Starring on YouTube...
The Southern Avenger has produced There's Nothing to Win in Iraq which is one of the best vidoes on the war on Iraq -- and, yes, he was nice enough to mention some of my comments.
Pundits who screw-up: No big deal...
Matt Barganier desconstructs Andrew Sullivan's mea sorta culpa on Iraq in Time magazine (Sullivan seen above in a thoughtful pose on Bill Maher's "Real Time"). There have been many of those in recent weeks (including by WFB and Fukuyama ). In an commentary published last year, Oops! I helped start a War which was about one of the earlier apologizing-war-aplogists, I pointed out to the contrast between the way the losers who operate in the market (including financial analysts) are punished and the reality in which the losers in the political game (including foreign policy analysts) rarely get punished: Imagine: for a few years you were investing the money you had saved for your daughter's college education in one of those moderately conservative plans that provided some increase in the value of the investment without exposing it to major risks. But then your financial planner – let's call him Ken P. – got in touch with you and came up with a really great ide...
Comments
125 billion (proven) barrels x $60 per barrel = 7.5 trillion dollars. Iraq crude is of the very highest quality, and so cheap to refine, but let's be generous and say a trillion in costs*. That still leaves 6.5 trillion, 75% of which is a cool 4.9 trillion. Moreover, Iraq is one of the few oil-rich regions of the world not yet fully explored, so there could be much as the same amount again waiting to be found, and the long-term trend for crude prices is nowhere but up.
Admittedly, these are paper winnings, not yet actual profits, but it is obviously false to assert that there is 'Nothing to win in Iraq'.
*The cost of physically holding the country doesn't count, as this is borne by the public.
That we could sit simply in that room again...
Like it or not, Westernization (cell phones, computers, thongs,razz ma tazz)is here to stay in the Middle East. It's a waiting game now, probably till the roaring 20's to see all this make sense...Saudi fields-huge and well maintained are fading. Iran and Iraq have huge fields which are trashed to the point that they are squandering the energy that they contain. Better to let them sit un-f**d with while things settle down into some Soprano like State in both places.My childish peers (class of 71),
there are no good guys. Beautifully spoken Iranian diplomats have been flat out liars (lyres)since"Nightline"1979. Dreaming that policy changed because Cheney was out of town...wow wanna buy a hot nano-tech stock?The future is China; nice-nice on the outside and hard-hard on the inside. That's what my kids want, a dreamland 90% of the time having nothing to do with reality and 10% s*** work that they just want to get over with as soon as possible.
WHB