP in nominal terms. At the aforementioned peaks, it punched up to ~6.5% for very short periods and integrated at ~4% for at least a year. While that might seem small, I assure you that in the world of High Finance, that's huge and VERY destructive. During the first period (~1981), we had available reserves of cheap and easy oil to extract to pull us out of the dive. Currently, only Iraq has much of that left and the likelihood is that we'll bring it online only about as fast as the depletion curve of the other giant fields makes itself known. That statement may even be considered "hopelessly optimistic"...
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Post by spaceman on Feb 25, 2011 20:35:56 GMT
or gosh " I'm glad I lied about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraqi." Look at the warm reception, and the very model of democracy that has been created there. Dumsfield wasn't here for the 1st shock and awe, so they had to do it again. Look at the excellent work that Halliburton has done. Half finished projects and deficient buildings. But that bill had to be paid in full!!! That's the excellent part.. and the price of crude has been going up ever since... say it ain't so BUT not to worry we won't freeze in the next solar downturn because it never happened!!! Be sure to sell them your carbon credits so that they can sell you back you own firewood at much higher prices in the future. And who needs argiculture when we can build houses on prime farmland when we don't need the houses in the first place. Anybody noticinfg atrend here?
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Post by stranger on Feb 27, 2011 17:31:42 GMT
The problem with "no the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" is simple enough. Saddam had already used WMD's to kill a very large number of his own people, and his psychological profile gave no hint that he had forsworn them. In fact, both his profile and his spending pointed the other way. If huge quantities of poison gas have not been found, huge quantities of precursors were found. And thousands of containers are still missing.
The same thing applies to nuclear weapons. We recovered more than 500 tonnes of "yellowcake," and more than 1000 tonnes are still missing. As are almost the entire contents of Saddam's nuclear research facilities. Instead of hundreds of centrifuges, we found empty buildings with thousands of empty drums that had once contained radioactives. So much so that dozens of local kids who played with those drums were poisoned by radioactivity.
Bottom line? If Saddam Hussein did not have WMD's he had the stuff to make them.
Stranger
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2011 19:20:53 GMT
There was a Gulf of Tonkin issue as well. Wasn't there a sonar error involved in that? The destroyer beat up on three torpedo boats (Who fired first?) and then had a second engagement with ghosts or the derelicts made by the first battle or whatever. Regardless, acts of war are a separate category. There was no profit in provoking a superpower. And it wasn't even sabotage, it was a regular vanilla lopsided sea battle!
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2011 19:33:27 GMT
Age and maturity are two entirely different things. And the last time I looked Sovereigns; the king, prince, czar, Kaiser, President and Congress, ruling oligarchy, etc., are the ones who declare war. To see instances of sovereigns having sabotage committed for profit, one need look no further than the nearest history book. "Remember the Maine" was the rallying cry following one probable case of the Sovereign throwing a shoe of sorts in the works. And a very profitable case of sabotage it was, at that. Stranger O come on! They never found out what caused the explosion that sank the Maine. Spain didn't profit from that war either. Or are you saying Americans sank the Maine for profit??
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Post by matt on Feb 27, 2011 19:56:20 GMT
The problem with "no the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" is simple enough. Saddam had already used WMD's to kill a very large number of his own people, and his psychological profile gave no hint that he had forsworn them. In fact, both his profile and his spending pointed the other way. If huge quantities of poison gas have not been found, huge quantities of precursors were found. And thousands of containers are still missing. The same thing applies to nuclear weapons. We recovered more than 500 tonnes of "yellowcake," and more than 1000 tonnes are still missing. As are almost the entire contents of Saddam's nuclear research facilities. Instead of hundreds of centrifuges, we found empty buildings with thousands of empty drums that had once contained radioactives. So much so that dozens of local kids who played with those drums were poisoned by radioactivity. Bottom line? If Saddam Hussein did not have WMD's he had the stuff to make them. Stranger The UN weapons inspectors disagree with you. It was all a sham by the same folks who believe in climate "skepticism". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
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Post by julianb on Mar 1, 2011 10:02:49 GMT
I remember a TV interview with the 2 I/C of the Iraqi Air Force stating that several stripped down airliners had flown WMD to Syria days before the offensive. Also, El Baradi was the chief UN weapons inspector. He is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and is now tipped as a candidate in a new Egyptian Government, although unlikely to succeed as he has been out of the country too long. Be careful what you believe.
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Post by steve on Mar 1, 2011 10:33:11 GMT
IAlso, El Baradi was the chief UN weapons inspector. He is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and is now tipped as a candidate in a new Egyptian Government, although unlikely to succeed as he has been out of the country too long. Be careful what you believe. Sounds to me like you may be reproducing a smear.
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Post by magellan on Mar 2, 2011 5:00:28 GMT
IAlso, El Baradi was the chief UN weapons inspector. He is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and is now tipped as a candidate in a new Egyptian Government, although unlikely to succeed as he has been out of the country too long. Be careful what you believe. Sounds to me like you may be reproducing a smear. Sounds to me like you may be reproducing a smear. Sounds to me you are in the beginnings of reproducing a lie.
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Post by steve on Mar 2, 2011 9:21:07 GMT
Sounds to me like you may be reproducing a smear. Sounds to me like you may be reproducing a smear. Sounds to me you are in the beginnings of reproducing a lie. Unless you have some insight into Egyptian politics that noone else has, you must as a sceptic recognise that a phrase such as "connected to" is carefully selected to deceive without lying. When the implied criticism is about someone who has criticised the US in the past your alarm bells should be ringing.
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