http://www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html

It seems the US has sabotaged other countries oil production capabilities to drive the prices up.....

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

"Please Help To Maintain the Flow of Intelligence"

Wouldn't I have to be intelligent in order to do that?

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

Non-industrial agriculture reached it's zenith in the late 1800's. Most arable land was in production and yet, there was mass starvation in Asia, resulting in repeated waves of emigration from Asia to the USA, Canada, and Latin America. In the late 1800's, industrial, scientific agriculture began competing directly with scientific (but non-industrial) and traditional farming. At that time, scientists projected that the carrying capacity of the planet would be reached within a few decades. (Carrying capacity is the population that can survive on a given food source).

It looks like those predictions were fairly close. Mass starvations became more frequent and more severe in Asia and Africa until the 1950's or so. Hundreds of millions of humans were in a state of near starvation for their whole lives from the late 1800's until the 1950's. During that interval of time the world population grew from about 1.5 Bn to about 3 Bn. Industrial, scientific agriculture worked a major miracle. It fed everybody in wealthy countries and began producing huge surpluses. Additionally, industrial ag made substantial gains against traditional ag. Even though the populations continued to grow, there were actual worldwide surpluses in food production. Nowadays people starve because of poverty and poor food distribution systems, not from lack of food.

The Earth's population is about 6 Bn human beings. We have far exceeded the pre-industrial carrying capacity of the planet.

Let's make a list of raw materials necessary to maintain industrial agriculture.

Ores of iron, copper, aluminum, titanium, magnesium and trace metals.

Coal.

Petroleum.

If any of these raw materials came under the control of some evil person, that person could wreck the world's economy at a minimum or cause the mass starvation of perhaps 3 billion human beings and incedentally, wreck the economy.

All of those raw materals are found on every continent. Most are fairly widely distributed. Africa for example, has an abundance of all of them, yet is the only continent with endemic starvation. (Why? That's a subject for another thread).

Only oen of those raw materials is found predominantly in one area of the globe--petroleum. about 3/4 of the proven reserves of petroleum are within 1,500 miles of the Persian Gulf. If you happen to be in the center of that region, say the Tigris and Euphrates estuary, 3/4ths of the world's oil supply is within easy range of medium-range missles.

So lets postulate a person who has demonstrated ruthlessness in attaining and holding absolute power; has developed and weaponized poison gas; has an active nuclear research program (unkindly set-back by those gosh-darned Israelis); has repeated called for using petroleum as a weapon to control the world; has repeatedly invaded or tried to invade and/or intimidate his neighbors; and after suffering a complete collapse of his military continues to defy international demands that he fully and compeltely divulge everything about his weapons systems and their disposition. Further, lets assume that he has terrorist training camps within his border and pays suicide bombers to attack other nation's civilian population and has continuously and unrepentently thraetened war against the USA.

The UN embargo was colapsing (ask the French, Russians, and Germans about that. They wanted it lifted for the starving children of Iraq. The billions of dollars in bribes of course, had nothing to do with it.)

So they guy is rearming and increasingly gaining control of his country and threatens 3/4 of the world's oil reserves. If he gains control through whatever means he chooses, would he #1 suddenly get religion, give his money to orphanagesa nd go on a hadj or #2 carry-out the threats he'd been making for 40 years?

What would be the consequence of shutting-down petroleum production.

Well, fertilizers and pesticides require petroleum; fuel for tractors and transportation requires petroleum; and of course, so does heating, cooking and manufacturing. Suddenly 3/4ths is no longer on the market. How long would it take the world to make-up the difference? Would it be before economic collapse? Before mass starvation began? If (say) China, Pakistan, and India (all with nukes) had starving populations, where and how would they seek relief?

therefore, I think it is massively humanitarian to depose that murderous mofo and kill his two barking-mad boys and kill or jail his top leadership and kill as many of his followers as care to volunteer themselves. By doing so, we avoid global economic collapse, mass starvation, and possibly nuclear war.

Yes, I'd support doing all again and without a better plan, I'd support doing it exactly has it was done. It is that important.

Bot

Hey B,

I agree with your commentary, however, I must ask, do you think that the Iraqi oil supply is safe now , with all the insurgents who can strike anywhere, anytime?

From the outside looking in, I would say yes. It would make no sense to invade the country,remove a dictator, endure thousands of lost soldiers and Iraqi civilians, not to fortify and protect the oil infrastructure.

Or else they would have done it by now.

I see a permanent military outpost, or "civilian" contractors guarding those pipelines for the unforseeable future.

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Enough about me, how are you doing?

According to this guy's web site, all I have to do is go out in my back yard and dig a hole deep enough and I'll have my own oil well

Let guess - perhaps the US Air Force could use him as a punching bag for 12 years ? Or perhaps we could keep him contained with sanctions, resulting in his military machine becoming a decreipt laughing stock? Or perhaps we could just shoot the bastard, and let the unstable nature of his regime take care of the rest?

NO WAIT! I HAVE A BETTER IDEA! LET"S LIE ABOUT HIM, KILL KIDS IN HIS COUNTRY SO EVERYONE CAN SEE IT ON TV SO WE END UP LOOKING JUST LIKE HIM! LETS SPEND $750 BILLION DOLLARS AND THOUSANDS OF LIVES ON SECURING HIS COUNTRY, WHICH IS JUST GOING TO GO TO HELL AGAIN AFTER WE GET OUR ASSES BOOTED OUT BY OUR OWN PUBLIC!

Haven't done any of these things yet. Are you suggesting we try? Or are you just one of those "Hate Bush and make up lies" types?

Want to read what's really happening by a politically neutral observer that reports from the middle of the action instead of the Baghdad hotels' swimming pools? Read Michael Yon's blog and get your head out of your ass.

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Norm in NJ
Next oil change at 230,000miles

Iragi oil is far less secure now than it has been at any time over the entire course of Saddam's 30-year absolute dictatorship.

One course we could have taken would be to watch the UN sanctions continue to crumble as more and more French, german, and Russian politicians dipped their wicks into Saddam's pool of oil bribery.

Another would have been to give him a BJ and fawn over him like we did the Shah of Iran and the Saudi Princes. That has worked very effectively in Saudi Arabia. Not quite so effective in Iran.

In any case, Saddam would have been uncontrolled, allowing him to resume his long-stated ambition of controlling 3/4 of the planetary source of petroleum. Saddam in control of the world economy would have been interesting.

It was cheaper and easier to take him out while he was weak and had no allies. Good riddance.

I figure it will take Iraq 8-10 more years to become a stable democracy (if they don't devolve into civil war). Saddam hosted terrorist training camps for a couple dozen years. He also formally trained a 15,000 man 5th column force. Those groups comprise the bulk of the current insurgency. Until they are dissuaded or killed, they will keep Iraq unsettled and dangerous. We are killing them at a rate of a couple hundred per month and jailing another couple hundred per month. We are killing or capturing even more untrained new recruits. It will take a long time to go through them all. Hopefully Iraqis themselves will take a greater role as their government gains democratic legitimacy.

One thing is certain, there is no formal training for replacement of Saddam's cadre. They have no safe haven anywhere. They have no external state sponsorship. They have no large-scale resupply. They have support limited to their tribal origins and a few non-state foreign groups. There is NO broad support for them. Those are key differences from Viet Nam.

Bot

“ Let's make a list of raw materials necessary to maintain industrial agriculture.

Ores of iron, copper, aluminum, titanium, magnesium and trace metals.

Coal.

Petroleum.

If any of these raw materials came under the control of some evil person, that person could wreck the world's economy at a minimum or cause the mass starvation of perhaps 3 billion human beings and incedentally, wreck the economy.”

I wrote my MA thesis on the topic of genetics and agribusiness between 1930 and 1960. Petrol products played a distant 3rd role compared to the development of hybridization, vastly increased irrigation and also greatly enhanced education in agricultural techniques.

To this day petrol products (fertilizers and pesticides) are not as important as are irrigation and continued development of preferred strains of crops. Not to suggest that petrol products don’t play a role, but they are not the core component your comments makes them to be.

WRT the war, Bush could have and ought to have given the people of the USA a choice between an aggressive assault in the name of subsidizing Detroit, or to offer a choice to pursue energy efficiency in the extreme. But he didn’t offer any choice. The result is that were all miss-lead. The jury is still out on weather we were lied to, but it appears more and more that that was the case. At this point the very least that could be said was all to convenient a case of incompetence. And that’s a case which has been repeatedly demonstrated by Bush et al.

The truth of the matter is that we could easily maintain our agricultural production and reduce our consumption of oil by at least 50%. The primary difference would be smaller cars.

Scared and insecure men start wars, incompetent and inept men drag them out without end, and those are the hallmarks of the Bush admin.

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...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

The truth of the matter is that to avoid catastrophic economic collapse, it would have to be a gradual, protracted evolution, not a sudden cessation.

I believe you may confuse my reasons for supporting the war with Bush's justification. He provided a list and you choose the members of the list you find important. Mine wasn't on his list. Too bad.

Frankly, I don't much care what politicians say or claim or promise. I like what happened and fully support it. You can have all the politicians in the world, I don't give a damn.

I'm not attacking you. I'm pointing out that your supposition about the role of petrol in agriculture is not correct.

No change occurs without the willingness to try. The current admin is afraid to even try. I suspect they aren’t alone in that fear and the evidence suggests they will state anything to perpetuate the state of fear that they and they alone created.

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...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

This reminds me of the recent SC ruling on eminent domain; sovereignty over land and resources is entirely transient. If the US (acting as sole arbiter) decides to assume control of your land and resources, either submit to our demands or perish. We dare not call this imperialism, cuz that would be offensive and off-puting, and we ALWAYS wear the white hat, dontcha know.

Amen to that. Iraq is an important strategic area for many reasons, not all of them oil related. We need to have a hand in controlling the region.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone