"Stay Behind" strategies in Iraq

[Tyler Durden]

Variola wrote...

"Odd to see you underestimate the capabililties of a
blood & oil crazed US unencumbered by even shreds
of a bill of rights."

Could it be that Tim May is just a great big optimist at heart?

-TD







>From: "Major Variola (ret)" <mv at cdc.gov>
>To: "cypherpunks at lne.com" <cypherpunks at lne.com>
>Subject: Re: "Stay Behind" strategies in Iraq
>Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:17:17 -0700
>
>(resent)
>At 10:51 PM 4/10/03 -0700, Tim May wrote:
> >On Thursday, April 10, 2003, at 08:04 PM, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
> >>
> >> Ok, the Iraqis will work in the 7-11s which serve the yankees.
> >> Some Iraqis will do better.  They will inspire others.  They will
> >> also be used by psyops to argue for "the american dream" for
> >> Iraqis.  And although exploited by psyops, I think all humans
> >> want to improve their circumstance.
> >
> >You're arguing for what you would like to see, whereas what I'm talking
>
> >about is that there is unlikely to be any surge in employment in this
> >hand-out nation.
>
>Not what I'd like to see; what the US will encourage.  The US
>(or its puppets) will use .iq's oil money to pay for .iq reconstruction
>jobs,
>and then steady-state jobs.  To think otherwise is to ignore the
>motivations and means of the USG.
>
> >There simply is no prospect that significantly more than the small
> >fraction of Iraqis who now service the oil industry will be employed.
> >Doubling oil production, which is essentially impossible, would only
> >double a small number...or not quite double, as newer facilities will
> >be even more automated.
>
>So use oil money to create agricultural projects which use lots
>of labor.  Iraq has water.  (When we take Saudi Arabia we
>can build desalination plants..)
>
>I'm saying that if the problems you describe arise, the USG
>will try to reduce them, for the USG's benefit.  I don't see
>how you can ignore the 800 lb gorilla with the A-10 backup.
>I don't see how observing this makes me socialist.  Analyst,
>maybe, socialist, no.
>
>
> >Meanwhile, most of the nation's 20,000,000 will continue to rely on
> >handouts.
> >I said that no major ghetto/slum area, whether Calcutta or
> >South-Central LA or Baghdad has ever, in memory, gone to nearly full
> >employment. I'm a libertarian, not a do-gooder:
>
>So am I.  But I recognize the existance of non-libertarian agents
>like the USG and their ability to use resources (oil) for social
>placation.  Social placation which favors USG interests.
>
>Shit, a lot of Americans will admit (if pressed) that USG domestic
>welfare
>is to prevent the South Centrals from rioting.  And Iraq is not even
>burdened with those US pathologies or the US constitution.
>
> >> Yes, the US could keep the Iraqis poor.  But its not in the USG
> >> interest.  The USG wants MTV in every Arab home. (Albeit this will
> >> piss off the Islamo Fundies, but they're
> >> already majorly pissed.)
> >
> >You're showing your statist/idealist roots. It's not a matter of "the
> >US could keep the Iraqis poor." No more so than the U.S. is keeping the
>
> >South-Central LA negroes poor, or the Calcutta natives poor.
>
>You grossly misunderstand.  The US now owns Iraq.  The US can
>physically keep Iraqis poor if it wishes ---put them all in internment
>camps, feed them a meal at a time.  (How is this statism?  Its a
>statement
>of brutal fact, a consequence of who has the biggest guns.)
>
>The US can also give them all satellite TVs & trust funds if it wishes,
>using either your taxes or Iraq's oil sales money.
>
>Now my claim is that 1. the USG interest is in Americizing Iraq, and
>that
>2. (having the guns) they will do so, whether the Iraqis want it or not.
>
>My claim is also that the oil is easier to spend than US tax dollars
>in the long run.  I have yet to see you refute any of these.  I also
>fail
>to see how this makes me statist.  *Recognizing* state actions doesn't
>mean I endorse them.
>
>I suppose I'm also making a claim that the entire population there isn't
>
>permenantly, chronically South Central LA, i.e., that the US
>manipulation
>will work to some extent.
>
> >I suppose the U.S. could order Iraqi National Oil to hire tens of
> >thousands of people to polish the pipes, wipe down the derricks, spoon
> >up the spilled oil, and other make-work jobs. Still a drop in the
> >bucket.
> >
> >Basically, Iraq went through a standard Turd World birth boom, doubling
>
> >its population and then doubling it again in just a couple of
> >generations. Look at the statistics on how many Iraqis are under 15.
>
>Yep.  But you realize that the high-youth populations of various arab
>nations are succeptible to Americanization, and that the USG
>knows this, right?  And will exploit this for the USG's ends.
>
> >They dispersed handouts to the breeders, who now number 20 million,
> >crowded into several major cities and a dozen smaller cities.
>
>You are also aware of how, after a population gets Americanized, they
>start using birth control?  Chicks wanting college, more money per
>family
>member the fewer there are, no need for agricultural labor.  [Alas
>world-Americanization is happening too slowly and the population bomb is
>
>slowly detonating]
>
> >Modern refineries cannot afford to have people running around with
> >wrenches and screwdrivers, tweaking and reading gauges. The plants
> >either run with few people or they are doomed.
>
>Ok.  Perhaps I am wrong about the number of pipe-polishers and
>folks employed in satellite industries (incl. the Iraqis who repair
>Halliburton Mercedez).
>Then the USG will create labor-consuming 'reconstruction' projects then.
>
>Using your or Iraqi resources,  it doesn't much matter if its not an
>election year.
>
>I'm stating future history, not what I personally want, Tim.  I think
>I've stated clearly enough that this the USG acting (without serious
>opposition)
>in pure USG interest.
>
> >Finally, for now, a friend of mine for the past 28 years is the son of
> >a former Chevron head of research and development (at the Bay Area
> >refineries...also lightly staffed). This V.P., Dr. John Scott, told me
> >many years ago just how few people it takes to run the crackers and
> >distillation towers.
>
>Ok, then only a few Texans will be over there.  Smaller exposure.
>Fewer targets.  Still, the USG will create native jobs out of USG
>interests.
>
> >It's good for Iraq that they have oil. Having oil is always better than
>
> >not having oil. But any notion that any expansion of the oil business
> >is going to magically employ millions of Iraqis who are not now
> >employed is silly. Do the math.
>
>Every arabian kingdom with oil has little but oil money.  That the
>monarchs of the region use it for welfare (and thus their own
>security) is no different from the USGs plan.
>
>Only folks it doesn't work on are the Fundies, as the Shah (et al)
>found out.
>
> >> the US imposed 'interim' govt will tax this to
> >> fund things (like jobs, or even sinecures) that win favor. Why?
> >> Because the govt worries more about Iraqi/Arab backlash more
> >> than Halliburton's profits.   For a while, anyway.
> >
> >Silliness. Prices are set by markets.  No one is claiming that
> >Halliburton will get the bulk of the oil profits. But Halliburton will
> >not do its thing (drilling services, extinguishing fires, etc.) except
> >at prices they find acceptable.
>
>Of course, a company is rational, xor extinct.  What I mean is,
>the new USIRAQ will "own" the oil, much like the Saudi
>kings do.  They may let others pump it, refine it, move it
>(all those parties making a profit), but USIRAQ will
>use its take for Americanization.
>
> >You seem to have some kind of fantasy going on about Iraq's oil economy
>
> >somehow giving jobs to millions of Iraqis who have no skills, no work
> >experience. Optimism has blinded you. Do the math.
>
>Not optimism, mere modelling of agents and their means
>and motivations.
>
> >>  If you liquidate the towelhead kings
> >> of the region, you might find a lot of distributable wealth
> >> (I'm not a socialist, neither am I an admirer of monarchy.)
> >> which the US conquerers would distribute.  A great way
> >> to curry favor with the populace.  Libertarian ideals don't
> >> prescribe a way to distribute land-based wealth in the region,
> >> though I'd love to be corrected.
> >>
> >
> >"Redistributing the oil wealth" will not do anything except lead to a
> >further doubling and tripling of the population.  The moral hazard of
> >handing out free stuff is itself enough to derail real markets.
>
>But it won't be *free*, the Iraqis will have to work for
>the dinars with George's face on them.
>A sinecure counts as work, geopolitically, as long as
>the oil is there to pay for it.  (And the bricklayers and
>fibre-laying crews will be busy with real work at first.)
>For psyops-dignity control the jobs can't be *too* fake.
>Do not import street-sweeping machines if you need
>to employ lots of street-sweepers.
>
>A doubling takes more than a decade.  You can do a lot
>of social manipulation in that time.  Free birth control at
>the oil-paid-for clinics.  TV time for agreeable clerics,
>jail for disagreeable ones.
>
>Odd to see you underestimate the capabililties of a
>blood & oil crazed US unencumbered by even shreds
>of a bill of rights.
>
>...
>...our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid
>
>possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force,
>often seems less reasonable to others than to us." -- Winston Churchill,
>
>January 1914


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