Look for them in Beijing...

There's not enough oil left in Saudi reserve deposits to fuel a jet flight to Washington.

This is their way of trying to tell us to fold to terrorists and give up on Iraq and Afghanistan. Obviously, we can't listen to them.

Which is obvious to all conservatives because Bush would never fold to terrorists.

Yes. On all three questions.

If you are a Prince you don't eat dinner with the hired help unless you are really hungry.

It's management's way of letting the hired help know they are not amused.

"Among the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities -- grain and meat, oil and coal and steel -- consumption in China has eclipsed that of the United States in all but oil." Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute

They'll overtake us in oil consumption within a year or two at current rates. Notwithstanding the new strike (maybe 2.2 Billion barrels/200,000bbd and not enough to meet .4% of their current consumption) the Saudi can smell money and power the way sharks can smell blood.

Would this have anything to do with the rumors of an Anglo-American campaign against Iran on the 17th of April?

Maybe they decided if they wanted to eat with animals they could go to their local zoo.

They're probably afraid of missing the cable guy.

I suspect it is because the "surge" is only being directed at the Sunnis--the Shia are mostly lying low--(well except for the folks who went on the rampage in Tel Afar)-and we have not attacked Iran yet. Dumbya is an idiot, but the folks around him are not. There is only one reason why he is so stubborn about Iraq and Iran--the Saudis want us to protect the Sunnis from the Shias and Iran. When folks say we can not win in Iraq they are right.

He doesn't know. Neither do I.

George Bush isn't too popular in the Middle East, Kev. Middle East leaders dining with Dubya right now would be like you having your picture taken with Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay at a Scottish golf outing.

There may not be anything wrong with it, but it doesn't look right...

Maybe they are afraid of Jim Webb.

Al: "Which is obvious to all conservatives because Bush would never fold to terrorists."

Have no idea what "folding" means in this case, but your boy is an abject and utter failure at everything else--as 70% of Americans plainly see at this point. But if you know of a poker game where Dum-Dum can take on Al Qaeda, I'm sure they would be happy to "play" him there too.

The Saudi king has announced (or at least told Drudge) that the US occupation of Iraq is illegitimate.

In my view this gives us a clear window of opportunity to leave, because this is as if he were saying 'we can handle it from here, thanks'.

So, everything from now on is their fault.

I think they discovered that George Bush and Dick Cheney are toxic!

"800 words later he really doesn't have an explanation for this."

Well... from the article Hoagland postulates:
"Abdullah's bowing out of the April 17 event is, in fact, one more warning sign that the Bush administration's downward spiral at home is undermining its ability to achieve its policy objectives abroad. Friends as well as foes see the need, or the chance, to distance themselves from the politically besieged Bush."

I disagree with Hoagland's thesis here. He is implying that if Bush was getting his way domestically he would have the visitors. I think that Bush simply has fucked up too much shit in their neighborhood and it does nothing but hurt the Saudis to be seen cavorting with the US. They (the Saudis) see that they have to take on the business of getting the region stabilized on their own. I think indirectly Hoagland has a point-- in that Bush is a lame duck. Who wants to make deals with somebody who is just going to go away soon? Will promises be kept? Not likely.

I loved seeing these two right next to each other:

If you are a Prince you don't eat dinner with the hired help unless you are really hungry.

Posted by: Ron Byers on March 28, 2007 at 12:43 PM |

It's management's way of letting the hired help know they are not amused.

Posted by: Dr. Morpheus on March 28, 2007 at 12:46 PM |

Because we couldn't mind our own business, and stay out of their affairs, we now find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of having to "pick a side" in the Middle East.

Sunni? Shia? Israel? We can no longer play them off against eachother. They're wising up. Either way we play the Sunni/Shia game, we lose half our middle-east oil supply. Right now; the Sunnis (Saudis) are producing more oil. But they're peaking. In ten years, will it be more in our interest to back Iran (Shia)? One imagines poor, impoverished, Saudi and Kuwaiti sheiks, on the run, in political exile in South America, or France. . .

I think they discovered that George Bush and Dick Cheney are toxic!
Posted by: mfw13

They can read election returns. They don't care that they are toxic. They were bought outright and the investment is going south.

They've got guys from the Wharton School and the London School of Economics on the payroll, too. Guys who didn't get in as legacies.

Perhaps the Saudi King does not want to eat at the pleasure of the President.

One imagines poor, impoverished, Saudi and Kuwaiti sheiks, on the run, in political exile in South America, or France. . .
Posted by: Extradite Rumsfeld

Know whether Bandar has any takers on that 60,000 square foot offense against taste and decency in Aspen yet? He put it on the market 2 years ago.

The Iranians are releasing a British female marine --and they're making her take a note to her parents.

Blue Girl, Red State (aka G.C)

The doctor morph and Ron are way cool!

Yes indeed, all three. They have lost patience.
Bush's incompetence in Iraq worries them.
Bush's possible/probable attack on Iran (out of weakness and kowtowing to Israel) scares them, because they know that Iran will retaliate by flattening their oil installations (Very harmful to us BTW)

They are massively patient. It is very hot out there, so most things happen slowly, but they have seen the "tipping point" for Bush, just as they saw the tipping point for Johnson when he did nothing after the Israeli Air Force destroyed the USS Liberty in 1967.

They know from what they hear directly from the WH and also from Palestine what Rice is saying that Bush is continuing to follow the AIPAC/PNAC/neocon line.

On top of that they, not having a pathetic and lying MSM, know that Iraq is a lost Occupation. They know we won the War, but they now see Bush's failed Occupation as being pathetically inept. They would not have liked it, but would have put up, grudgingly, with a colonized Iraq run efficiently and fairly.

I missed out my last para.....

The US is fast becoming a junior player on the world stage, thanks to Bush. Iranian oil is now traded in Euros: watch the rest follow and watch the dollar go down the pan. China owns the US: India's economy is bursting forward: Russia has 60% of the world's oil reserves and a better education system.

bush has massively harmed our futures, and most important to ME, my social security.

Extradite Rumsfeld

Ahem --- it is the Iranians presently-known reserves which are running down more quickly than the Sa'udis, so the other way round. This is why, mostly, they are trying to build their own nuclear power sources.

RE: India

On India’s Growing Violence: ‘It’s Outright War and Both Sides are Choosing Their Weapons’
by Arundhati Roy

The following is an interview with Arundhati Roy, conducted by Shoma Chaudhury of Tehelka.

Q: There is an atmosphere of growing violence across the country. How do you read the signs? In what context should it be read?

A; You don’t have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, reared on a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing Western countries, which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labor to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts. We’ve begun to eat our own limbs. The greed that is being generated (and marketed as a value interchangeable with nationalism) can only be sated by grabbing land, water and resources from the vulnerable. What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India — the secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. It’s a vertical secession, not a lateral one. They’re fighting for the right to merge with the world’s elite somewhere up there in the stratosphere. They’ve managed to commandeer the resources, the coal, the minerals, the bauxite, the water and electricity. Now they want the land to make more cars, more bombs, more mines — supertoys for the new supercitizens of the new superpower. So it’s outright war, and people on both sides are choosing their weapons. The government and the corporations reach for structural adjustment, the World Bank, the ADB, FDI, friendly court orders, friendly policy makers, help from the ‘friendly’ corporate media and a police force that will ram all this down people’s throats. Those who want to resist this process have, until now, reached for dharnas, hunger strikes, satyagraha, the courts and what they thought was friendly media. But now more and more are reaching for guns. Will the violence grow? If the ‘growth rate’ and the Sensex are going to be the only barometers the government uses to measure progress and the well-being of people, then of course it will. How do I read the signs? It isn’t hard to read sky-writing. What it says up there, in big letters, is this: the shit has hit the fan, folks.'

Published on Thursday, March 22, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Down-To-A-Trickle Economics
by Stan Cox

India’s entrance into world markets has meant bigger profits for multinational corporations and cheaper shirts and software for Western consumers.

It is also helping to brew a dark stew of air pollution that may bring widespread drought and hunger to South Asia.

Mile-and-a-half-thick “atmospheric brown clouds” composed of sulfates, nitrates and old-fashioned soot now blanket most of the subcontinent and the northern Indian Ocean from October to May each year.

Visible from space and from Earth as a dull haze, the clouds choke off precipitation by shading and cooling the ocean, while retaining moisture rather than releasing it as rain.

Most ominously, says an international team of scientists led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.N. Environment Program, the brown clouds may weaken the offshore weather system that brings monsoon rains to South Asia.

These scientists’ models project that droughts in the region could go from the current two to three years per decade up to six or more years per decade, imperiling the food supply of almost 2 billion people.

Since the early 1990s, the doors of India’s economy have swung wide open to foreign investment and trade, fossil-fuel consumption has accelerated, and the brown clouds have swelled.

India’s breakneck growth of recent years has been fueled by $57 billion in foreign investment since 1991 -- $38 billion of that since 2000 -- and exports that reached $20 billion to the United States in 2006. The foreign investment total for all the years before 1991 was less than half a billion dollars.

Western corporations that do business in India are cheering the growth not from the sidelines but from the playing field. They overlook the murky clouds belched by electric power plants -- more than half fueled by coal -- and by a crush of gas and diesel vehicles that grows by the thousands every day. Efforts to pass and enforce Western-level pollution standards have fallen far short of what's needed.

Most of the boom’s gains have gone to a relative few. Statistics and the naked eye confirm that the gap between scattered pockets of prosperity and vast expanses of deprivation is growing.

In pre-boom 1990, India ranked among the bottom one-third of countries in the U.N. “human development index,” which measures people’s chances of achieving a long, healthy life and decent standard of living. In 2006, after years of rapid economic growth, India ranked even lower in that bottom one-third.

The new economy’s fruits may not have been shared widely, but its environmental ravages certainly have. Among the worst of those, urban air pollution has increased respiratory illness among rich and poor alike. And brown clouds could tip rural areas from chronic hardship into drought-stricken crisis.

“Trickle-down” economics never works as advertised. In India, it may mutate into “down-to-a-trickle” economics.

[snip]

I think the conventional wisdom is that yes, the Iranians are running out of oil more quickly.. but it seems that whenever Western oil companies have a near unfettered hand in developing fields.. those countries seem to have very high proven reserves, whereas countries which have had little or no foreign investment (or stifled investment due to sanctions) seem to be lacking in reserves. The CIA thought Russia was going to be a net importer of oil by 2000 back in the '80's when Reagan was arming the mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Just a hunch, but if Iraqi and Iranian oil industries were open to major foreign investment I wouldn't be surprised that their proven reserves start going up rather than down. The Iranian nuclear power industry makes sense regardless however. They have a relatively high population compared to the other oil producers in the region and they need to export more oil rather than use it so they can have more foreign currency for imports.

Russian media reporting possible attack on Iran on April 6th (Good Friday). Russian personnell working on reactors pulled out of Iran last week (reportly for non-payment of bills).

Doc at the Radar Station

It seems the Iranians are pretty good at looking for oil --- and both Russians and French have been there. It must be possible there is more oil in the northern corner adjacent to Kazakhstan...... but you are so right, they do need alternative sources.

Perhaps this is a pace to remind us all that Persia had a civilization when our ancestors were a lot more primitive, and the Iraqis, too....... where did astronomy come from? Where did the Greeks get mathematics?

Halliburton's CEO keeping Gulf Stream fueled and on the tarmac...

Maunga,

I really didn't fully elaborate my thoughts. I've got a feeling that when *Western* oil companies are greatly involved.. the tendency is to inflate proven reserves. That could be just blatant profiteering (it helps their bottom line to be involved in developing more rather than less oil), OR it could be simply "owning" the information tends to make the reserves look more optimistic.

Bush has made America poisonous to our good and our merely convenient friends worldwide.

Bush has made America poisonous to our good and our merely convenient friends worldwide.
Posted by: gex

And we're also heavily in debt to them. Never a good situation to be in vis a vis your competitors.

'To sum up:, the mighty American military machine is a paper tiger. No military force on Earth can defeat it, but no such force needs to. Our economy rests upon the willingness of our creditors to continue to put more billions of dollars “on the tab.” In addition, our economy – all of it -- depends totally on the energy supply that “the outside world” consents to sell us.' - Ernest Partridge

Is this why the Saudi's don't want a sit-down dinner with Bushie:

King Abdullah stressed that Sunni-Shi'ite violence in Iraq threatened the stability of the oil-producing Gulf region.

"In beloved Iraq, blood flows between brothers in the shadow of illegitimate foreign occupation and hateful sectarianism, threatening a civil war," he said, in unusually strong criticism of the U.S. presence in Iraq from a strong ally. (emphasis added)

So, the Saudi King thinks the US occupation of Iraq is "illegitimate". Maybe there's more hostility betweeen the US and the Saudi's than is reaching the public media. He also said the International [US-led] blockage of the Palestinian government should be ended.

Sounds to me like Abdullah doesn't want to hold Georgie's hand for a walk in the garden again.

Maybe they know that al-Qaeda operatives have infiltrated our cooking schools. They seem to be really just interested in appetizers, and not so much in main courses or desserts.

Neal:

I've seen the Good Friday attack reports -- if we do bomb, it ain't goin' to be on a Friday, since one of the objectives will be not just to blow up buildings but to hit during a working day when you can kill expertise.

Yes, these swarthy fellows keep saying, "Just the canapés, please." It wasn't until one Achmed Al-Saudi enrolled in "Flambés Only!" that someone called the feds.

George II --- you want a legacy?

1. Stop giving Israel money, tomorrow!

2. Require repayment of all Israeli loans.

3. Freeze all Israeli balances.

"Conversation" will begin when Israel has complied with:

A. UN Sec Cncl Resolutions 242, 338 and ensuing, undertaking to return the land to its Pre June 1967 condition under instruction of the ownerws of the territory.

B. Undertaken to withdraw, if required, to the territory allotted by General Assembly Resolution 181.

C. The requirement to pay full reparations to the Palestinian owners dispossessed from 1946 to date of land in Palestine.

Peace would break out.......... and the US's shameful acts in the Near and Middle East would end....... Oh and get the hell out of Iraq, too.

Am I the only one who thinks the suggestion that we've pissed off the Saudis is good news?

waterfowl

'Prolly!' While they do not own anything like as muchof our paper as china, they are one of the bigger, and they send us one hell of a lot of our oil. Most of all, though, they do keep OPEC more or less in check, which is essential for our economic state.

Am I the only one who thinks the suggestion that we've pissed off the Saudis is good news?
Posted by: waterfowl

Possibly so. Now on this poor beleaguered and dying planet...

No, unlike many in the GOP, they understand Bush is radioactive and to get to close is risk getting the same glow.

Time managing editor Rick Stengel speaks: Dems should be wary of aggressively probing Karl Rove, lest they be seen as "obsessively concerned with settling scores."

-- Greg Sargent

Would that he had given the same advice to Bush about aggressively going after Saddam and Iran (and to himself, of course), lest he be seen as "obsessively concerned with settling scores."

Well folks, when thinking about the global oil situation I like to get my information from the professionals, not some looney tune apologist for continued insane behavior nor someone claiming that all the oil is going to be gone next week.

I prefer facts and, fortunately, I can still find some here and there. The issue of how much is left and where is very complex (this is about the Saudi situation) & not at all a subject of honest reporting. We all have to come to a decision as to what is real and what is propaganda.

Time for some Columbo thinking.

"My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel." - Saudi saying

These guys may not regard a state dinner at the White House as a good career move.

China imports about 3 or 4 mbd of oil and the US imports about 15 mbd of oil. Forecasting out several years China may grow to third place behind Japan and the US as an oil importer. China is not becoming the more important customer. On top of that China does not supply arms to SA on a vast scale nor does it promise to protect SA nor does SA have vast sums invested in China as they do in the US. Whatever is going on it is not that SA is suddenly going to become BFF with China.

It is interesting though. Maybe they are sensing the impending total melt down of the Bush administration?

Not only are they unhappy about the way the invasion of Iraq turned out to empower the Shia, according to Woodward, they told Bush at the beginning of his administration that they expected action on the Israel-Palestinian issue. After 6 years, Bush has yet to pretend to care. It's too little too late. Prince Bandar was screwed, blued and tattooed.

we've pissed off the Saudis is good news? waterfowl at 2:58 PM

Well I guess the Whitehouse is worried about those Western oil contracts but the Mideast is finding out via strong Mideast insurgencies, that the political winds have changed.

The Mideast now knows that American WILL NOT attack it, merely for control of oil, simply because most Americans could care less about BP, Exxon/Mobil and this so-call interest in region/ the economic security.

Russia and China will offer FAR better deals for the people of the Mideast then can the US, but then again - how many times have we been told that a global economy is the ticket - I bet you Western Oil contractors won't feel that way.

So that, just like Iran, the Saudi's don't have to do business with Western oil contractors either - and Western oil contractors could never hire enough mercenaries to control the interest. Thanks to Bush/Cheney and all the horrible spinning, the isolation policies, big oil is about to lose everything in the region.

The Saudi's kick our military bases out right before the Iraq war, That was the beginning of the end of US control of the region.

Oh let me this one more time again.

The Saudi king has announced (or at least told Drudge) that the US occupation of Iraq is illegitimate.

Exxon Mobil has pretty *ucking big ideas.

When Bush trashed France, Russia, Germany and China - it was BECAUSE BUSH didn't want any help in Iraq - that's right, Thomas Friedman is real A-hole - it was all matter of greed, Bush didn't need no stinking help in Iraq.

Saddam would make NO contracts with Western oil companies JUST like Iran will NOT do it either. After Bush loses the war in Iraq, and he's already lost it really, we lost control of our interest in the region. The Mideast is beginning to declare their freedom from Western oil control - ain't nothing Western oil companies can do about either. Most American know by now that it's not WMD, not democracy, not terrorism but control of region that the PNAC painted for Western oil contractors.

Bush had to kills Saddam to render oil contracts from other countries void but, in the end the US image is so ruin, and with good reason, the Mideast will NOT be forced into contracts they don't like and our lying President Bush doesn't have enough military might to force the entire Mideast to kneel to US oil company demands.

They're distancing themselves from the upcoming early April aerial blitz of Iran. We must go it alone. Again.

Here's a link to a table of proved oil reserves by nation put together by BP: http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2006/STAGING/local_assets/downloads/pdf/table_of_proved_oil_reserves_2006.pdf

What I find interesting is the "notes" section at the bottom:

Notes:Proved reserves of oil– Generally taken to be those quantities that geological and engineering information indicates with reasonable certainty can be recovered in thefuture from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions.Reserves-to-production (R/P) ratio– If the reserves remaining at the end of any year are divided by the production in that year, the result is the length of time that those remainingreserves would last if production were to continue at that level.Source of data –The estimates in this table have been compiled using a combination of primary official sources, third-party data from the OPEC Secretariat, World Oil, Oil & GasJournal and an independent estimate of Russian reserves based on information in the public domain. The reserves figures shown do not necessarily meet the definitions, guidelinesand practices used for determining proved reserves at the company level, for instance, those published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission or recommended for thepurposes of UK SORP, nor do they necessarily represent BP’s view of proved reserves by country. The figure for Canadian oil reserves includes an official estimate of Canadian oil sands ‘under active development’. Oil includes gas condensate and natural gas liquids as well as crude oil.For the purposes of this table,shares of total are calculated using thousand million barrels figures.

Even though they're not friendly with Iran, maybe they didn't appreciate that monkey business with the VISAs and the UN. Maybe that kind of thing is really raising tensions in the region. Maybe when Iran feels really disrespected they go out and do something to earn some respect, to demand that respect be given. Maybe everyone and every nation has a breaking point where they will take shots but if you cross that line forget about it.

Maybe not.

>>nor does SA have vast sums invested in China as they do in the US. - JohnK

They've been pouring virtually every additional marginal dollar in profits, that is, over and above the price of oil benchmarks in 2000, into Chinese bank IPOs and other lucrative investment 'opportunities'.

President Hu was recently an honored guest. China does pour large sums, arms and loans into Pakistan. SA's military, such as it is, is mostly staffed by mercenaries from Pakistan.

Moreover, China's oil imports have been increasing in the 12% range every year, year after year.

"It’s the same story with economics, and just as is the case with the war, virtually the entire conservative elite has signed up to swallow the Kool-Aid. ... Come now. Did anyone ever doubt that you could engineer a temporary expansion of the U.S. economy by increasing the size of government by more than thirty percent and turning a massive surplus into a deficit that will curse our the lives of our grandchildren?" - Eric Alterman