Is this the same Admiral Fallon who went kowtowing to Beijing when a Chinese sub suddenly surfaced within the security zone of a US carrier a few months ago, claiming "we knew you were there, we just didn't want to create an international incident"? I believe he'll soil his trowsers when Dinnerjacket bluffs him with a nuke.

Mr. Arkin, "we" are not debating whether Gen. Pace can have his (bigoted) views on gays. Yes he can (and obviously does) have such views. But, in his role as the nation's top military commander to express such bigotry publicly is an outrage.

I was amused when Adm Fallon told Congress that in his opinion, Iran is at least a decade away from a nuclear weapon. What will he say if in 2008 Bush orders him to attack Iran to *pre-empt a mushroom cloud*?

Military Commanders change every day. Why does any change have to be seen in a light of clandestine and confusing inuendo.
General Pace, Semper Fi, from an old Army War Dog. Throw the Gays out. My attitude is if they were not allowed in Sodom and Gamorra, why sould we of good conscious accept them period.
Every day I hope and pray that our Leaders do the right thing.

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Why would you make such a correct prediction and then blow your credibility with such a wrong prediction?

Iran attack on or about July 4, 2007. Won't be an invasion--Fallon doesn't need to understand troop movements because there are no troops to spare. Lots of Shock & Awe to little useful effect. Bush declares victory, then a carrier group disappears...maybe two. Seems that the Iranians had a few tricks up their sleeves. You heard it here first.

Also, Washington State wins the NCAAs.

Posted by: MedallionOfFerret

For uncensored news please bookmark:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
www.onlinejournal.com

War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st Century
Noam Chomsky Connects the Dots

By SAMEER DOSSANI

Sameer Dossani: Let's talk about the recently passed Iraqi oil law. It's well known that the law was drafted in the U.S. and then consulted on by very few Iraqis all loyal to Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki, then finally pushed through the Iraqi parliament. This law paves the way for regionalization and privatization of Iraqi oil. What's the U.S. economic agenda in Iraq and will it be able to carry that agenda out, given the disastrous nature of the occupation so far?

Noam Chomsky: It's not very clear. What you said is correct. The law was not even seen by the Iraqi Parliament until it was finished, so it's an inside job. Exactly what this entails is still kind of open. It allows for Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) which have traditionally been a way of gouging the producer and ensuring that foreign corporations have control and make huge profits. It's quite different from other contractual arrangements in the region--it's what they used to have but they've since nationalized their oil production and countries set terms more in their own interest with the corporations that are moving in. This law is vague on that so it leaves it open.

As far as the U.S. economic interests I think we have to make a distinction. The primary interest, and that's true throughout the Middle East, even in Saudi Arabia, the major energy producer, has always been control, not access, and not profit. Profit is a secondary interest and access is a tertiary interest.

So in the years when the U.S. was not using Middle East oil at all, [the U.S.] was the largest producer and the largest exporter, it still had the same policies. It wanted to control the sources of oil and the reasons are understood. In the mid-1940s, the State Department made it clear that the oil resources of the region, primarily then Saudi Arabia, were a stupendous source of strategic power which made the Middle East the most strategically important area of the world. They also added that its one of the greatest material prizes in world history. But the basic point is that it's a source of strategic power, meaning that if you control the energy resources, then you can control the world, because the world needs the energy resources.

This was made explicit by George Kennan when he was one of the Middle East planners [in the U.S. State Department]. [He said that] control over Middle East oil will give us veto power over our rivals. He was specifically talking about Japan, in case Japan industrialized, it was devastated by the war still, we'll have veto power as long we control the oil. And that's been understood through the years. So in the early stages of the Iraq war [former U.S. National Security Advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski, who's one of the more astute of the planners--he was not terribly enthusiastic about the war--said that if the U.S. wins the war, which means that it succeeds in imposing a client regime in Iraq, then the U.S. will have critical leverage over its industrial rivals in Europe and Asia because it will have its hand on the spigot.

And that is also understood very well at the highest level of the administration. So a few months ago, Dick Cheney said that control over [oil] pipelines can be "tools for intimidation and [blackmail]". He was talking about control over pipelines in the hands of others, so if our enemies have it, it's a tool of intimidation and coercion. But of course the same is true if it is in our hands. We're not supposed to think that because we're supposed to be noble, but the rest of the world certainly understands it. Yes, it's a tool of intimidation and coercion, whether it's the direction of pipelines or whether its control over the production or over the regimes in question, and control can take many forms.

So that's the primary concern--control. A secondary concern is undoubtedly profit for U.S.-based corporations and British based corporations and several others of course. And yes [in the case of the Iraqi oil law] that's a possibility. The Production Sharing Agreements and the other arrangements for long-term contracts at ridiculous rates, those are expected to be sources of immense profit as they have been in the past, so for example a couple of weeks ago Exxon-Mobil posted its profits for 2006 which are the highest for any corporation in U.S. history. That broke the record of the preceding year, which also happened to be Exxon-Mobil and the other energy corporations are doing just great--they have money pouring out of their ears. And the same with the corporations that link to them, like Haliburton, Bechtel and so on.

For the rest please go to:

http://www.counterpunch.org/dossani03092007.html

Iran attack on or about July 4, 2007. Won't be an invasion--Fallon doesn't need to understand troop movements because there are no troops to spare. Lots of Shock & Awe to little useful effect. Bush declares victory, then a carrier group disappears...maybe two. Seems that the Iranians had a few tricks up their sleeves. You heard it here first.

Also, Washington State wins the NCAAs.

I don't think the solution to the Iraq debacle really rests on the shoulders of whatever four-star officer happens to be in charge. He will have his hands tied by the incompetence, arrogance, ignorance, and whims emanating from the NCA, which sadly happens to be Bush in this case.
I don't think anything good can come from a person who lies as a matter of course, and who, in my humble opinion, has secured for himself the title of Worst President in modern American history. The disdain and contempt this man has shown for our Constitution, for our fighting men and women, and ultimately for the American people, is without equal in the annals of our Republic's presidential history.
Nixon, Buchanan, and Hoover may have been very bad, but they did not damage our country to the extent that this mediocre man has. Admiral Fallon will more than likely sit in his office at MacDill AFB in Tampa, say the right things, visit the AO every now and then, and retire at the end of his tenure. King George is in charge, and it will be his way or the highway, as demonstrated by what has happened to other military leaders who dared speak up.

Or is Fallon just another scapegoat for the bush's future failures?