RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Unfolding Universe (discovery channel)

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Eek; look like indentation and quoting here are getting painful.  
I'm trying to clean this up, and I hope that it doesn't cause more 
problems than it solves.

On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, "(8?»" wrote:

> At 01:43 AM 6/6/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> 
>       On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, "(8?»" wrote:
> 
> > > Iraq is no longer designated "America Friendly", once they 
> > > decided to nationalize their oil supply. The Saudi royals are just as
> > > dependent on our protection, as we are for their oil. Although 
> > > they are trying to break free from this situation, in order to prevent
> > > another "Iranian Revolution". (An entire population will not stay 
> > > happily repressed to support US oil profits.)
> >
> > No offense, but if you really think this is a fair assessment of
> > anything as complicated as either contemporary Iranian history 
> > or the politics of the Arabian peninsula, then I guess the world 
> > must be a much simpler place than the one I've been hearing about.
> 
> First off, no offense taken.
> 
> Obviously it is a simplification, (no one could describe any
> historical event completely in a paragraph). The world isn't
> simple, but what drives it is, greed and control. I will be glad
> to start a thread of Mid-East policy if you think I'm
> short-changing reality.

I'm not that interested in starting such a thread, since there is a
metric ton of research on this topic which is way more insightful
than anything I could supply.  I do think it is worthwhile pointing
out that I disagree strongly with the notion that "greed and
control" are solely what drives the world.  I think the crucial
omissions here are anything related to what I will call "beliefs and
ideas", and possibly a separate notion of "national identity" 
(related both to belief and some notion of control, but possibly 
going beyond both).  It is probably debatable whether more blood is 
shed over pure greed or due to differences in ideology or religion, 
but the fact that this is not an absurd argument is important.  

So the Shah of Iran himself did not have many fans, although there
were (and are) supporters of what you could call "western ideals" in
Iran.  But it was the clash between that belief system and a form of
vigorous Shiite fundamentalism that was at least as explosive as the
resentment of economic inequality or the unfairness of the political
process (the latter really hasn't changed much for the better).  
Similarly, while the poverty of many in Saudi Arabia is obviously a
factor in their discontent with the royal family, groups like Al
Qaeda are not in fact organized around any kind of economic populism
but around religious fervor combined with (at least) a distrust of
western ideas (and the corrupting presence of foreign armed forces
in the country).

Now, where I think this gets very, very interesting is when you
realize that this is not just some weird crazy artifact of people in
the Middle East, but is easily observable even here in the Midwest.  
So I just came back into town from the Branson area (we were there
mostly for the lake rather than the music or the lack of anything
resembling a decent vegetable :-)).  One day we did indeed go to
Silver Dollar City since the six year old is a sucker for roller
coasters and the like.  We got there right at the opening, and while
I was messing around with the map trying to find a sufficiently
terrifying first ride, a voice from one of the stages made an
announcement and then the national anthem was being played over that
kind of "everywhere" loud speaker systems they have at theme parks.
(The kind of sound system that *doesn't* let you localize easily
where the music is coming from...that's not a technical explanation,
but you know what I mean I hope.) Within seconds, the hundreds or
thousands of people who were there all came to a screeching halt,
oriented in the direction of the (for most of them, unseen) stage
where they first did hear the announcement, and then did their whole
"salute the flag" routine *despite the fact that nobody anywhere
could actually see any flag*.  It was way more than eerie.  I found
it frankly a bit scary.  It was the kind of spontaneous
demonstration of *something* that, if it had been observed by
somebody contemplating some random terrorist act in this country,
probably would have made them think at least twice.

> Instead of stating that I'm not giving a "fair assessment", how
> about going the next step and actually tell me what I've said
> that isn't fair. It is really hard for me to clarify when you
> critique in generalities.  I can provide far more detail on my
> statements, but I would like to limit it to the ones you don't
> agree with.

The big one was the notion that world events are driven merely by
notions of greed and control.  A secondary one is that you really
can usefully simplify any of these situations into sweeping 
statement like:

> The Saudi royals are just as dependent on our protection, as we
> are for their oil.

Really, I guess my problem is that this misses so much and is the 
kind of conclusion that leads to no end of misunderstanding.  I am 
very likely over-reacting, but this is the kind of statement that 
has always struck me as defying argument or reason or discussion.
I know you didn't mean it that way, but there you go.
 
> 
> > > This same military purpose, also holds true for Argentina,
> > > Venezuela, and Columbia. US "National Interest" dictates 
> > > that we will remain involved in these regions to prevent 
> > > US oil companies from losing control.  Especially
> > > since the Saudi link started deteriorating last fall.
> >
> > This is just nonsense.  Of the 3 countries you have just 
> > mentioned, only Venezuela has petroleum reserves that are 
> > (at present) even a little bit interesting in terms of 
> > "controlling" world oil markets.  There is no doubt that
> > oil and energy companies exert undue influence at home and
> > abroad, but to claim that US oil interests have had anything
> > like control over the situation is just silly.  I mean, 
> > unless you'd like to argue that they went out of their way 
> > to lose their shirts in the 80s when OPEC set production 
> > targets at a level where prices collapsed (to name one
> > stupendous debacle).
> 
> First, please realize that the majority of gov. officials in
> this administration are from the OIL industry. They OWN our
> government. So no, it isn't "the industry" that is controlling
> policy, it is our oil administration.

Well, gosh, if the first thing I have to do is realize that whatever
you say is true, then I guess this will be a short argument, now
won't it?  The big problem here is the notion that "they" speak in
unison or that "they" can really implement any policy unilaterally
here or abroad or that "they" even have an opinion on or ability to
steer policy on anything but a small (albeit important) range of 
issues.
 
> For background, here is a report of US imports. (note the
> importance of Latin America)

Urk; I've got linkage problems again.
 
> Venezuela (4th largest US source in 2000) recently had a coup
> which Bush administration and corp media supported (they even
> went as far as announcing that Chavez had resigned).

What you say here is true.  We behaved so shamefully in this
incident that I am not sure when even a shred of US credibility in
the Americas can be regained.  On the other hand, this has nothing 
to do with the (in the big picture negligible) oil resources of 
Colombia and Argentina that you were discussing, or how US interests
there are controlled by oil companies.  If you want to find the 
special interest group who is *really* in pain over Argentina, think 
"banks".

> Can you guess where the new president of the day Pedro Carmona
> came from? Oil (As an executive and a lobbyist, but most US
> press listed him as a businessman, or an economist, much less
> descriptive terms.)

Please note that I do basically agree with your opinion on how nasty
the Venezuelan business is.  On the other hand, given the share of
Venezuelan GDP that is tied up in the petroleum industry and the
factor that oil is really *the* defining characteristic of Venezuela
on the world stage, I am not sure how surprised I should be about 
this fact.
 
> In Columbia (7th largest US source in 2000) , Bush has proposed
> providing $98M in aid to create a brigade to protect the oil
> pipeline owned by Occidental Oil.

Fine, but now tell me how much we are spending there on drug 
interdiction or other programs.  It's not that the special favors 
don't bug me, it's just that I don't see that they are the sole
or even predominant factors in this particular relationship.
 
> Argentina may not be as large a player, but still are big enough
> to attract the IMF/World Bank capital. Which, is a system
> designed to suck all the wealth of a country into the pockets of
> multi-national corps.  Gas and oil are a prime target.

Well, I see just a little bit of under-supported over-simplification 
going on here...

> We hear the administration talk of controlling the world's oil
> supply daily, they just use the phrase "national interest". 
> Currently every other part of the world economy is dependent on
> oil, and they are doing their damndest to keep it that way.

OK, so I'll let you in on this secret that is actually not very
secret.  Yes, oil companies have an unhealthy interest in expanding
or boosting their presumed importance in the big scheme of things.
Yes, they do unfairly wield undue influence on policy.  But at the
end of the day, people who see them as some all-controlling
illuminati miss the pretty important point that control over
physical commodities (and oil is just one of a bunch) is just not as
important as most people assume.  Yes, this is counter-intuitive,
but I would argue that it is true.  The biggest non-US oil producers
are places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico,
Russia, Norway, the UK...pretty much *not* a list of world powers
these days (apologies to those from Russia or the UK).  It is
absolutely convenient for the US to ensure that there are no sudden
changes in oil production, and very profitable for US oil companies
that they have a "most favored industry" status in this country. But
when petroleum one day has the kind of background importance that
commodities like lumber or iron ore have now, we really will have 
moved on.
 
[snip on Putin, Russian gas reserves, how tricky it is for people to
 take profits out of Russia etc.]

> I agree with your assessment of Russia, but I think the "in"
> revolves around Bush helping to increase Putin's power.  Also, I
> don't believe the fear of investment outweighs the greed
> concerning the potential profit, otherwise, we wouldn't be
> helping destroy Colombia.

Well, I'm not sure I agree with your opinion on what is happening 
for what reason in Colombia, a true basket case if there ever was 
one these days.

US policy in the former Soviet Union has been frankly very weird for
sometime now, but the one constant aspect has been the US preference
for *somebody* to have lots of power (whether it's Gorbachev,
Yeltsin, or Putin doesn't seem to have been hugely important despite
obvious differences between these 3 leaders), just as long as that
somebody can prevent the remainder of the former Soviet armed forces
from being a completely rogue element, and keep some semblance of a
lid on the spread of nuclear arms and technology throughout the
world.

jking


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