MUST READ: Juan Cole explains the massacre and destruction in Lebanon

[chimpymustgo]

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
Sunday, August 06, 2006

One Ring to Rule Them

The wholesale destruction of all of Lebanon by Israel and the US Pentagon does not make any sense. Why bomb roads, roads, bridges, ports, fuel depots in Sunni and Christian areas that have nothing to do with Shiite Hizbullah in the deep south? And, why was Hizbullah's rocket capability so crucial that it provoked Israel to this orgy of destruction? Most of the rockets were small katyushas with limited range and were highly inaccurate. They were an annoyance in the Occupied Golan Heights, especially the Lebanese-owned Shebaa Farms area. Hizbullah had killed 6 Israeli civilians since 2000. For this you would destroy a whole country?

It doesn't make any sense.

Moreover, the Lebanese government elected last year was pro-American! Why risk causing it to fall by hitting the whole country so hard?

And, why was Condi Rice's reaction to the capture of two Israeli soldiers and Israel's wholesale destruction of little Lebanon that these were the "birth pangs" of the "New Middle East"? How did she know so early on that this war would be so wideranging? And, how could a little border dispute in the Levant signal such an elephantine baby's advent? Isn't it because she had, like Tony Blair, been briefed about the likelihood of a war by the Israelis, or maybe collaborated with them in the plans, and also conceived of it in much larger strategic terms?

I've had a message from a European reader that leads me to consider a Peak Oil Theory of the US-Israeli war on Lebanon (and by proxy on Iran). I say, "consider" the "theory" because this is a thought experiment. I put it on the table to see if it can be knocked down, the way you would preliminary hypotheses in a science experiment.

-snip-

The regime in Iran has not gone away despite decades of hostility toward it by Washington, and despite the latter's policy of "containment." As a result, US petroleum corporations are denied significant opportunities for investment in the Iranian petroleum sector. Worse, Iran has made a big energy deal with China and is negotiating with India. As those two countries emerge as the superpowers of the 21st century, they will attempt to lock up Gulf petroleum and gas in proprietary contracts.

-snip-

In a worst case scenario, Washington would like to retain the option of military action against Iran, so as to gain access to its resources and deny them to rivals. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, however, that option will be foreclosed. Iran may not be trying for a weapon, and if it is, it could not get one before about 2016. But if it had a nuclear weapon, it would be off limits to US attack, and its anti-American regime could not only lock up Iranian gas and oil for the rest of the century by making sweetheart deals with China. It also might begin to exercise a sway over the small energy-producing countries of the Middle East. (The oil interest would explain the mystery of why Washington just does not care that Pakistan has the Bomb; Pakistan has nothing Washington wants and so there was no need to preserve the military option in its regard.)

-snip-

More wars to come, in this scenario, since hitting Lebanon was like hitting a politician's bodyguard. You don't kill a bodyguard just to kill the bodyguard. It is phase I of a bigger operation.

-snip-

http://www.juancole.com/2006/08/one-ring-to-rule-them-wholesale.html

********

The article is quite provocative...please read the comments that follow. It's all starting to make sense now...

[Junkdrawer]

1. I agree. When someone of the caliber of Juan Cole starts talking...

about the oil implications of the current crisis, it's news.

[The Magistrate]

3. When Someone Of Mr. Cole's Caliber, Sir, Starts Talking About Oil Here

It simply means he has run out of ways to rephrase the things he usually says, and is boldly casting out for something fresh he is not already bored to tears with saying himself....

[chimpymustgo]

4. It is an excellent, thought provoking article, with NEW insights.

Please read it, and the comments. What might you take issue with, beyond the ad hominem attack?

[The Magistrate]

10. There Is Nothing New In The Article At All, Ma'am

At least nothing outside the bounds of common comment on the matter for some while. Nor is there anything in it that strikes me as particularly insightful or substantial. The gentleman on occassion makes some worth-while comments: this is not among them.

[chimpymustgo]

15. Could you be more specific about your criticisms?

Really, it's quite difficult to have a discussion on these terms.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

33. U.S. collabortion in this war with oil as the motive is old stuff?

Maybe it's old news to you, but I haven't heard anyone in the media pointing it out. Why DID Condi make that wide-sweeping assertion about potentially all of the Middle East being reborn as a result of this current conflict in Lebanon? I'd like to know the answer myself.

[krkaufman]

38. "war for oil" as old news

Not having read Cole's article, yet, I wanted to pipe-in and emphasize your point that "war for oil" might be old news to some, but the vast majority of Americans would likely respond that we're in Iraq (1) because of WMDs, (2) because Saddam and al Qaeda were partners in 9/11, or (3) Iraq yearned to be free.

The "'war for oil' is old news" comment reminds me of those in the media saying that "Bush lied us into the Iraq war" was old news. Yes, it *is* old news to those who really know what's going on, but that old news was never communicated to the viewers/listeners of mainstream media.

It's all about the oil, oil, oil.

[Junkdrawer]

5. I think it's significantly different than Friday's explanation...

of US intentions he gave on DemocracyNow:

...

JUAN COLE: Well, the United States wants to destroy Hezbollah. It has an old grudge with it, because Hezbollah did hit U.S. targets back in the 1980s, and it is seen by the conservatives in the Bush administration as a cat's paw of Iran. They don't pay attention to its local Lebanese context, and they don't see Israel's repeated invasions and attacks on Lebanon as having provoked this response. And it's likely that a lot of what's being done in Lebanon is a demonstration project. It's an attempt to scare Iran into ceasing its own nuclear enrichment program, which the Iranians maintain is for civilian purposes, but which the West suspects may lead to an Iranian nuclear bomb. So it is said that the Israelis and the hawks in the United States want the Iranians to look at Beirut and think, “Well, gee, that could happen to Tehran if we don't come aboard.”


...

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/04/1418253

[The Magistrate]

6. Then Perhaps, Sir

The gentleman will eventually discover what he actually thinks is the reason, rather than skitting about like a drop of quicksilver on a desk-top.

[Junkdrawer]

11. I think he, like many of us, sees that Israel's stated goals...

and its actions are so wildly out of synch, that he's casting about for an explanation that makes sense.

I believe that his post today was made reluctantly and tentatively - he would prefer more "conventional" explanations, but he's open to other ideas.

[The Magistrate]

23. The Actions Of Israel, Sir, Make Perfect Sense To Me

Albiet in the manner that the actions of a party without any good options, yet pressed with a need to do something, will make, when viewed from that party's point of view. The presence of a private militia body engaged in hostilities across a border is something no state can tolerate indefinitely, particularly when the leadership of that militia openly declares its dedication to the destruction of that state, and feels entitled to claim it has already gained a substantial victory over that state some years earlier. A strike by that militia at a time when that state is engaged in a major operation in another quarter will have a galvanizing effect on the state's leadership, and naturally focus its attention towards whether the time has in fact come when that militia's continuance is simply intolerable. The state, having a signifigant conventional military arm, will resort most likely to conventional military action in response, taking as its objective the destruction, or at least the neutralization, of that militia body, if for no other reason than that it is both the least imaginative and most simply executed course available. Certainly, this attempt may fail, whether through poor planning or poor execution or even poor conception of the actual state of the problem to be tackled, but plans are often poor and frequently fail: misjudgement is a fact of life. Further, once a violent enterprise is begun, it has a tendency to get out from under the control of the people who embarked on it: it will create its own imperatives, in reaction with the actions of the enemy to thwart it, and the effects of earlier actions by one's own side. Thus, people will frequently come to find themselves in a situation, and performing actions accordingly, they would never have expected to be involved with when the thing was commenced. To look for grand underlying schemes and themes is to ignore the great truths of human frailty, of muddle and error and blunder, that are the true driving engines of human events, and to imagine the actions of human beings play out with the precision of clock-works, reflecting plans executed in a manner in which everything comes off just as anticipated. Things do that only when there are no humans involved once assembly is completed: as the engineers say. "People are the problem."

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."

[Junkdrawer]

24. To quote Cole:

"Why bomb roads, roads, bridges, ports, fuel depots in Sunni and Christian areas that have nothing to do with Shiite Hizbullah in the deep south? "

:shrug:

[The Magistrate]

26. This Is Quite Conventional Military Action, Sir

Israel is operating in accord with standard doctrine that air power assailes the "strategic rear" of an enemy force, and attempts to sever communications. That a body like Hezbollah has little of consequence in the way of a strategic rear does not matter: as the saying goes, "If you have a hammer, all your problems look like nails." Fuel depots have some potential effect on motorized transport, ports and airfields are inlets through which re-supply might flow, roads and bridges are the arteries of movement, used by fighters and their supplies, along with, of course, a great many civilians and other materials. It is not my point that any of this is necessarily productive of much from the Israeli point of view, only that it is a quite normal course, and a common form of mistake.

[TahitiNut]

32. Clausewitz is a lousy guide when the oppostion isn't a state.

If your stepsister throws rocks at me, stabbing you is still (attempted?) murder.

[The Magistrate]

46. That Is Quite True, My Friend

To say that something is sensible from a conventional point of view is not the same as saying it is actually a sensible course of action. But the principle of "If your tool is a hammer, all your problems look like nails" seems to apply here.

[sofa king]

36. Something is wrong here, and it's not a mistake.

Hezbollah is a classic example of an asymmetric force. It does not represent all Lebanese; it does not represent even most of the Lebanese. It does not have a majority in the Lebanese government and it obviously makes its military supply arrangements outside of the authority of that government.

Though their tactics and training have clearly improved, Hezbollah is still very much a "small ball" military force, relying primarily on the AK-47 and the occasional RPG for its power. (The rockets they're shooting are every bit as annoying as Hitler's V-weapons, but also just as tactically ineffective.) There are a hundred million AKs floating around the world; there is no way to stop the flow of that weapon to Hezbollah, in the unlikely case that they need more of them.

There is no strategic response to this sort of a group, not in the classical sense of warring states, because one of the parties is not a state. There is no logistical pipeline to Hezbollah that can be smashed by destroying Lebanon's infrastructure, because Hezbollah already works outside of that infrastructure. There is no political advantage to be gained by doing that, either. To the contrary, the risk of swaying majority Lebanese opinion (and others' opinions) against the Israelis is high.

But most importantly, Israel above all countries is intimately aware of this strategic reality, having already dealt with similar Palestinian projections from Jordan before Black September, and from Lebanon itself before the 1982 invasion. Destroying the host country's infrastructure runs completely counter to the idea of minimizing the border incursions by strengthening the host country's power over their border areas--which worked surprisingly well in both of the above-cited examples.

We can see that the Israelis are practicing some of the traditional responses to asymmetric warfare in this war: commando raids on leadership, assassinations, denial of operational territory to the enemy, and collective punishment of the sympathetic local communities (a favorite tactic of we Americans, too, against our Indian tribes and again in Vietnam).

The attacks on the infrastructure, however, are an entirely different thing, and Juan Cole is right when he says it makes no sense. It really doesn't, unless the attacks are viewed in some greater context.

A week or two ago, I was convinced that Iran and Hezbollah were the architects of this conflict. I am still deeply offended by Hezbollah's use of Lebanese citizens' suffering as political hay. But now there can be no denying that Israel is pursuing some greater purpose which far exceeds its trouble with Hezbollah. Juan Cole's hypothesis might or might not be shown to be the case, but it's obvious that Israel and the United States are up to something, and it's not a mistake.

[femrap]

37. Isn't Israel trying to draw both Syria and Iran into

this war? I think both the US and Israel want the big fight for the entire ME....all the oil and gas.

I'll never forget talking with a military neocon...."We need to nuke them....turn them into lambs just like we did to the Japanese and Germans." I got chills...and then realized that is what many of the neocons want.

[sofa king]

42. I have a similar guess.

I think that Israel is deliberately trying to quell Hezbollah now in order to pave the way for an invasion of Iran sometime after Selection Day, 2006. Khuzestan and Bushehr provinces in Iran contain much if not most of Iran's oil and natural gas reserves; taking those provinces away from Iran wouldn't just put oil profits back in Exxon's pocket (and take them away from China and India), it would also deny Iran the ability to harass shipping in the upper Persian Gulf. The provinces are ringed by easily defensible, mountanous terrain. If the Americans roll through the plains and get into those mountains, Iran won't get their territory back easily.

Things have been lining up in that direction for a while now. The Americans have been busy using much of the world's supply of concrete to build its fortresses in Iraq, ensuring a permanent presence which can be temporarily held with a minimum of troops (yes, everything else in Iraq would go to hell, but look into Dick Cheney's eyes and see if he cares). The British are preparing to move out of the Shatt-al-Arab, the traditional invasion route into Khuzestan, which will allow huge American armored columns to move unimpeded. The same monotonal bullshit used against Iraq about Iranian nukes and vaporous "threats" roll weekly through the American news media--the American public is already being primed.

Israel would have an important if unglamorous role in such an American invasion. They need to distract and divert the Syrian armed forces away from the Iraqi border, in order to forestall a sympathetic Syrian invasion of Iraq while American forces are diverted. Syria's attention can be easily diverted from the East by massing Israeli troops on the Golan Heights, only fifty or so miles uphill from Damascus.

But there is another option. One possible Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah/Palestinian response might be a joint uprising/operation against Israel, in an attempt to divert (very) thinly spread American forces away from Iran. Israel can probably hold off two out of its three enemy neighbors, but all three at once could spell trouble--all the more so since Israel's performance in the field in this war-let has been somewhat lackluster.

But Israel controls the Golan Heights and Syria has already broken its teeth on that invasion route into Israel before (several times before, actually). Their only real alternative is a Schleiffen Plan-like sweep around Golan, through Lebanon and into Israel from the north.

So maybe Israel is wrecking Lebanon's infrastructure in order to hinder Syria's movement through that country when the balloon goes up against Iran this fall or winter. In addition to the above, Beirut and Tyre also happen to be Syria's most important port cities, even though they're not really Syria's. Israel has paid visits to both of those places in the past week.

That's the closest thing to a cogent explanation I can give, and honestly, I have trouble buying the idea, too. I don't think either America or Israel are fully prepared to open up yet another front in what is slowly turning into a world war.

But the idea does have one thing going for it: it's stupid, foolhardy, dangerous, deceitful, barbaric, undiplomatic, and crass--or in other words it's perfectly in keeping with everything the Bush Administration and its Israeli controllers have done up to now. At this point, can we really expect them to act otherwise? I think not, but perhaps if they try harder they can find something equally stupid and dangerous, but less likely to succeed.

[femrap]

44. Very interesting post.

I know these neocons are going to attack Iran. There may be some in Iran who would welcome it...but after seeing what kind of 'democracy' we brought to Iraq, they may want to reconsider. Many Iranians, especially women, are not happy living in a theocracy.

Just how many bases is the US building in Iraq? Six? Including the mammoth one in Baghdad?

And what's so stupid about all of this....killing for oil which is killing our environment which will kill us eventually. Soon we won't be able to grow crops due to climate change. Why can't we develop alternative fuels?

To have grown up in a time with such hope and to now, in middle age, see a world of destruction and violence....well, it's a nightmare. All of the money spent on killing.

I hope we get some good news tomorrow....a Lamont victory. Maybe that could set the stage for a Democratic takeover of the House or Senate or both. Not that I have a great deal of faith in most of the Dems...but I sure would enjoy seeing Conyers with Subpoena Power!

Do you have a military background? Diplomacy? Poli Sci? I enjoyed reading your post...informative.

[sofa king]

45. Hi there,

Well, I wanted to be a military historian, but then I actually got a job doing history as a B.A. and I never went back to school--I was too busy actually doing it to go back and learn it. Not military history--other history, but all other history is strongly affected by warfare, so you never really get away from it.

There are thought to be fourteen "enduring" bases being built in Iraq, though the locations of two of them are not known. They're probably finished now, as it's obvious that nothing else has been worked on since 2004. China had a role in delaying the construction; they produce most of the world's cement, and when they discovered what the Americans were up to, they decided to put that cement into their own enormous works projects at home, which created a worldwide cement shortage. So it's safe to assume that those bases are... substantial, and no doubt very expensive.

Fourteen--or twelve--bases is a pretty significant number. Modern "bases" are really just fortresses. They don't look like castles, but they do the same thing: you can house a lot of troops in there if you want, but you can defend it with comparatively few if those other troops are off doing something else--like invading Iran. In this case, each base is probably built to hold a brigade (say, 3000 troops) or more, but be defended by a battallion (about 400-500 troops) while the REMFs and Halliburton employees hole up inside. They can be resupplied by air if necessary.

There are three or four divisions in Iraq, or between 15 and 20 brigades, and each brigade is made up of between two and seven battallions. Thus two brigades, or one rump division, can theoretically hold all of those bases while the other two or three reinforced divisions in Iraq can move on to other projects.

Like I said, things would instantly go to hell in Iraq if the Americans pulled into their shells, but seriously, does anyone really think that we give a damn at this point? The purpose of invading Iraq was to prevent it from supplying cheap oil in exchange for euros, and that purpose won't be defeated by allowing people to riot. (The Iranians recently moved their medium of exchange from dollars to euros, one more really good reason to suspect that we'll be stealing their oil sooner rather than later.)

In fact, we can expect the Bush Administration to cite the predictable unrest as all the more reason to stay there forever.

[rog]

27. Cole states very clearly ...

... in paragraph five: "... THIS IS A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT. I put it on the table to see if it can be knocked down, the way you would preliminary hypotheses in a science experiment."

edited to add quotes

.rog.

[The Magistrate]

28. As Stated Above, Sir

Boredom with saying what he usually does, and running dry on ways to rephrase that sound new....

"Get your new Toss 'Ems today! They can't be beat! You just tear 'em open, and toss 'em away!"

[chimpymustgo]

29. Juan Cole has an excellent grasp of the geopolitical implications.

He's not only knowledgeable, but very fair. His is a measured, thoughful and informed voice in this debate.

[rog]

30. This is your opinion, to which you are entitled.

re: Cole, "... Boredom with saying what he usually does, and running dry on ways to rephrase that sound new...."

I recognize this is your opinion, although this is not the statement to which I responded. I disagree with you, but my point is that you can not accuse Cole of "skitting about like a drop of quicksilver on a desk-top," i.e., changing his postion and reasoning quixotically (as you said in the post to which I'm responding ... not one of your previous posts) when it's clear that he's examining someone else's premise as an intellectual and academic exercise.

I'll repeat, Cole stated: "... this is a thought experiment. I put it on the table to see if it can be knocked down, the way you would preliminary hypotheses in a science experiment."

Seems to me he's inviting your participation in this discussion.

Is Cole's discussion inappropriate?

.rog.

[rodeodance]

16. I think the IP talks to more of the long "vision" vs DemNow response

which is one of the tactics needed for the vision of a NEW Mid East.

[rodeodance]

2. all of Condi's talk of the "NEW ME" should open eyes!

[Supersedeas]

48. birth pangs....Dr. Condi sure has a way with words

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[chimpymustgo]

12. Leftchick, thanks for adding your link. I hadn't see that.

It is so interesting that people are starting to figure this thing out. (And I agree with your opinion about threads trying to get the truth out).

[leftchick]

25. I guess that is taboo too

:shrug:

[Toots]

8. Imagine if the money spent on Iraq alone were spent on alternative energy

Our national policy should be on getting us off foreign oil dependence and find alternatives. We are going to have to sooner or later anyway. Why put it off. This should be the Democrats number one campaign issue. Alternative energy to protect America from foreign manipulation and from Global warming as well. We can do so much better..

[krkaufman]

39. Right on, Toots!! Weaning ourselves off oil should be the #1 issue ....

.... since it addresses Iraq and future Iraqs, national security, environment, and the economy in terms of jobs, national debt, new technologies and cost of goods. (off the top of the head)

Kick the oil habit, as though lives depend on it.

[susu369]

9. His last paragraph is so important

Thanks for posting.

[Postman]

13. If true, seems to be a policy that Democrats would have to continue...

unless republicans plan on suspending elections....

[teryang]

14. Destroying Iran's strategic depth

<Destroy Lebanon, and destroy Hizbullah, and you reduce Iran's strategic depth. Destroy the Iranian nuclear program and you leave it helpless and vulnerable to having done to it what the Israelis did to Lebanon. You leave it vulnerable to regime change, and a dragooning of Iran back into the US sphere of influence, denying it to China and assuring its 500 tcf of natural gas to US corporations. You also politically reorient the entire Gulf, with both Saddam and Khamenei gone, toward the United States. Voila, you avoid peak oil problems in the US until a technological fix can be found, and you avoid a situation where China and India have special access to Iran and the Gulf.>

This is in fact the neo-con plan. However, it ignores one significant fact. The Russians and Chinese aren't going to stand by and do nothing while we attempt to destroy and then take over Iran. They will provide logistic support and war materials for Iran's defense. There is no "victory" at the end of any military conflict with Iran. Iran's "strategic depth" is provided by two of the three major asian land powers, not Lebanon nor Hizbollah.

I don't know where American planners get the idea that they can win a land war in Asia. The Lebanese conflict is more of a consolidation effort, that has a chance to isolate Syria and perhaps cause the current regime there to collapse. Interfering with the Iranian nuclear power program decreases Iranian ability to accumulate foreign currency reserves by exporting more fossil fuels. It tends to keep oil prices and profits up and slows the increase of Iranian national power. In other words it denies Iran increased market share.

[mom cat]

17. Thanks for posting this. Cole nails it.

[Igel]

18. I was once on a service committee at college

that had a new faculty member assigned to it. He needed "service" credit for a promotion: teaching, research, service were the criteria.

He couldn't understand why students were on the committee.

He couldn't understand why we were concerned and asking for university money when professor salaries could be increased, or the library funding could be augmented.

He couldn't figure out why one administrator (who happened to be from athletics) was on the committee, mostly because he couldn't figure out why athletics was on campus. Even intramural sports had no place.

He couldn't figure out why the undergrad students on the committee were mostly from minority advocacy groups. There was no need for student government; it was a distraction from studies.

He didn't survive a month. He realized that while it was a "high powered" committee (in the sense that it made decisions, and therefore scored more 'service points'), it was also not something that he intended to do a good job on. He quit.

Smart guy, in some ways. But he didn't realize that students needed to eat, that they needed to play, that student government served a useful representative function, or that underrepresented students profited from advocacy groups.

"It doesn't make any sense," he said, an assertation about the nature of things. What he *should* have said was, "It doesn't make any sense to me," i.e., he should have made an assertion about his understanding of the situation. But that would have presumed a bit of humility, the very idea that something could be understandable to others, and not to himself.

[chimpymustgo]

19. May I ask if you agree with Juan Cole's assertion?

Any comments on that?

[Igel]

35. No.

He doesn't understand the stated reasons and assumes that if he doesn't understand them, there's no trying to understand them, i.e., they can't be understood; therefore, they must be false.

I understand most of the reasons given; they come to a very, very close fit with the available data. I can believe that to a very large extent, they are true. Where they're not necessarily true, they aren't necessarily false.

People play the same game with Islamists' statements, whether Mesh'al or Nasrallah. They can't understand, they declare they don't make sense (leaving out that all important "to me, at least"), they've absolved of the need to try to understand, so they interpret them to mean what they want them to mean or feel they must mean. But their statements also make sense.

It's one reason to come close to despairing of the situation in the Middle East more than a few times.

:beer:

[reprehensor]

20. Thanks for posing this. n/t

[iamahaingttta]

21. And through all of this...

...the 68,688,433 people who live in Iran,
the 26,783,383 people who live in Iraq,
the 3,874,050 people who live in Lebanon,
the 18,881,361 who live in Syria,
as well as most of the Israelis and most of the Saudis for that matter, and most of our troops in the region...

Are just flesh pawns in a game of global power. These people do not matter to those who would contol the resources of the world.

The fucked up part is that we - you and I sitting here in the air-conditioning at our computers - are the consumers of this horror. It's all being played out for our benefit. We win no matter who loses. Or else we lose everything.

[Kailassa]

22. K&R, it's a great article and we should all be showing it

to our friends.

The more important the article, the faster the clockwork doggies appear to denigrate it.

[pinto]

31. Juan Cole connects one too many dots, imo.

Yes, the oil and gas reserves in the Caucasus is of economic interest to the West, Russia and the East. To link that in a broader chess game involving the current Israeli/Lebanon conflict, though, is a stretch. Global theoreticists often forget that local players have their own immediate agenda(s). Sometimes there is no hidden agenda, no "grand scheme". Sometimes there are only people acting in their own perceived best interests. The piece is thought provoking and makes a good read, though.

[krkaufman]

40. Well, unless the unified theory of everything applies ...

... and it turns out that 9/11 was coordinated between the neo-cons and al Qaeda, in order to give the extremists more power in both regions (US and ME). Our invading Iraq and destabilizing the region improves the Islamic fundamentalists' chances of creating their great ME-wide Islamic state -- which would then be a single broker/partner for the oil, on which the neo-cons believe they will have dibs.

(Just making stuff up. Given the utter incompetence of how things have been and are being handled, one begins to wonder if it was deliberately planned as such.)

[krkaufman]

41. Well, unless the unified theory of everything applies ...

... and it turns out that 9/11 was coordinated between the neo-cons and al Qaeda, in order to give the extremists more power in both regions (US and ME). Our invading Iraq and destabilizing the region improves the Islamic fundamentalists' chances of creating their great ME-wide Islamic state -- which would then be a single broker/partner for the oil, on which the neo-cons believe they will have dibs.

(Just making stuff up. Given the utter incompetence of how things have been and are being handled, one begins to wonder if it was deliberately planned as such.)

[Clarkie1]

34. Well, the most important point he makes is in the last paragraph.

And it's also a point that is not dependent on the validity of the rest of his argument:

"...global warming is not the only danger in continuing to rely so heavily on hydrocarbons for energy. Green energy--wind, sun, geothermal-- is all around us and does not require any wars to obtain it. Indeed, if we had spent as much on alternative energy research as we have already spent on the Iraq War, we'd be much closer to affordable solar. A choice lies ahead: hydrocarbons, a 20 foot rise in sea level, and a praetorian state. Or we could go green and maybe keep our republic and tame militarism."

No doubt about that.

[darkworkz]

43. This would make sense if the US was a European sized...

country. What Cole has outlined is the corporate policy of global triangulation. And from that stand point he's 100% correct in analysis and forecast.

But...

The US citizen is being presented with one crucial question in all of this that will decide the future, many fortunes, and lives of corporations - are you willing to send your children off to die for oil and profit? Of which you receive the benefit of neither.

The US could not ask this question if it was a European sized country, like say the UK. Unlike the rest of the world the US has all the arable land needed to become energy self sufficient inside of 2 years (and abundantly rich in 5). If this event happens then what's China and India going to do?

Should the US decide not to further engage in the oil wars, because she figures out she doesn't have to, then the rest of the planet will be caught wrong footed and have to recover its balance from "we're all going to war" to "WTF just happened?!"

This is not a debate or discussion. The question on the table for the United States is war and death for your children and grand children or peace and prosperity for our land with opportunity for all her citizens?

The rest is just so much wasted words.

[pelsar]

47. whats really going on:

and cole understands little:

first to explain about hizballa:
using the most modern anti tank weapons from russia, it is they that a causing most of the IDFs causulties.

Lebanese are slowly speaking out and are pissed that iran is using hizballa to fight israel on Lebanons land...thats the heart of the matter. (thats how the lebanese and israelis, and saudis and egyptians see it as well)

Hizballa owns south, and east lebanon and parts (did) of beirut.
_______

why is israel bombing lebanon?...to force the lebanese into a choice, one they have to be forced in to: They have to defy both syria and iran and send the lebanese army down south and take back southern lebanon and guard the border with israel. They wouldnt do it before, however now if they dont, they're country will be destroyed...so they are now talking about it, calling up the reserves. Furthermore, Hizballa is now weakened so they wont be fighting them either.

and thats what it really all about: nothing about oil, water, settlements etc....