On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 15:54:15 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 3:24:09 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Sep 2019 08:12:00 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 5:05:48 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 09:35:46 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 12:06:48 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 08:56:39 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 11:51:48 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 11:23:31 -0400, Home Guy wrote:


"It was a precision attack on Saudi's regional credibility - and by
extension on Trump and the US. The competence of Trump's buddy,
de-facto ruler Crown Prince MBS is on the line. Saudi is the third
highest defence spending nation at $69 bln, and ranks highest global
spender in terms of 8.8% of GDP!

So why is Saudi doing so badly in the conflict with supposedly
unsophisticated Houthi tribesmen? Someone should probably be
asking questions about what the recently arrived US forces sent
by Trump and their Patriot missiles were up to."


If Houthi tribesman, armed with backward/third-world Iranian technology,
can outgun and outlast Saudi military (armed with US technology) - then
the obvious question is just what sort of **** does the US rely on for
it's defense (and offense) ?

The US military-industrial complex. The most expensive weapons money
can buy. Just don't ask about effectiveness...

==
Most of Saudi's spending is on high performance jets so the princes
can "top gun" around the desert. They are very reluctant to actually
go up against anyone who can shoot back.
Their army is a joke.


If that's true, then I guess Trump spreading around gasoline, playing
with matches with Iran, demanding that they become like Sweden is a
very bad idea.

I think we should get the hell out of the whole region. We are
protecting Saudi oil for the Chinese and the Europeans, not us. We
don't use much Saudi oil these days. Let them spend their blood and
treasure trying to resolve 600 year old religious wars.

You've seen the spike in oil prices from just this. Oil is trading up 10%.
And that's with Trump saying that he's authorized using our strategic
reserve, which isn't bottomless.
If the whole Middle East winds up in a war and oil goes to $150, there
isn't enough oil for the world, do you think the US and our economy are
going to somehow be immune from that? How about if ISIS winds up with
the oil? All of that was something to think about before Trump stuck
his stubbly little fingers into the eyes of the Iranians. I don't think
we should just run away, but picking a fight with Iran, with the predictable
results, when they were complying with the nuke agreement, sure wasn't
what I would have done.



This is the same kind of rhetoric that got the US into the 28 year
Iraq war and I think most of it is bull****.

No surprise there, you're typically way out there with some alternate,
revisionist view of the world.


It certainly hasn't shown
up at my pump yet.

Well, what more proof would anyone need? We just saw crude jump
20%, settle at an increase of about 10%, but you claim it won't
affect gas, diesel and fuel oil prices here. Decades of history
and basic economics says it will show up.




I still remember them telling us when Saddam set fire to the Kuwait
oil fields and destroyed their refineries it would take years to get
oil flowing again and it was really pretty much back to normal before
the pipeline slowed down.
I do think you should get some Haliburton or Foster Wheeler stock.
(depending on who the Saudis hire)

Again, I say one thing and you respond to something different, as if I
had said that. You proposed that the US just forget about the Mideast,
ignore it. And I said:

If the whole Middle East winds up in a war and oil goes to $150, there
isn't enough oil for the world, do you think the US and our economy are
going to somehow be immune from that? How about if ISIS winds up with
the oil?

Whole Middle East in a war the recent attack on one Saudi facility.

History has shown that if you ignore obvious trouble, try to bury your
head in the sand, it's lead to really, really horrible results. Results
that are so horrific, they bear no comparison to anything that we've
incurred in decades of being involved in the Middle East. Now you'll
try to spin that into that I'm some kind of war monger, eager to go
intervene. And I can't help point out that from the time Trump was
running until just over a year ago, when he was promising to renege on
the Iran nuke deal and insist that they must turn into Sweden, I said
here many times that would be a huge mistake, with results, some
predictable, many not. I don't recall you saying it was a mistake.
It's Trump's stupid action that has us where we are today, in an
unpredictable, volatile situation and with Iran now enriching uranium
again. And it's obvious the orange clown doesn't know quite what to
do now that he's poked at the hornet's nest. He said he was going to
bust their chops, put such pressure on them, that they would cry uncle
and turn into Sweden. Now that he has them on the rocks, their economy
suffering severely, he goes to France and says that the idea of giving
Iran a loan of $12 bil is an idea he's open to. He fires Bolton.
After the attack, he said the US is locked and loaded. Then he says
that he has no desire to go to war. He's said many times that he's ready
to meet with the Iranians, no conditions. The media reports that,
Trump gets mad and denies he ever said it, claims the media is lying.
I figure at least one of Trump's major, stupid actions is going to catch
up with him before the election, maybe more than one. But maybe he has
a plan, would anyone be surprised if Trump tweeted this morning that he's
thinking about buying Iran?




The US has been at war in the middle east for almost 3 decades and
things are worse there than they were in 1991.
At what point are we reaching the classic definition of insanity?


How do you know the alternatives are not worse? Just because one
war was, in 20-20 hindsight, a mistake, ie the Iraq War, doesn't
mean all involvement is a mistake and we can afford to just ignore
it all. Iraq having nuclear weapons is OK with you and we shouldn't
be involved with other countries in seeking to stop that before it
happens?



We KNOW the war with Iraq was a mistake, there is no reason to believe
war with Iran would not be worse, especially since we haven't really
extricated ourselves from Iraq yet.
This really has nothing to do with the national interest of The US but
it is important to the person who is really pulling the strings in the
Trump administration, Netanyahu.