This is an interesting read; don't worry where it came from... it was written after the U.S attacked Iraq in the first Gulf War. The U.S.- and Iraq, the Vicious Circle Eight years after the U.S.-led world alliance had forced Iraq out of Kuwait, the crisis in the Gulf remains far from resolved. Oil, U.S. domestic problems, Arab regional politics and alleged Iraqi potential military might have all had a share or more in providing justification for the recent action against Iraq. Political analysts disagree on the weight attributed to each of these factors but there seems to be no disagreement on the significance of at least two: oil and the predicament of U.S. President Bill Clinton. The plight of the Iraqi people, who are the real victims in this conflict over which they were never consulted, has eroded world support for the U.S.-British attack. However, all these two countries needed, and they managed to secure, so as to launch their military campaign on the eve of Ramadan was the consent of Arab governments in the region and in Egypt in spite of an overall Arab popular condemnation of the action. What is of interest is that whenever the conflict assumes intensity it is the Iraqi people who suffer more while the Iraqi regime increases its hold on the country and gains the sympathy and support of the Arab masses. Every time, the U.S. ostensibly imperialist policy of intervention in the internal affairs of both Iraq and the region overshadows the background to the crisis and boosts Saddam Hussein's position as an Arab and Islamic hero who single-handedly stands up to American, and for that matter Western, arrogance and greed. The ongoing Gulf crisis has incurred astronomical irreplaceable losses, both morally and materially, on the Arabs and the Muslims. A review of the conditions that led to the crisis as well as of the details of its aftermath exposes the real nature of all players concerned. Honour and sincerity are two characters that are definitely lacking in all of them. That is why it is of necessity that whenever the flame of the crisis rages, the on-looking cheering masses should be reminded of the nature of the game and of the base character of the players involved. In his most recent book, Arafat from Defender to Dictator, Said Aburish sensibly links the crisis to the outcome of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war which ended in August 1988. He points out that although Iraq was left carrying a huge debt of over $60 billion, Saddam Hussein came out of it victorious. The events that followed, and which led to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, were a combination of intrigue, miscalculation and stupidity. This is how Aburish narrates the story: "In February 1990 Saddam joined Egypt, Jordan and North Yemen in forming the Arab Cooperation Council, an economic alliance intended to compete with the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council. However, simultaneously with the reintegration of Iraq into a regional bloc and Saddam's emergence as a regional leader, relations between Iraq and the United States worsened. Ostensibly America had supported Saddam during his war with Iran in order to stem the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, but the Irangate affair and the secret delivery of US arms to Iran convinced Saddam that America had backed him as a matter of convenience and would eventually turn against him. After the war with Iran ended the Americans began trying to contain him through withholding economic aid and exposing the brutality of his regime, and Saddam decided that they were out to overthrow him. Saddam responded by attacking American hegemony in the Middle East and asking for the withdrawal of the US fleet from the Gulf. He coupled that with threats to 'burn half of Israel' if it resorted to military action against any Arab country. This was a clear reference to the potential use of non-conventional weapons. Saddam seemed overconfident that he had fifty-four army divisions to use in any confrontation with Israel. Saddam's military capabilities did not only fool him, they fooled several Arab governments and a large segment of the Arab and Muslim population. To Saddam Kuwait, the historical object of Iraqi hate and long claimed by its larger neighbour, represented a possible way out of his predicament. Because he needed Kuwaiti money, either by blackmailing the small country as Iraq had done in the past or by occupying it, he resurrected the historical claim. Foolishly, the Kuwaitis played into his hands by behaving in a manner which turned them into an enemy of Iraq. On their own, or in cooperation with Western powers determined to undermine Saddam's rising fortunes, Kuwait pumped more oil than it needed, which caused the price to collapse, and demanded immediate payment of an $8 billion Iraqi debt. During an Arab summit conference held in Baghdad in May 1990 to address the problem of Russian emigration to Israel, Saddam registered a strong complaint against Kuwait for pumping the surplus oil, stealing oil from the Rumeilah field which ran across both countries, and causing Iraq serious economic problems which left it unable to borrow money on the international market. The accusations were true. On 15 July 1990 the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tarik Azlz, repeated Saddam's accusations and added that the Kuwaiti oil policy was costing Iraq billions of dollars that the country could not afford; he stated that a $1 per barrel reduction in the price of oil cost Iraq a billion dollars a year. This was followed two days later by a personal warning from Saddam to Arab countries not to harm Iraq. In response several US warships were despatched to the Gulf; then there were more Iraqi threats against Kuwait and a meeting on 25 July between Saddam and the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glasple, in which the latter appeared to give Saddam a green light to continue hounding Kuwait. On 1 August a last-ditch attempt by the Saudis to defuse the crisis failed. Saddam moved forward whatever plans he had and the following day invaded Kuwait. To those who stood by Saddam, the Gulf Crisis exposed a US-Zionist plan to destroy Iraq and deny the Arabs a military counterweight to Israel. Hundreds of thousands of troops from the Coalition led by the USA, the UK and Saudi Arabia gathered for the start of a military campaign against Iraq. On 16 January 1991, the Coalition partners attacked Iraq with an air offensive of unprecedented ferocity. The Iraqi aerial defence system proved ineffective. Hundreds of Coalition aircraft roamed the skies unopposed, and inflicted untold damage on the Iraqi forces in Kuwait and within Iraq itself. They unjustifiably bombed power stations, bridges, sewage plants, baby food factories and other civilian and non-strategic targets. On 22 February, after the cream of the Iraqi air force had escaped to Iran, the land offensive began. Three days later, the Iraqis managed to hit Israel with conventional missiles and continued to do so for four days. On 28 February, a ceasefire came into being. The Iraqi army was defeated." The arrogant, victory-promising and power-blinded Saddam was compelled to sign a humiliating ceasefire agreement with the Americans that imposed sanctions on his country, starved his people and enabled the U.S. (under the disguise of the United Nations) to dismantle his military industry and monitor every single action taken within Iraq by his government. From then on, and this became very clear during the past year, the Americans used Iraq as a means of defusing tension within the American political arena as well as of securing multi-billion military contracts with the Saddamofobic rulers of the Gulf further draining their resources and turning them from oil-rich emirates into bankrupt and heavily indebted and U.S-dependent entities. The failure of the Arab governments to agree on a Yemeni-proposed summit conference to discuss the recent U.S. attack on Iraq is indicative of the profound influence the U.S. enjoys in the Arab world. So long as this influence remains, Iraq's alleged threat to its neighbours will continue to constitute the golden opportunity the Americans, and naturally the British, could ever dream of. In the meantime, the Iraqi people will continue to suffer and Saddam Hussein will remain in power.
Right they have about 260 billion barrels in reserves. The Canadian oil sands have about 180 billion barrels but because it’s not conventional oil it isn’t reported with the conventional reserves, so surprisingly it’s often overlooked. There are actually somewhere around 2 trillion barrels in the ground there of which about 180 billion are currently recoverable. http://www.oilsandsdiscovery.com/oil_sands_story/resource.html http://www.capp.ca/raw.asp?x=1&dt=NTV&e=PDF&dn=86190 I’m not really following the discussion here I was just chipping in with some info. The oil sands are in Alberta, which is where I live.
Bring the accent! They’re a hoot. You can leave the Trader_Jorge attitude in Texas though. It’s not you anyway and, through the wonder of the net, us Canadians can now see that it’s not really Texans either. We actually have a few of those up here too. Maybe we’re not so different after all … except for the accent, of course.
So the next Beverly Hillbilly show can originate in Alberta. I like that Great info- Hey if Max takes a road trip I'm for splitting the gas. We can go to church, wear our Rocket jerseys and look for oil. People used to think everyone in Texas owned an oil well, a cow and a pick up truck.
I heard about the abundance of oil sand in Alberta from a chemist friend of mine years ago. According to him, the oil is highly dispersed with water (aka emulsion) that it is technologically very difficult thus economically impractical to obtain significant amount in useable form. Not sure how techology has progressed since, but it could explain why Canada has not been on US' target yet.
Why don't Republicans feel betrayed by their President? I felt betrayed by Clinton's inability to keep his fly zipped in the White House around an intern during an era when every sneeze is reported with due diligence by the press. I felt betrayed by LBJ, a man I admired, for fabricating the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to go to expand our presence in South Vietnam In your eyes, and the eyes of the rest of Bush's supporters, is it impossible for the man to ever be wrong? And it's worse than that... he lied to the country and the world to get the United States into a war. It was wrong when LBJ did it, and it is just as wrong today. This is what is so amazing. Its like people are not just complete homers for sports teams, but they are the same for politics as well. Me, I'll vote either side depending on the issue. TJ, Basso other extremists, I'd like to hear your opinions of the above quote (i have a feeling I already know them)
i do, in many ways. but i voted for clinton in 92 and felt betrayed there, ultimately. like by the time midterm elections popped up in 94. politicians never fail to disappoint me. keep up the good work, guys!!
So you’d be the Hillbilly coming to Beverly Hills Calgary then? I’m not sure I like being called another Beverly Hills. We have a much healthier lifestyle than that. Those mountains are where we go to play. They’re about an hour’s drive away, and that gets you right in the mountains. The foothills are about 45 minutes away (http://www.kananaskis.com/ This is where the G8 summit was held a few years ago if you remember.) We do play a lot in town too because we have great facilities here left over from when we hosted the 88’ Winter Olympics. So if you want to try the bobsleigh run, skeleton, luge, ski jumping, we’ve got a speed skating oval too, then you’d better bring a parka to put over those overalls, and don’t forget a toque. http://www.canadaolympicpark.ca/ You’ll have to be good to find any more oil though. The conventional reserves were essentially all found last century. That part of our industry has been mature for a long time. Wnes: Given that Canada supplies about 30% more petroleum products to the US than Saudi Arabia does I’d say we’re already on the map. The cost of production was a major issue in the 60’s when these deposits were first mined but it has come down dramatically since. I think there’s a range of costs depending on which part of this reserve is being mined but the 180 billion figure is from pre Iraq war times so depending on what people think the new base level for oil will be, if there is to be one, then that number will go up. The rest of the 2 trillion barrels is currently too expensive to mine, but it’s still there if an economical way is developed. The existing plants are massive and hugely expensive. There’s over $15 billion US invested in plants up there now and another almost $50 billion US is proposed. This is big, BIG, stuff. It’s in Fort McMurray if you want to search for some pictures and the main companies are Syncrude and Suncor. I think picture of the actual mining operation are hard to find because it’s a remote area and it’s essentially a HUGE open pit mine, and I don’t think they’re too keen on pictures like that getting around. There are also proprietary large scale processes involved. http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/energy/Ene...nges2015/EMAOilSandsOpportunities2015QA_e.htm
There are a couple of pictures here that show the scale of the operation. http://www.syncrude.com/syn_library/pan.html
This coming from someone in Sherbrooke?! Sherbrooke has a population of what, 150,000? Calgary is over 1 million. So if Calgary is a small hick town, what does that make Sherbrooke?
Calgary is sure looking picturesque! Thanks for the information, Grizzled. My wife talked to me not long ago she wanted to visit her relative in Calgary. Maybe you and I can have a beer or two while we are there!
updawg, at least give me credit for my post. I have no problem with the intent, however. Keep D&D Civil!!
