Bush to Saudis: Can you help us out on these oil prices? Saudis: Nope

"Our interest is to keep oil supplies matching demand with minimum volatility in the oil market,"

That's arabic for "what's in it for me?"

At least no hand holding this time...

It is my understanding and I'm sure a JW reader will correct me, but whatever additional oil supplies are released to the market, China's huge appetite will buy it up and negate any possible decreases in price.

I like all the various critters on our lands and in our coastal waters, but we can drill for oil and natural gas in these places and still do a much better job of protecting the environment than relying on oil drilled overseas, shipped huge distances and drilled by countries that don't give a hoot about the environment - at least until we develop alternative fuels.

Maybe President Bush should be asking the Democrats to ALLOW us to increase OUR OWN oil output. IT IS CALLED ANWR.

America has oil.

OPEC does not want ANWR opened.

If Saudi Arabia does not want to help America then tell them to keep their Wahabbi money at home and put Wahabbism on the State Terror List.

Too bad Bush didn't continue on and say, 'good! We will be off your oil in about 1-2 years. good bye. Oh, and before I leave - those wahabbi madrassas that you have been building in the USA - they will be gone too. No more immigration from ANY muslim nation. period. Your buying of the stock in our businesses, and media - well that will be given back to you and all your donations to the Universities - well, that will not be given back and instead we will bring in our own teachers to teach the REAL islam - the REAL jihad - and I'm not talking about that internal struggle hog wash, oh er I mean baloney, either - sorry, I forgot you don't like pigs. Why is that again? Too much like looking at yourself?'

I know I know, I am dreaming. A girl can dream, can't she?!

...is Saudi Arabia paying for its new weapons with money or oil....a few billion dollars buys a lot of oil....

I'm so glad people can down talk any and all Democrats while turning a blind eye to Bush's affairs with the Kingdom of Saud. I also laugh at the notion that Romney supporters think that these sweetheart deals with the Saudis are going to end if he is elected president.

I'm sure Saudis are pulling for Romney before they pull for any Democrat. At least the major Democrats for the most part want to get away from foreign oil investments and focus towards fuel and energy independence. Even Barrack Obama wants to impose all the measures of the 9/11 commission, which do not favor The Kingdom of Saud in the least bit.

As a huge Dickens fan, I very much appreciate the sarcasm. "Please Sir, Can I have some more."
President Bush as Oliver, Priceless.

"Bush to Saudis: Can you help us out on these oil prices? Saudis: Nope"

Good on them. Why should the Saudis subsidize SUV drivers in the U.S. I'm not sure what it will take to prod the U.S. off its oil habit but Hugh has stated in the past the need for a Manhattan type project to develop alternate energy sources/conservation technologies to ween ourselves off Mid-East oil. Bring it on as high oil prices will be the driving force.

"Maybe President Bush should be asking the Democrats to ALLOW us to increase OUR OWN oil output. IT IS CALLED ANWR."

You said it!
If we are going to have to pay $100 a barrel we should at least keep the money in our economy.

Let's see what the Chinese and Indians are willing to pay for it if they are Saudis only customers

"Hugh has stated in the past the need for a Manhattan type project to develop alternate energy sources/conservation technologies to ween ourselves off Mid-East oil. Bring it on as high oil prices will be the driving force."

That'll be the day...kindly tell these backwards thinking folk where to stick it because we don't need their stinking oil any more.

How certain are we that Saudis can increase their production by much? I thought there is at least some data showing that they are pumping close to max capacity....

Makes me wonder where these countries would even be without their precious oil.

Brother can you spare a Barrel?

Off topic, but very scary: re Susanne Winter, the austrian politician: all she said is that in today's system, M would be seen as a child molester (for marrying a 6 year old). And here is video clearly threatening her with violence: http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=UoWJobzZHrw

I've sent the link to LGF and Robert Spencer.

Lili

"President Bush as Oliver, Priceless."

As I recall, Oliver was the hero of that story. Doesn't really seem to work...

Patagonianplato - It's more like: "Please, Sir, can I have another?"

Mr. Bush, can you help protect us from the Iranians? Nope.

Mr. Bush, may we open up some more mosques in the US? Nope.

Mr. Bush, will you sell us weapons to protect us from the Iranians? Nope

Mr. Bush, will you convert to Islam? Yep, already have in spirit.

Mr. Bush, can anyone pay a coyote to illegally enter and hazard the US? Yep, they already do. Come one, come all.

ha ha ha bush the clown, go have another beer and whiskey bushy...time to go home to retire to your ranch and play cowboys/indian!!! you turkey

I wonder if there are matching earrings?

They did kiss after all...might as well make official. Looks like love to me.

"Maybe President Bush should be asking the Democrats to ALLOW us to increase OUR OWN oil output. IT IS CALLED ANWR."

And then watch the Democrats say that this is just a scheme to enrich the oil companies.
Then hear them say that the last great open area in the US should be left that way, so as not to endanger fish and clean water supplies everywhere else.

Democrats will never say yes, unless maybe (?) a few of them are from Texas or Oklahoma. Even then it becomes how Bush and the Saudis deliberately engineered the price hikes to help "Bush's oil buddies". Watch the hullabaloo if Halliburton stock jumps five cents.

It will have to wait for a Democrat in the White House to decide that the hurting middle class needs help and so we must open up ANWR. In the meantime, they'll just go on about alternative sources.

OPEC is an oligopoly. Money gained through participation in an oligopoly is ill-gotten. So, ill-gotten OPEC money is being used to buy portions of U.S. corporations. This cannot last. Doesn't the U.S. need to smash OPEC or forbid OPEC investment in U.S. or ... take the oil? Otherwise, how is it fair?

Mr ape pig got it very correctly. We have oil but the left doesn't want us to exploit it. The left doesn't want nuclear (nuculer to some) energy utilized for electric power. The left simply want to whine about suv's and light bulbs. Go figure...by the way, it's their oil and they can do with it as they wish and if we aren't smart enough to snooker those people than shame on us.

Alternative energy, anyone?

It would seem to move from the agenda of environments to that of national security.

In Brazil, the major auto companies market and sell multi-fuel vehicles. Why not make it a requirement for sale in the US?

Repeal the tariff on Brazilian alcohol imports.

GM made a very successful electric vehicle called the EV-1. Good film on the topic -"Who killed the electric car?"

Nuclear power - If the French can do this safely, why can't we?

Solar - lots of desert in this country - Again, this is a Manhattan Project sort of priority.

Natural Gas vehicles - We have no shortage of natural gas in this country.

A tax on imported crude. We got to pay for that war somehow.

Alternative energy, anyone?

It would seem to move from the agenda of environments to that of national security.

In Brazil, the major auto companies market and sell multi-fuel vehicles. Why not make it a requirement for sale in the US?

Repeal the tariff on Brazilian alcohol imports.

GM made a very successful electric vehicle called the EV-1. Good film on the topic -"Who killed the electric car?"

Nuclear power - If the French can do this safely, why can't we?

Solar - lots of desert in this country - Again, this is a Manhattan Project sort of priority.

Natural Gas vehicles - We have no shortage of natural gas in this country.

A tax on imported crude. We got to pay for that war somehow.

It would be a bad idea to tell the Saudis or anyone else that we don't need their oil because in fact we do. Under ideal geopolitical and economic conditions it would be impossible to be off of foreign energy at today's rate of consumption before the year 2030 and some say 2050 or longer without severely effecting the economy.
The Saudis are correct in saying that they don't need to increase production as stock levels of crude oil are adequate to meet current demand.
The problem is in the futures market where oil is being traded at a rate of 1 1/2 billion barrels of oil a day when consumption is at around 83 million barrels a day.
It is also true that most oil producing nations are at the limit of production and some are even declining at a rate of 3%-10% a year. Some experts say that oil production at this time could only be increased worldwide 2 to 3 million barrels a day.
There are several reasons for this. Known oil fields are being depleted and output has been declining for several years now. Worldwide demand has been increasing particularly from the developing economies of China and India. Old infrastructure is in need of replacement and repair and can barely meet demand. New fields of easily recoverable oil are harder to find and the fields being explored now though some may show good potential are located in hard to exploit areas making it more expensive to extract.
This is on one side of the equation. On the other is this.
Worldwide fears of a economic slowdown in the US is "fueling" the downturn in the futures market and by years end oil could be as low as $40 USD a barrel. However support for higher prices for crude regardless of economic slowdown could be kept in place because of a weakening dollar. China and India will play a large part in oil futures because of how dependant they are on energy imports and trade with consumer nations mainly the U.S.
It is in the interest of oil producing nations to keep the world well supplied with crude.
High prices as they well know can and will cause a worldwide recession decreasing demand and a eventual collapse in oil prices which they do not want as almost their entire GDP is from oil exportation.
There are other factors that drive the price of industrial commodities oil being one of them. And to a lesser degree agricultural commodities
are also tied to the price of crude. Diesel fuel and fertilizer being a cost of production, but weather and other factors effecting price.

What makes me an expert? Well I'm not, however I am invested in the Industrial and Agricultural markets and thought it a good idea to do a little research into it.

And last of all I think what we will be getting in return for all that military hardware we are selling the Saudis is that same green paper we gave them for the oil.

I hope this clears some things up, maybe not.
Have Fun!

We should find an alternative to oil and then tell the Saudis to eat sand.

They have a very young population and without oil revenues their society would implode.

The solution to the Middle East is an alternative to oil. Israel would be safer since the Muslims would not have money for modern weapons and would be plagued by internal economic issues. They would not have money to make trouble in the world.

Does anyone know what goes on at AOL. They have an article about Citibank getting new funding that mentions one Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia as one of the investors who have pumped money into the bank. Of course the sub-prime crisis has affected them as well.

I pointed out that this is the same Sheik that offered Rudi 10 Mill after 9-11 with the caveat that we needed to be more fair with the Palestinians. And, Rudi told him to take a hike. There was nothing even remotely offensive with my post. Not only did they delete my post, but I cannot re-add it. Do they ban people that they disagree with politically?

We shouldn't be asking them...
we should be telling them.

I was happy to see this article about a hydrogen fuel cell Chevy yesterday:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322668,00.html

May this technology be a smashing success -- and soon.

HOV Dummy said

At least no hand holding this time...

Here's some quotes from this story earlier today:

He was staying a night at the monarch's ranch — a rare show of hospitality to a visiting dignitary that reflects Bush's hosting of Abdullah twice at his own ranch in Crawford, Texas. [...] Sitting side by side in chairs, Abdullah presented Bush with a gold necklace adorned with a large medallion — the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, the country's highest honor, named after the founder of the modern Saudi state. The award was placed around Bush's neck and the two exchanged the region's traditional double kiss. "I am honored," Bush said.

And

As Bush looked dreamily into Abdullah's steely dark eyes, he felt the pangs of forbidden love, a passion to go on a magic carpet ride for two on a trip to paradise, or at least to the furthest mosque. He caressed Abdullah's bearded cheeks and implored, "When oh when will you come stay overnight again, my Arabian stallion?"

Okay, I made up the second one. But dude, he went to second base with Abdullah. I didn't get that far until I was halfway through college (with a girl who had none of the money of Adbullah, but who had far more charms).

I don't care which political party you belong to, watching the Bushes cavort with Saudis creeps me out.

MP, thanks for the correction.

Oldgrimm, I was referring to having to go begging to people who don’t give a darn about us. In that context, it works perfectly.

special_guest

You have me rolling on the floor.

You should trade notes with John C. You are both have very humorous!

I wonder sometimes if George ever says to his Islamic friends something like, "... I realize things don't happen overnight Abdullah, and we can't expect huge changes in the Middle East overnight. We'll take "little steps" over a decade or two. Though ..., seriously, and I'm sure it's ok if all the little, lesser people inside your kingdom believe it true, ... but Abdullah, I ask and say these next words to you as a friend. I want you to believe and to know that I consider you a true friend."

"Abdullah my friend, you yourself don't believe the Creator has any Grand Benevolence or a Special Kind of Love for those who speak vocal utterances while they walk in circles around the Kaaba, do you? Or if they gather and throw stones at some rock they want to think symbolizes the Devil, ... I mean, you the great wise benevolent King of the great nation Saudi Arabia, you yourself don't seriously believe those rituals you guys do and go through all the time, ... Abdullah, come on, seriously, ... you yourself don't believe these things actually bring The Creator to favor you people more, and to despise other people who don't do these things, do you?"

I wonder if George ever has frank discussions with any of his Islamic "friends."

I know Jose Feliciano did not have any real friends when he recorded "Light My Fire." No one told Jose to cut the verse from the final recording of the song where he sang, ...[girl] you'd better light my fire, light my fire, light my fire, ... yeah."

Yeah sure Jose, she definitely better ... or else that means you are a ...? And so at that time he recorded that song there were no true friends hanging around Jose who could put his arm around him and, you know, as a friend, say to him that that last line sort of made the way he sang the song sound a little wierd, and to cut it out. Nope, didn't happen. I suppose because he didn't have any real, true friends who could speak their minds around him.

Remember Ron with Mikhail? The walks in the woods? Does George talk to these guys with the conviction of his beliefs ...

While Bush grovels, inflation ignites in America and elsewhere. Oil drives inflation and the Saudis know it. Bush is a fool and a dimmi - a deadly combination.

But just like the great Whale Oil Crisis, the Great Crude Oil Crisis will force the US into a new paradigm - electric cars, boats, and perhaps aircraft.

Lithium ion batteries and even more exotic batteries are in the "pipe" and will quadruple in capacity in the next few (2 or 3) years. This will create a new automotive boom. Electric cars will have ranges in excess of 500 miles on a single charge. High Voltage recharge will take about 20 minutes.

The future is rushing at us with changes in technology we can't even imagine today.

We'll beat this like we've beaten every crisis since 1776.

In a way I pity the Saudis, because they have no idea what they have set in motion.

In response to U.S. support for Israel during the 1973 war, OPEC was formed to hold back oil production and drive up prices. OPEC was temporarily successful, and created all kinds of problems in Western economies.

However, in response to the OPEC price increases, the West instituted measures to improve the efficiency of its motor vehicle fleet. These measures were so successful, that OPEC members began to cheat each other and sell more oil to get their revenues back where they needed to be, further driving down oil prices. The result was many years of cheap (in inflation-adjusted dollars) oil. OPEC began to realize that its strategy had backfired, and that a better strategy was to pump a lot of oil so the West would continue to rely on cheap oil rather than taking further steps to kick the addiction. That strategy seems to have been continued until recently.

More recently, with increased oil demand not only from the West but also from developing nations China and India, and with many oil fields throughout the world either depleted or already pumping at peak production, the market is once again in favor of the suppliers, and prices are up.

As before, the most important part of the solution is for oil buyers to once again look for ways to decrease demand as much as possible, through conservation and alternative energy resources. This time conservation alone is less likely to work, because increased world demand and decreasing world supply keep the supply/demand balance in favor of undersupply and overdemand despite conservation. But conservation is a necessary start.

Increasing domestic supply of oil would help, but only temporarily. Discovering and pumping the last reserves of oil in ANWR without moving to decrease our demand would only put us back in the same position we are now in several years from now -- but without the ability to go out and find additional reserves. Nobody knows how much oil is in ANWR or how long it would last if we in the U.S. could somehow discover and pump nothing but domestic oil, but by all accounts, those reserves represent only a few years worth of domestic requirements and the reserves do not guarantee permanent energy independence or a final solution.

ANWR should be treated as a national security reserve, and tapped only if and when necessary. ANWR should not be treated as the last keg of beer with which to have a last party as if there were no tomorrow.

Numerous readers have pointed out the need to develop transportation that is not totally reliant on oil. We need to approach this with the type of intensity demonstrated in the Manhattan project. No doubt the Chinese and Indians are already working on it as well.

Two, three hundred years from now and it's fusion heat turning steam turbines producing electrical generation and to power vehicles. Nothing practical is coming down the pike in the foreseeable future in regards to fusion engine research though. Humans will have figured out how to harness the power in a thousand years time, I'm sure.

Imagine someday the power similar to our sun, the heat from a small star boiling the water to steam which then turns a crankshaft with the power of a locomotive engine ... all in the size of a motorcycle engine.

My earlier post was premature.

Tonight watching the national news, I saw footage of Pres. Bush arm-in-arm with his Saudi King at some dance - yikes.
Grosses me out, too.

"In response to U.S. support for Israel during the 1973 war, OPEC was formed to hold back oil production and drive up prices. OPEC was temporarily successful, and created all kinds of problems in Western economies."
-- from a posting above

OPEC was not created "in response to U.S. support for Israel during the 1973 war." The price rises that were put into effect in the fall of 1973 were already in the works, and one of the leading price hawks was the Shah of Iran, who later would fall partly because his own people became unhinged from the oil wealth and the way in which it too rapidly transformed Iranian life for some, while leaving others behind.

The very best study of what happened with the oil market and OPEC before, during, and after 1973, is "Arabia, the Gulf, and the West" by the tremendously learned and inimitable J. B. Kelly.

The fact that there is a potential at ANWR for making us less dependent on outside sources will do us no good until it is tapped and ready for distribution. In an emergency the oil has to be available, such as it is, or forget it. If we will start replacing fossil fuel electric generators with nuclear power and tapping into domestic oil sources..I promise to do my part by turning off the bathroom light and keeping my BMW motorcycle under 120mph.

Aaaah, Bush negotiating unsuccessfully on the jizya payment to our "staunch allies" in Saudi Arabia.

It is so damned funny, that I began to weep.

Bush does not understand the economics of oil. This is clear from his attempt to request, to plead in a way, for the Saudis to be kind when it comes to oil prices. But Saudi Arabia has never been kind, never tried to do the United States or any other country favors on oil pricing. It prices, as best it can, in order to maximize its wealth – the wealth that comes in today, and the wealth in the ground, consisting of oil reserves. If it prices oil too high, it may cause too quick a shift to alternative sources of energy, may indeed finally create the political will in oil-consumers that the Saudis wish may never be created, and will also reduce demand, and what is worse may reduce demand permanently if oil-consumers do not merely cut down temporarily but make permanent changes in their behavior or modes of life, and also if they put capital into such things as solar collectors for their houses, or the government decides on a Manhattan-Project-like endorsement of nuclear plants – as it should.

Bush we know does not mind, makes fun himself of his own reputation, as a cultural Babbitt. But he is supposed to make up for this, in a certain sense, as are all of those who aspire to “taking a leadership role” in this country, a country where business-school language has become the language of politics.

But he does not understand economics, and he understands least of all the economics of energy, and of oil, and of the Saudi calculations. Saudi Arabia is, when it comes to money, a perfectly rational actor. For years it was the most important member of the OPEC cartel, an oligopolistic grouping that, for a long time, has been able to charge oligolopolistic (not monopoly) rents, rents that might have been considerably reduced had oil consuming nations grasped this, and simply taxed themselves, raising the price of gasoline and of oil use, guaranteeing that the price would go ever upward (steadily, not abruptly) and that therefore investments could safely be made in energy-conservation and in other forms of energy, while at the same time dampening demand for oil, the oil that the Saudis have as their sole source of wealth.

Bush appears to believe, still, that Saudi Arabia is “our ally” or “our staunch ally” and that, just as he looked into the eyes of Putin and liked what he saw, he can look into the eyes of King Abdullah and, while enjoying what is no doubt fabulously extravagant hospitality (it costs the Saudis nothing, it means nothing) on Abdullah’s “ranch in the desert,” ask for a favor, please, pretty please.

But Saudi Arabia does no favors. It does no favors when it manipulates the market – as best it can, and its best is becoming less and less effective – either up or down. For sometimes it benefits the Saudis to raise the price, and sometimes it benefits them, in their own calculations, to lower the price. But their calculations have nothing to do with “doing the Americans a favor” and everything to do with two things: what are the current needs of the Saudis, that is what must they take in, and what is the best way to maximize the present-value of the Saudi oil reserves.

If they raise the price too high, there is always a problem not only with economic slowdowns in the oil-consuming countries (that was all Bush talked about), but also the possibility of greater political will in those countries, a will to engage in much more dramatic and expensive measures to diminish reliance on oil. That political will could be expressed in new measures such as subsidies to mass transit, or for residential and commercial solar collectors, or subsidies to wind farms, or to growers of switchgrass. Government could require gas stations to carry gasoline made from ethanol, or from other, more sensible alternatives to oil. Government could also decide to embark on a program of building nuclear plants, declaring that this could not wait upon private enterprise, for the insurance costs could only be borne by government, and following the example of France, it was best to have this undertaken by the government, with a few designs, not with private enterprise bringing dozens of different designs that in the United States helped to increase the cost of nuclear plants unnecessarily.

At any time X, the Saudis will have to calculate the best price Y. By “best price” they do not mean the “best price” for the United States or other oil-consumers. They do not mean the “best price” for Algeria, or Indonesia, or Libya or any other oil producing state. They mean one thing: the “best price” for Saudi Arabia. That means the price of oil pegged at a level that will ensure the maximizing of value of Saudi reserves, while assuring a current cash flow to meet Saudi needs, which needs at this point still do not include any subsidy to the Sunnis in Iraq (the Americans are taking care of that), nor to Egypt, Jordan, the “Palestinians” ( the Americans are taking care of that), nor to any other oil-poor Muslim states with their hands out, such as Pakistan (the Americans are taking care of that).

The Saudis were always the swing producer in OPEC. That means that they could withhold a certain amount of oil from the market, or could increase production, without too much pain, and thereby could make sure that at any point in time X, a price Y would be aimed for. Their current desires are such, and oil production so tight, that they no longer have that power. Still, as long as the Western world, as long as the American government (which has many former employees who now work for the Saudis, enthusiastically endorse the Saudi line), as long as Bush himself thinks the Saudis have such power – or confuses the fact of great wealth with the ordinary implications of such wealth, such as a a well-trained and industrious and entrepreneurial population, which is completely false for Saudi Arabia has not managed to create a modern economy, and its wealth is entirely the product of an accident of geology, has nothing to do with hard work, entrepreneurship, or a “well-educated” population. The money, of course, is there, and that money helps pay for mosques, madrasas, well-financed campaigns of Da’wa, small armies of Western hirelings ready to do Saudi (and other Islamic) bidding, and public relations efforts intended to disguise the real attitudes and behavior of the Saudis, who are not, and can never be, allies of any Infidel state or people, but in fact represent at least as great a threat as Iran at its craziest and most bellicose.

Can Bush, can Rice, can the Presidential candidates, begin to understand that had the American government in 1973 started to put a tax, one that would steadily and inexorably rise, according to a known schedule, on gasoline, and a similar tax on oil – always rising, never decreasing – that such a tax would have helped cause investers to put their money into solar, wind, nuclear energy. And had the revenues from that tax gone into subsidies for new energy technologies, or for mass transit, and other energy-saving measures, by now, thirty-five years later, much of the oligopolistic rents – possibly several trillion of the ten trillion dollars that the Muslim, chiefly Arab, states of OPEC have received since 1973 alone, would have been pocketed by the American government, for use in supporting those alternate sources of energy, those greater efforts at conservation.

It is not too late to recognize that Saudi Arabia may have money from the sale of oil, but is helplessly dependent on the West. Its leaders rely on the Western world for medical care, for education of their young, for experts in everything, including oilfield technology. It is absurd that the Saudis are not paying the cost of that Iraq venture, or at least paying to support the Sunnis. It is absurd that the Saudis are not paying the $30 billion that the Americans have shelled out for Pakistan, paying for Egypt, Jordan, and if they wish, for those “Palestinians” who are the local Arab shock troops of the Lesser Jihad against Israel.

It is certainly time to undertstand the full malevolence and meretriciousness, not only of the Al-Saud, as they shamelessly go about stealing much of the wealth of the country they have named after themselves, but of the clerics, and the people, whose claim on our attention is solely a matter of their bank accounts and their oil reserves, and their investments in the West – which investments, I never tire of reminding readers, could be seized, just as the assets of enemy aliens were seized during World War II, and there is absolutely nothing the Saudis could do in return, for they must sell their oil, they must rely on us for their protection.

Bush is living in a time-warp. He thinks of Saudi Arabia as too many did, thirty-five years ago. It is time to figure out Saudi pricing, OPEC pricing, how to deprive an oligopoly of oligopolistic rents, and how to dampen demand for oil, which must be done for two distinct reasons, for those having to do with the environment, and anthropogenic climate change, and for those having to do with the meaning, rightly understood, and the menace, fully grasped, of Islam.

He's not capable of understanding this double need. But others can. Others must.

A posting that is a little more than two years old, but that, alas, does not date:

Fitzgerald: Read the Saudis the Riot Act

"Saudi Arabia needs to be read the riot act by someone -– possibly John Bolton. And these are the things he should tell them. Here are 100 ways to bring Saudi Arabia (“Money can buy everything, except civilization,” as an Armenian who spent years in Saudi Arabia building military cities commented laconically) into the civilized world. First, the days of Prince Bandar having private audiences, or King Abdullah being invited to anyone's ranch, must be ended. Saudi Arabia should no longer be called an ally. It never was – not even at the time of Ibn Saud’s famous shipboard picture with Roosevelt. How could it be? How could a Muslim state, fanatical in the inculcation of hatred toward Infidels, conceivably ever be a real ally of an Infidel nation-state?
Second, every effort should be made, public and private, to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia -- whatever propaganda campaign the Saudis pay for. The gouging-out of eyes that is in the headlines today, the treatment of Christians, the virtual slavery in which many from Thailand, India, the Philippines are held -- all the stories that have been suppressed should now get the full attention of the American government, and of journalists. It should not be hard to find people who worked in Saudi Arabia, were ill-treated in Saudi Arabia, and who even saw others killed in Saudi Arabia, who would be happy to tell about it.

Third, those who long ago took Saudi Arabia’s true measure, such as J. B. Kelly, should be given respectful attention. For example, the real role of Saudi Arabia as the bully of the peninsula – supporting the Dhofar rebellion in Oman, or attempting to push Zayid aroud in the Buraimi Oasis dispute with what became the the U.A.E., or in attempting to bully Yemen not least by periodic mass expulsions of Yemeni workers, and in meddling with internal Yemeni politics – all of this should have been constantly noted by the Western press, but never once was even mentioned.
Fourth, American servicemen who felt the contempt of the Saudis who treated them as simply mercenaries whom they could order about, should be given full access to the service academies and the military press, as well as to the mainstream media.

Fifth, Saudi textbooks, the contents of the khutbas, or sermons, routinely delivered in Saudi Arabia, should be given exposure by every conceivable means – and there should be many journalists happy, at long last, to report the truth about Saudi Arabia.

Sixth, attention should be given to how the Saudis have spent their money since 1973. Why no art works? Why not a single Saudi scientist of note? How much was spent on arms? How much was spent on luxury goods? How much was spent – most importantly – on da’wa and jihad? Do any Saudis work, and if so, for how long each day? As for the Saudi penchant for “Western decadence” – a kind that will not go over very well in some circles in the Muslim East -- the C.I.A. could easily supply to various Internet sites all sorts of pictures of Saudi princelings. For example, they could supply the amateur videos taken from a certain café in Marbella that show the boatloads of Western call girls being taken out to the waiting yachts of Saudis, just after their wives and children had been offloaded to other boats. Oh, there are a thousand things that, in a war, one can do to demoralize the enemy, or to cause the collaboration of certain key elements in the enemy camp.

Seventh, all means should be used to help those who are suing the Saudis for their role in all terrorist attacks. For their money, and U.A.E. money, and Kuwaiti money, underlie all the mosques in the West – and madrasas, armaments, everything. And all that has only been possible since 1973 with the OPEC bonanza.

Eighth, Congressional committees should follow up on the 9/11 Commission and the hearings held (all too quietly) not too long ago on the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act. They should study the subject of how, in the capitals of the West, the Arabs, and especially the Saudis, have bought influence. There should be undertaken a systematic study of every American ambassador to Saudi Arabia or to other Muslim oil states, including study of their reports to the State Department and their attempts to inform – or deliberately misinform – the American government and the American public. Their actions both while in office and in their retirement as “international business consultants with a particular interest in the Middle East,” as so many of them are called, should be carefully scrutinized. James Akins, Eugene Bird, Andrew Kilgore, the ex-C.I.A. agent Raymond Close, and a host of others should be called before Congress. Find out who is funding the Committee for the National Interest. Who pays for certain lectures? Who has received what, from whom, when? And this should also be done perhaps in London (certain members of Parliament have already been exposed as being on the Arab take) or Paris (well, we all know about Chirac, so scarcely need bother with him – but what about the lower level, the Roland Dumas level?) or Rome (everyone knows about Andreotti, but it was not merely a connection, unproved in a court but common knowledge, to the malavita, but his curious interest in promoting, at every juncture, the Arabs that bears looking into). As for the EU bureaucracy – well, why not find out a bit more about that den of iniquity, as Europe transmogrifies, hideously, into Eurabia?

Nine, if the Saudis can charge $40 or $40 a barrel for oil that costs less than $1 to lift, is it beyond the wit of the oil-consuming nations that supply the educated manpower on which the Saudis completely rely, that is, the West whose medical care and educational system the Saudis also rely, to do the same to them? Turnabout is fair play. Suppose, for example, every time a Saudi wished to visit the United States for medical care (the Mass General, the Children’s Hospital, the Mayo Clinic), he were to be charged not only the regular medical fees, but a “surcharge” that would be pegged as the same multiple of those medical expenses as the price charged for a barrel of Saudi oil is a multiple of the real cost of lifting that barrel? A $5,000 medical fee would have a surcharge of 40 times that, or $200,000. Unfair? Unworkable? Are you sure? Why is it any fairer than the Saudis who manage to charge oligopolistic rents because they are the swing producer – and who charge 40 times the cost of production? Why should not all the advanced Western powers together agree that even visits by Saudis to the U.S., to England, to France, to Italy, will be a very severely limited commodity – and will have to be paid for very considerably? This “surcharge” might be seen as a way of paying for the real cost of security now made necessary by Muslim terrorists. And any other means to discourage Saudi visits to the West – and to make clear that the Saudis (and other financers not only of terrorism, but of mosques in the West) are now pariahs, and will be treated as such, locked into their own Muslim world which, like the propagandist Tariq Ramadan, of course they cannot really bear (as Ramadan cannot bear not to reside in the West, and so has concocted Da’wa for a future Islamized Eurabia).

Ten through One Hundred: Use your own imagination, reader."

[Posted by Hugh at December 10, 2005]

One more thing.

Bush would like greater production from OPEC and, therefore, he fondly hopes, lower prices. But he is confusing two things. First, it is not in our short term interests, and definitely not in our long-term interests, to have lower oil prices. We need higher -- much higher -- oil and gasoline prices. What we do not want is for the incremental cost of that oil and that gasoline to end up in the pockets of Arabs and Muslims. We have the power, we have always had the power, to make oil and gasoline as expensive as we wish, by taxing it ourselves. In Europe gasoline is more than twice what it costs here. The result is that Europeans have figured out that they must do more with mass transit, and just look at their subsidized rail and subway systems. They have figured out that they must subsidise solar power, and they do (see Germany). They have figured out that the perils of nuclear energy is a hysterical reaction by those who know little, know that the standards of Soviet reactors in the old days have nothing to do with Western standards, and there is no need to be paralyzed by fear of a possible Chernobyl, and now look at France, where the government builds the plants, builds them to a few designs, not dozens of them (as happened in the United States where private companies were entrusted with the task), and where the government also is the insuror, as it must be -- one of the drawbacks to naively trusting that "private enterprise" can build those plants. Why, private enterprise can no more be relied on to build nuclear plants in this country, and revive that moribund industry, than the American government could have relied on "private enterprise" to successfully complete the Manhattan Project. There is a place for what we call private enterprise, but nuclear energy, at this point, is unlikely to be one of them.

Bush should not be asking the Saudis for anything. He should be silent with them. He should go home, and announce that as a matter of national urgency and emergency, he intends to start taxing gasoline at levels that will bring it, if continued, to Westeern European levels by 2012. He should announce that all the revenues thus received will be plowed into subsidies for mass transit, and for rebuilding the nation's rail systems. And so on.

But he won't. He'll grovel before these expensively-dressed petro-plutocrats. "Money can buy everything except...civlization." That was how a Franco-Armenian acquaintance,who spent years in Saudi Arabia building military cities, summed up his experience.

Exactly.

Bush is wondering what he can fetch for this monstrosity on E-Bay. Any bidders?

Hugh: I stand corrected on my history of OPEC. I was relying mainly on memory of what I was reading in the newspapers at the time.
In fact, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) was first organized in early 1968, but was not much of a factor until its membership expanded and it met 10 days after the start of the 1973 war (the Yom Kippur war started by the Arabs.) The OPEC nations threatened to cut oil production to the west for political reasons (until Israel withdrew to its earlier borders) as well as to increase their revenues. It is my belief that what held things together temporarily for OPEC was the anti-Israeli and jihadi sentiment of its membership.

By the way, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments concerning the need to tax ourselves for use of oil as a way to wean ourselves off of the substance, and the rest of your suggestions about alternative energy use. There are so many alternative energy sources we could develop with no harm to our economy, but rather a great benefit to it, if we only had the leadership and motivation.

There was an excellent program on the History channel tonight explaining many practical solutions that could get us to where nearly all of our energy needs could be produced from sustainable and renewable sources.

But he won't. He'll grovel before these expensively-dressed petro-plutocrats. "Money can buy everything except...civlization." That was how a Franco-Armenian acquaintance,who spent years in Saudi Arabia building military cities, summed up his experience.

Exactly.

Posted by: Hugh at January 16, 2008 12:52 AM

... and why shouldn't Bush grovel, like he always has, before these "expensively-dressed petro-plutocrats" or barbaric wahhabis? These "expensively-dressed petro-plutocrats" have bailed Bush family out time and time again with their investments, loans and favours, for generations. Whatever gave Americans the idea that Bush would work for American interests? Did't they know that Bush went AWOL from service? That daddy stopped the first gulf war as soon as Saudis were safe? That Bush and Al-Sauds share the same oil busness? That at rhe core, Bush family is a business family, buying and selling any and everything for whatever they can muster, be it a petro-dollar or a peso? What use are hard-working, Tax-paying, honest Americans, to the Bush business family, after they have casted their votes? You see, that is the beauty of a democratic election. Once it is won, voters are not needed untill next election. Until then, the treasury, the armed forces, the executive branch and the administration can be put to use to pay depts to creditors and lendors, for favors, be it business-deals, ports, borders, American treasure, or American lives. The point Hugh, is.. Americans, once conned, cannot stop their own leaders.
Maybe not in so many words, but doesn't the picture say it all?

Who's the superpower?

Hugh, the following 2 statements were included in the original approved IPPC report, the version written by the scientists themselves. They were deleted by bureaucrats at the U.N prior to publication. (There were at least 15 deletions.)

“No study to date has positively attributed all or part to anthropogenic causes.”

“None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.”

I know that this isn't the place for such a discussion, but I find the deletions somewhat troubling and just thought you might find them interesting.

Hugh, you're good with the facts, and a keen analysis of the situation has me respecting your solutions. If I were to ever become President? I want you and your thoughts to any matter bantered about to others in my cabinet.

But, after all is said and done, that bogus Islam still permeates the region. The thoughts generated and maintained in the minds of people from that goofy collection of Islamic writings and religious practices, Islamic influence is the instigator and will still dominate and direct their thoughts whether we read them the riot act, or impose a tax on oil to increase the price, or whatever. Supply and demand pricings the Saudi's seem so aware of are more a Western invention than Islamic. If only they all thought more Western ...

Legitimacy for Islamic thought is the jugular. Islamic writings and rituals are no more inspired by the Creator God than the Incan and Mayan religions (were.) Cut or block this jugular, someday, and that huge beast from Morocco to Pakistan, South East Asia, Turkey ... falls mortally wounded.

Imagine that. Imagine actually taking steps to and then someday realize you've accomplished the seeming impossible.

It's a beautiful thought.