Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

Of course there are parallels Bart. The US "cornering" actions upon Iran via banking are indeed precisely that - fully intended cornering actions.

You may agree however that to extract these actions from the present general context and present them utterly sanitized of any contextual background would constitute "highly edited reportage", which distorts their meaning, let alone any balanced evaluation of their justification.

A very convincing argument can be made that cornering Iran right now is "not constructive", but then the full objectivity of that argument is somewhat discredited if you apparently consciously omit describing as "relevant context" that unequivocal evidence has accrued and dragged on for the past two years +, that the Iranians were indeed systematically bankrolling, arming and training not only the rogue Sadr Militia in Basra who are actively subverting an extremely delicate Iraqi government.

And yes, ANY coherent multi-ethnic government in Iraq is much better than NO government! All of us who favor any solution avoiding the disintegration of Iraq into ethnic factions, please raise your hands! It appears the Iranians have been actively engaged in bankrolling, arming, and training factions who wish to subvert that goal. Hello? Any comments on the scruple or constructiveness of this Iranian aim here?

As if that were not enough to damn the apparently quite reckless Iranian machinations in the region, for good measure they are (quite demonstrably, if you are willing to look) bankrolling, arming and training also the Hezbollah in Lebanon AND Hamas in Gaza? Excuse me, that is fully THREE countries in the region which Iran is actively fostering rogue militias within? Not worth your passing comment as context to your above objections?

Excuse me - you wish to establish objective credentials for critiquing US government's increasingly strenuous efforts to put critical presssure upon Iran, but you don't wish to acknowledge these actions by Iran to foment fully THREE separate rogue militias in THREE separate countries in the region?

What are we wishing to term this kind of activity in the region: "constructive Iranian engagement" perhaps - or is it all fabrication and lies by the lackey US press?? I read around, and I happen to know it's entirely true. Anybody wish to argue otherwise?

Let's hear you guys openly and frankly acknowledge these things are REAL - THEN we can have an objective discussion of what's required or wise to undertake to curtail Iran's out of control support for militias in the region. They are not just standing militias - they are all three ACTIVELY SHOOTING AND BOMBING militias.

I would suggest, it's only by all of us reaching for the truly objective middle ground, that such "misunderstandings" are resolved constructively. Painting the US Govt's actions here as existing in some sort of quixotic limbo, devoid of any contextual basis is nonsense, at least in my view, and you proponents of this "gross US irresponsibility" need to be called fully to account to explain whether you regard the above extenuating circumstances to be "minor details".

[bart]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

...
And Rajiv we all know is orbiting right up there in the stratosphere in terms of his breadth of reading
...

And there are some mild parallels between the current banking actions, and what the U.S. and Japan were doing in the 1930s regarding trade.

[touchring]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

i don't believe that a new war is in plan this year, but i do believe that the risk of a terror attack has increased - they would love to shake the market with all the bad news on banking.

[krakknisse]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

1. Definite: Financial blockade.
2. Suggestive: Attack on Mahdi Army, a strong Shiite player.
3. Suggestive: Admiral Fallon resigns.
4. Speculative: withdrawal of Russian staff at Bushehr autumn 2007.
4. Rumors, just rumors, of an April attack.

We'll have to see. Difficult to be anywhere near certain. How would an Iran attack work out for one's personal investments, in the long and short term?

To this list, I forgot to add:
5. Suggestive: three or four Internet fiber-optic cable breaks in the Middle East, with little in the way of explanation to suggest a purely natural cause.

[Rajiv]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

Here is an interview with John McGlynn the author of the piece

[media]http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_03_26_mcglynn.mp3[/media]

Another piece in the Sydney Morning Herald along the same lines

And a discussion of this at the Duckpond - WAR DECLARED?

A particularly relevant quote from the Duckpond

I had not realized until I listened to the interview the significance of the time delay between the application of financial strangulation and the effect Iranians, which may make it impossible to acquire life saving medications. The analogy with aerial warfare does hold in that however precise it may claim to be, civilians are inevitably in the area, and inevitably suffer and get killed, and those who do the killing are remote from the consequences of the act, so there is no human response of remorse or guilt. It is, as Admiral Fallon was reported to have observed, like crushing ants.

The violence of our attitudes and of social forms can be hidden from conscience, however destructive and painful the implications are for “the other”, whoever is so-defined in that role. Imagination is the human weapon for which we have a responsibility to employ against both criminal negligence and war. The duty is not be virtuous, but to act with foresight and be responsible, to recognize our “duty of care” towards other people.

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

No matter, Krakknisse and Rajiv are two very smart guys. I pay my full respects to them both. Krakknisse who only showed up here weeks ago is posting a lot of really condensed wisdom in a lot of his comments. And Rajiv we all know is orbiting right up there in the stratosphere in terms of his breadth of reading, and his personal modesty I find exemplary.

[metalman]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)

glad this got moved to rant n' rave. no fan o' bush but to call this a declaration of war is goofy.

[Rajiv]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

FinCEN or whatever it is

the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

There's a lot of tinfoil crap in this thread.

Agreed. Proponents of this stuff should wait another two months and then climb down from their feverish opinions.

[rj1]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

There's a lot of tinfoil crap in this thread.

And FinCEN or whatever it is, the measures will fail. Why? Iran has oil. And people buy it from them.

[bill]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

The question is, why is Iran considered such a serious threat?

This is Bush’s wrap up phase and tensions are high. Iraq ’s oil production agreements are now surfacing and awarded companies want to ramp up production. With more oil coming on line price stability is of great concern. Will Iran be given the new 10 yr sanction package after military action? I don’t know but someone in the neighborhood has to reduce production if Iraq ’s to ramp up. Iran is not only a dollar destabilize problem when it comes to oil sales, also a direct threat to the region if they obtain nuclear weapons.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...-Oil-Deals.php

Iraqi cabinet gives green light to oil ministry to sign oil deals

March 5, 2008
BAGHDAD: Iraq's cabinet has given the green light to the Oil Ministry to sign agreements with international oil companies to help increase the nation's crude output, a ministry official said Wednesday.
The two-year deals, known as technical support agreements, or TSAs, are designed to develop five producing fields to add 500,000 barrels per day to the country's current 2.4 million barrels per day output.
Last December, Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB), BP PLC (BP), ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX) submitted technical and financial proposals for the five oil fields and received counterproposals from the Iraqi side.
Speaking to reporters as he arrived for a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, al-Shahristani said the Oil Ministry was still working on the compensation details with the Development Fund of Iraq, controlled by the U.S. and the U.N.
According to the Oil Ministry official, BP will submit a proposal for the Rumaila oil field, Chevron for West Qurna stage 1, Exxon for Zubair, and Shell for Missan and Kirkuk.
Iraq's average production was 2.4 million barrels per day in January while exports stood at an average of 1.92 million barrels per day. December's exports averaged 1.81 million barrels per day.
In dire need of expertise from international oil companies to achieve the Oil Ministry's target of 3 million barrels per day by the end of 2008

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../BU5PVPNP8.DTL

Chevron reportedly in talks to tap Iraq's oil


David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Chevron Corp. and other international oil companies are negotiating with the Iraq Ministry of Oil to begin tapping into some of the country's largest oil fields, according to published reports.
Specifically, the companies are negotiating for two-year contracts that would help Iraq boost production at existing oil fields.
For years, the companies have had their eyes on long-term contracts to find and develop new oil fields in Iraq, which is believed to hold the world's third-largest oil reserves. The contracts under discussion are far more limited than that, but they represent an important step in opening Iraq's oil industry to foreign involvement after years of state control.
San Ramon's Chevron already has held discussions with the Iraqi Oil Ministry about one of the short-term contracts, according to reports in the Associated Press, Dow Jones, Reuters and United Press International news services. BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total also are pursuing the contracts.
Chevron won't confirm or deny those reports, a company spokesman said Monday. But Chevron has repeatedly expressed an interest in Iraq. The company has provided free technical training to Iraqi oil engineers in the five years since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein.
"Generally, Chevron is interested in helping Iraq develop its industry, and we'd very much like to partner with them to help fulfill the government's production objectives," said spokesman Kurt Glaubitz.
The country's state-run oil industry has struggled with aging machinery and insurgent attacks on oil facilities since the invasion. Production averaged 2.4 million barrels per day in February, according to the Platts energy information service. Before the invasion, production averaged 2.5 million barrels per day.
But efforts to increase production and develop new fields have been stymied by Iraqi politics, as well as the widespread belief among Iraqis that the United States toppled Hussein to gain control of the country's oil.
Most of Iraq's known oil fields lie in the Kurdish north or the Shiite south. As a result, Sunnis who live in central Iraq worry that they could be cut out of any future oil boom. For several years, legislators from the three groups have argued over a proposed law that would divide oil revenue among the country's regions and set ground rules for foreign oil companies that want to work in Iraq.
The short-term contracts, called technical support agreements, may be an attempt by the Oil Ministry to make an end-run around legislators. The Iraqi Cabinet reportedly approved the move.
"It was a way to get things going without calling it a production agreement," said Frank Verrastro, director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They've been sitting in abeyance for two years while oil prices have gone up. I think there's a growing realization (in the Iraqi government) that, 'Had we done this sooner, we'd be a lot better off today.' "
Under the technical support agreements, the oil companies would be providing studies, analysis, equipment and expertise at existing fields - not hunting for new ones. Exploring and developing new oil fields would require passage of the long-stalled oil law.
Chevron reportedly is negotiating for an agreement to help expand production at the West al-Qurna oil field, near Basra in southern Iraq. The ministry also wants to sign technical support agreements for the Rumaila and Zubair fields nearby, as well as the Kirkuk oil field in the north. And in what could be an effort to appease Sunnis, the ministry also said last weekend that it wants to develop the Akkas natural gas field in a Sunni-dominated corner of western Iraq.
The proposed oil law has often come under criticism from anti-war activists, who fear that the Iraqi government will be pressured into handing over too much control of its oil. The short-term agreements may not assuage those fears.
"My concern with these agreements is that they appear to be more than anything else a foot in the door, an opening for the oil companies while debate rages on over the long-term contracts," said Antonia Juhasz, author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World One Economy at a Time."
"It's for the Iraqis to decide the appropriate role of U.S. oil corporations in Iraq," she said. "The only time to be able to have this kind of negotiation is when there's no longer an occupation."

[Rajiv]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

We are talking about the basis of the Western financial system here -- something we all take for granted and god given -- compound interest

Hudson alluded to this in his interview when he talks about interest being at the base of the current crisis

H: Well the problem is that when banks create credit this credit bears an interest charge. The interest charge absorbs more and more money from the economy at large and deflates it and at a point this prevents the debtors from repaying and there is a break in the chain of payments. And that’s what cancels out money in the way that Irving Fischer described.

What we are talking about is a financial system without "interest"

[Mega]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

"secret financial weapon that keeps a global banking empire in power. . "

?

I don't think that they do it, i mean WHY????.............They are already in deep trouble.

Mike

[Rajiv]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

krakknisse,

See also two articles by Ellen Brown

BEHIND THE DRUMS OF WAR WITH IRAN:
NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR COMPOUND INTEREST?

In the latest escalation of tensions with Iran, on January 5, 2008 five Iranian patrol boats surrounded three U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz, coming within a "threatening" 200 meters. A voice with a thick accent then said in English, "I am coming at you – you will explode in a couple of minutes." The U.S. ships prepared to strike, when the patrol boats backed off. That is how the Pentagon told it, but Iranians have questioned where the threatening voice came from, and Pentagon officials have admitted that they could not confirm that it came directly from the Iranian crews involved. They have also admitted that the voice and the video film were recorded separately, adding to the mysterious circumstances.1

Skeptical observers might think that the two countries were being goaded into World War III – either that, or that someone wanted to convince American viewers that Iran indeed remained a threat, despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) finding that the country is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program as formerly alleged. Before President George W. Bush left for his Middle East visit on January 8, he told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, "Part of the reason I'm going to the Middle East is to make it abundantly clear to nations in that part of the world that we view Iran as a threat, and that the NIE in no way lessens that threat."2 Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said in a recent MSNBC news broadcast that there is still a "great possibility" of nuclear action against Iran. The target has just shifted from nuclear power plants to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has been declared a terrorist organization. Paul said, "[T]here are still quite a few neoconservatives who want to go after Iran under these unbelievable conditions."3

The question is, why? One popular theory holds that the push for war is all about oil; but many countries have oil, and we don't normally invade them to get their assets. Why go to war for Iran's oil when we can just buy it?

WHY IS IRAN STILL IN THE CROSS-HAIRS?
CLUES FROM THE PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

On October 25, 2007, the United States announced harsh new penalties on the Iranian military and its state-owned banking systems. Sanctions, bellicose rhetoric and the implicit threat of military action are goads for another war, one that critics fear is more likely to ignite a nuclear holocaust than prevent one. The question is, why is Iran considered such a serious threat? The official explanation is that it is planning to develop nuclear weapons. But the head of the UN watchdog agency IAEA says he has "no concrete evidence" of an Iranian weapons program.¹ And even if there were one, a number of countries have tested or possess nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including Pakistan, North Korea, India, and probably Israel; yet we don't consider that grounds for military action. Iran would just be joining a long list of nuclear powers.

Another theory says the push for war is all about oil; but Iran supplies only 15 percent of total Persian Gulf oil exports, and its oil is already for sale.² We don't need to go to war for it. We can just buy it.

A third theory says the saber-rattling is about defending the dollar. Iran is threatening to open its own oil bourse, and it is already selling about 85 percent of its oil in non-dollar currencies. Iran has broken the petrodollar stranglehold imposed in the 1970s, when OPEC entered into a covert agreement with the United States to sell oil only in U.S. dollars. As Dr. Krassimir Petrov explained this suspected motive in a 2006 editorial in Gold-Eagle.com:

As long as the dollar was the only acceptable payment for oil, its dominance in the world was assured, and the American Empire could continue to tax the rest of the world. If, for any reason, the dollar lost its oil backing, the American Empire would cease to exist. Thus, Imperial survival dictated that oil be sold only for dollars. . . . If someone demanded a different payment, he had to be convinced, either by political pressure or military means, to change his mind.³

An interesting theory, but it still fails to explain all the facts. In a March 2006 editorial in Asia Times Online, William Engdahl noted that war with Iran has been in the cards as part of the U.S. Greater Middle East strategy since the 1990s, long before Iran threatened to open its own oil bourse.⁴ And Iran is not alone in wanting to drop the dollar as its oil currency. To curb currency risks, Russia is planning to open an Energy Stock Exchange in St. Petersburg next year to trade oil in rubles, something that will have significantly more impact on the dollar than Iran's oil bourse. Central bankers in Venezuela, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates have all said they will be investing less of their reserves in dollar assets due to the dollar's weakening global position.⁵ When those countries switch to other currencies for their oil trades, will the United States feel compelled to invade them as well?

These theories all have some merit, but none of them seems sufficient to explain the war drums. What is so special about Iran? Here is another possibility: Iran poses a serious threat, not only to oil and the dollar, but to a secret financial weapon that keeps a global banking empire in power. . . .

[krakknisse]

Re: Rumors: Iran bombing April 4th-6th

All I'm reading here is that the US has notified other banks that that it intends to uphold international agreements with respect to money flows to organizations that are known to finance extremist groups that oppose the west and expects these other banks to, also. Where's the news never mind declaration of war?

The news is the expansion of the financial blockade. From my reading of this, it will be near impossible to get funds in or out of Iran. The Central Bank of Iran itself will be on the sanctions list. Iran is the third largest oil exporter in the world (2 million barrels/day). Any banks with links to the US will be hit with sanctions if they trade with Iran. Remember, I'm not saying this is right or wrong. I'm just saying this will really increase tensions. The attack on Pearl Harbor was not totally out of the blue - the oil embargo put Japan in a terrible position. A financial blockade is likely to be as provocative.

The rest is just blips on a radar screen, but to be watched.