"Allah is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam"

[Elixir]

I don't know if Biden is right or not because quite frankly over half the journalism I read and see is complete bull shit anyway.

Most people here were already aware of that.

 

[bilby]

Oil prices bombed last year due to Covid. The recent rally has brought Brent Crude up to $20/bbl, which is about 2/3 of the pre-Covid price for the same commodity.

Any recovery from the economic disaster that Covid has wreaked on the world will lead to higher oil prices. To suggest that the current price of gasoline in the US is symptomatic of a poor handling of the nation's affairs by the new administration is utterly laughable.

Gasoline prices at the pump have been bouncing around like a hairy goat here. Swings of 70% in a week have become the norm.

A month ago, I could get E10 ULP for AU$0.98/litre. Last week, the same fuel at the same servo was $1.74. Today it's $1.22 - down about 30% in a week that's seen the strongest recovery in world crude prices for a year.

Trying to find any link between these hugely volatile prices and the far less volatile crude price is a fool's game.

 

[Patooka]

So Justin King, an independent journalist, has thrown his five cents into this argument:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-iONmH0oEc[/youtube]

I don't consistently agree with him and yet I can't point out a single youtube clip he has posted that isn't well informed and insightful. Key points from the clip:

-The revoking of terrorist statue is inconsequential and is essentially political theatre. What is more important is the US is going to cease providing unconditional military support to Saudi Arabia. This isn't to appease Iran, as Derec assumes, but to deny legitimacy of Saudi Arabia over Iran as both regimes are six of one, a half dozen of the other.

-This is not for altruistic reasons, the US will still be in Yemen in some capacity.

-This shift in policy could be a precursor for the US military to wind down its presence in the Middle East as the US becomes less dependant on fossil fuels. This is something Trumptards loved when it was alleged Atgolf Twitler was doing this, so I am confused why certain usual suspects are now critical of such a policy simply because it's Biden and not Trump doing it. Oh wait, I'm neither confused nor surprised; this is fucking typical.

-King mentioned Africa as the new bone of contention between global superpowers. Considering how China is buying up debt and it's Belt and Road initiative is focused on Asia Minor and North East Africa, I reckon he's going to be on the money on this one. China already has a huge head start because America couldn't be fucked appointing Ambassadors in key nations over the last five years to address this.

 

[Swammerdami]

Some posts tickle my funny-bone so much that I have to click the Reply button. I've been caught out here twice, thinking a post was ordinary ignorance only to learn that the post was a parody of Republican "thought." (Did that happen to me here? Is RVonse hoping to get a job writing for The Onion, and is honing his skills here?)

I don't know if Biden is right or not because quite frankly over half the journalism I read and see is complete bull shit anyway.

But I am pretty sure about this. Gas just went up .23/ gallon where I live. Not .02/gallon but .23/gallon.

23¢ per gallon! Not 2¢ per gallon but 23¢ per gallon!!! That's over 6¢ per liter! And this harrowing jump wasn't due to the Boys at Reddit piling on to squeeze the shorts: The DEMON-c-RATS did it single-handedly by noting that the Houthis aren't a terrorist organization. (This ferocious soaring of the oil price must have pleased the Saudi Crown Prince — biggest oil exporter in the world. Are we sure that Biden isn't working for the secret DeepState-Rothschild-Saudi cabal after all?)

Let me put this price hike in perspective for the humor-impaired:

During the 2nd Obama term, the retail price of gasoline in the U.S. fell by $1.50. Not $1.30. $1.50 Yes, that's Barack Hussein Obama, with an 'H' but connoisseurs call this The Mitch McConnell Era of Prosperity.

After Trump's election the price of gasoline soared 60 cents, but of course American Patriots understand that this was strictly due to sabotage by then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Make America Gullible Again.

 

[jonatha]

Gas just went up .23/ gallon where I live. Not .02/gallon but .23/gallon. And where I live, most of us are still driving gas cars. Biden is going to make it very expensive for middle class people to get to and from their jobs in the very near future. He just got rid of the keystone pipeline and now this.

Allow me finally to observe publicly that RVonse is a <DELETED>...

The price of a gallon of gas has been acting like a roller coaster for years, and when it drops 23 cents sometime in the next month I doubt RVonse will be posting hallelujahs.

And most of the "oil" that would have flowed through KeystoneXL was destined for export...

 

[RVonse]

Allow me finally to observe publicly that RVonse is a <DELETED>...

I actually hope you are correct that I am <wrong>
We will know soon enough in the next 4 years whether the middle class does any better or not under Bejing Bidens leadership.

 

[Swammerdami]

Derec is to be applauded for starting this thread on the important topic of Trump's misbegotten alliance with the terrorist states of Saudi Arabia and Israel. For most of my life I've "sided" with Israel, but under Netanyahu the criminal seizing of territory and inhumane oppression of Palestinians, depriving them of medicine and nutrition, has become too despicable for words. When will an American President stand up to it?

I see that Israeli General Aviv Kochavi is signalling the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Iran is asking for a meeting of the Security Council. Will Biden's America make another veto in support of Netanyahu's evil?

 

[Patooka]

I actually hope you are correct that I am <wrong>.

We will know soon enough in the next 4 years whether the middle class does any better or not under Bejing Bidens leadership.

Then why the fuck did you say "Biden is going to make it very expensive for middle class people" when a)you don't have a fucking clue and b)your reasoning was flawed to begin with?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't know if Biden is right or not because quite frankly over half the journalism I read and see is complete bull shit anyway.

But I am pretty sure about this. Gas just went up .23/ gallon where I live. Not .02/gallon but .23/gallon. And where I live, most of us are still driving gas cars. Biden is going to make it very expensive for middle class people to get to and from their jobs in the very near future. He just got rid of the keystone pipeline and now this.

He is doing a hell of a good job of taking even more money away from middle class workers and he has only been in office a short time.

The price of gas goes up and down like it's on a pogo stick. It's been down due to the pandemic, it's just returning towards normal.

And the Keystone pipeline wasn't going to make much gas in the first place, it isn't relevant.

 

[Derec]

If I am forced to pick a side between the Saudi or the Iranian governments, I'm comfortable with, "fuck both your houses" as a response.

And yet there are differences. KSA being our ally for one. Then there is the fact that MbS is instituting some much-needed reforms while Iran seems to be sinking ever deeper into theocracy. Iran is alsom unlike KSA, expansionist. IRGC and their proxies are active in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. Then there is Israel. It seems the Left started really hating the Saudis only when they started their tentative rapprochement with Israel. Same reason why so many hardcore leftists like Iran - enemy of my enemy and all that.

Biden's decision appears to focused solely on the borderline genocide in Yemen, your Nazi hyperbole notwithstanding.

Calling Yemen "borderline genocide". Genocide means trying to destroy a people, not just a war where a bunch of people get killed. Did you know that the birth rate in Yemen is still almost 5x higher than the death rate? Population is growing at almost 2% annually despite net outward migration. Those are not figures indicative of genocide, borderline or otherwise.

Your assertion is based on a gut feeling and you'll forgive me if I don't unconditionally trust your instincts when it comes to the well being of brown people.

What's your obsession with "brown"? In any case, your opinions on Yemen are emotion, rather than fact based.

 

[Derec]

Shutting down arms exports to allies who are abusing them to fight people you are not at war with strikes me as an excellent idea.

We should not sell arms to anybody who is fighting enemies we are not (directly) fighting? Strikes me as a very restrictive policy.

If the US wants to declare war on Iran, then she can do so. If she doesn't (and she hasn't), then she has no business arming allies who are fighting Iranians.

Then I guess US should not have been arming the Brits before Germany declared war on US? If we follow the Bilby Doctrine to the letter, that would have been the outcome.

Much less allies who are fighting Iranian proxies. Particularly if that fighting is effectively shutting down humanitarian aid to people who genuinely need it.

I agree Yemen needs aid. Condoms and birth control pills first and foremost.
And the apparently-totally-not-terrorist Houthis are the ones diverting aid.
I do not see how letting the entire country fall under the yoke of the Houthis is going to help anything.

Fuck the US and her proxy wars. You're big enough and bad enough to fight any dozen other armed forces on the whole fucking planet at the same time. So shit, or get off the pot. If you have a valid casus belli, go to war. If not, butt the fuck out.

I think US should intervene in Yemen directly. I also think taking out Iranian nuclear facilities and IRGC assets would be a legitimate use of armed force.
You are preaching to the choir! But alas, that is not politically possible right now.

The poor bloody Yemenis don't need your half-baked allies dropping 'made in USA' ordinance on their heads.

Because letting the Houthis win would be so much better? Especially since it would destabilize the entire region and may even lead to Iran invading Saudi Arabia once they have a beachhead on the Peninsula.

If the Saudis want to bomb their neighbours, let them make their own fucking bombs.

Or maybe they can buy them elsewhere, with those other countries making those profits.

Biden is babbling about "Buy American" but he doesn't even want to "Sell American" ...

 

[Derec]

Maybe the fact that America and various other countries have been bankrolling the genocide in Yemen might influence the desire to see americans dead?

There is no genocide in Yemen. There is a civil war started by Houthis (Iranian proxies).

Just a guess here.

As usual a bad one. "Death to America" was part of the Houthi slogan since 2000 at least, long before them starting the civil war in Yemen.

The fact is, if we had focused on nation building and education instead of fueling massacres and violence, maybe the people there would be less willing and ready to participate in violence against us. Just a thought.

Yemen was already a nation. It was not necessary to build it. The war in Yemen was not started by US or by Saudis but by Houthis and Iran.
But of course, to the Left anything bad must be the fault of US and Israel.

But at this point, the relationship is ruined. We have an entire nation that we CANNOT really do anything for because I doubt those families would now take aid and education from the same people who they got bombs and death from.

That's a very simplistic view of the conflict. Again, it was started by Houthis/Yemen. Houthis are terrorizing the territories they control.
Yemen Cafes Shut, Women Harassed as Houthis Impose Morals Campaign

Not to mention that the Houthis are the aggressors in this war. And yet that is the side you and the rest of the Left are supporting.

Best we can do is at least stop with the bombs and death and accept that people hate us and for good reason.

Again, your overly simplistic analysis of the conflict does not go beyond "US bad".

 

[Derec]

Are you fine with children starving to death in Yemen? I guess you are.

Of course not! But I do not think giving up Yemen to the Houthis/Iran is at all a good course of action. It will lead to a lot of misery down the road not because of how oppressive Houthis are to the Yemeni people but also because an Iranian victory in Yemen will probably lead to a wider war in the region as they get more and more emboldened. Yemen will look like a walk in the park compared to carnage we will see if Iran decides to invade Saudi Arabia!

And then we have the issue of personal responsibility. This war has been going on for five years, but the birth rate in Yemen hardly budged and is still very high at 25/1000/a (US is less than half that). It is the small children most at risk of malnutrition and it should be responsibility of the adults to not fill the country with bloody children they can't afford to bloody feed! Wrap it up, or barring access to condoms, keep it in the pants!

Conservatives: "save the children!" (unless they're dying of starvation in war torn countries

US did not start the war in Yemen. Houthis did.
And US is not forcing people to have all those children during wartime. That's the autonomous choice of Yemeni adults that are then surprised Pikachu face that they can't feed their five or six children.

I think US should do the opposite of the Biden doctrine. End war quickly by winning it. Bomb Yemeni positions directly with US planes, especially their artillery/heavy arms and command and control facilities. Blockade Houthi controlled ports. Board or sink any Iranian vessel trying to resupply them. Within a month, the remnants of the Houthis should be weak enough for the Yemeni army to rout them easily.

or being separated from their families at the border).

I do not think children and parents should be separated at the border, but neither should people simply be waved through just because they show up at the border with children in tow. We should be able to detain illegals together as a family unit. But that's another discussion.

 

[Derec]

Is that what this thread is about? "Our God is better than your God"?

No. The point is that theocracy and religious extremism are bad things.
Your feeble attempt at false equivalence notwithstanding, US is not even close to being a theocracy. Iran is very much one. And so are territories controlled by Iranian proxies.

Saudi Arabia — which assassinated a Washington Post reporter in cold blood,

"Reporter" is a bit strong. He was a columnist - i.e. opinion writer, and his opinions were basically apologetics for Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic extremist outfit with terrorist tendencies. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, if you need a reference point as to where they stand in the political landscape.
Death of a dissident: What the media aren’t saying about Jamal Khashoggi

In truth, Khashoggi never had much time for western-style pluralistic democracy. In the 1970s he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, which exists to rid the Islamic world of western influence. He was a political Islamist until the end, recently praising the Muslim Brotherhood in the Washington Post. He championed the ‘moderate’ Islamist opposition in Syria, whose crimes against humanity are a matter of record. Khashoggi frequently sugarcoated his Islamist beliefs with constant references to freedom and democracy. But he never hid that he was in favour of a Muslim Brotherhood arc throughout the Middle East. His recurring plea to bin Salman in his columns was to embrace not western-style democracy, but the rise of political Islam which the Arab Spring had inadvertently given rise to. For Khashoggi, secularism was the enemy.

apparently with the consent of the Trump Administration — and Netanyahu's Israel —

Do you have any evidence for that assertion?

which leaves 4+ million Palestinians in desperate poverty, largely because of a 3000 year-old fiction

Palestinians are largely poor not because of Israel but because of their rulers - both Fatah and Hamas are kleptocratic to the core.
Not to mention that both (although Hamas more than Fatah, esp. in recent years) are regularly committing terrorist acts against Israel - but somehow Israel is the bad guy for defending itself.
Hamas is, just like their Iranian masters, on the record with their goal of destroying Israel.

— are perhaps the two most evil governments in the MidEast.

Iran and Syria? Or even better: Iran and Gaza, if you count them.

Trump's organizing a pact between these two heinous regimes was disgusting, and shows why many informed people around the world treated Trump's regime as also heinous. Those pacts contribute to the problem, not to a solution. Informed Americans should be grateful that the U.S. is making progress against such Trumpist hypocrisies and stupidities.

Trump can be faulted for a lot, but he did accomplish some peace treaties in the Middle East. And he accomplished what was US law for decades and yet was not implemented by any US president before him - to move US embassy to the actual capital of Israel - Jerusalem.

Do Iran and the Yemeni rebels support "terrorism"? Sure!

No need for scare quotes!

Most countries in the MidEast "support terrorism", most notably Saudi and Israel.

Not Israel. Saudis yes, more so different factions rather than the state itself though.

The U.S. GOP has become a big supporter of terrorism, not just in the MidEast but in the U.S. itself where they enabled insurrection by the Proud Boys.

Some idiots storming the Capitol for a couple of hours is nowhere in the same galaxy as what Iran and its proxies are doing.

Iran is a powerful rich country which is less evil than most of its neighbors.

LMAO! They are more evil than most of their neighbors.
And they are not exactly rich. The sanctions did a number on their economy. Plus all these proxy terrorists all around the region are expensive to maintain. Especially since Israel is wasting some of them on the regular in Syria!
Fifty-seven Killed in Israeli Strikes in Syria Near Iraqi Border, Watchdog Says

It is a real shame that the U.S. has not pursued rapprochement with this country: most of the Iranian people were eager to be friends with America.

People yes. The theocrats that have usurped power, not so much.
The best thing for the Iranian people would be to finally throw off the yoke of the weirdbeards!

Obama moved strongly in the right direction, but then the Orange Dotard, allied with the Putin-Syria axis, did great damage. Kudos to Biden for helping the U.S. get back on track.

It is Iran that is allied with the "Putin-Syria axis", not Trump. LMAO. Your lack of understanding of that region is truly baffling.

Obama made some good symbolic moves, like the Persian New Year wishes. The genius was that the holiday is widely popular among the people but not among the theocrats.
But then he went and signed that stupid nuclear accord that gave Iran sanction relief plus suitcases of money all just for a 10 year pause in their nuclear weapons program. It was not a good agreement and Biden would be ill advised to return to it without reworking it thoroughly, esp. making it permanent and including their missile capabilities and support for international terrorism.

 

[Derec]

Oh. At any rate, I think my point still stands, that the US is not in a position to be able to directly get involved

Haha. B2 bombers go brrrrr.

 

[Derec]

Totally this!
The USA has been attacking Iran pretty much ever since the Iranians took their country back.

You mean 1979? The Iranians did not "take their country back", a cabal of theocrats took over Iran and usurped power.

But well noted that you have a very positive view of the Islamic theocrats running Iran.

From proxy wars that killed about a million people to stealing their money to trade and tech sanctions...

Oh yeah I wonder why there is bad blood between US and the weirdbeards ...

During the Obama administration the U.S. made some serious efforts to end the attacks.

Like sending pallets of cash to Iran. Not Obama's finest hour.

Hillary was Secretary of State and Biden was VP. We finally had a chance to end the hostility.

How about Iran stop running terrorist organizations all over the region? Groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad Hezbollah and the Houthis.

The TeaParty partisan obstructionist Republicans sabotaged that before it really happened, writing an open letter to the world making it known that the USA cannot be trusted for more than an election cycle. Trump followed through, proving that the USA cannot be trusted.

The Iranian nuclear deal was a rotten deal. It gave Iran a lot of money and all we got in return was a brief pause of their nuclear program. Nothing on missiles or running proxy terrorist groups.

The Republicans demonstrated that world peace is no more than a political football to them.

It is cute you think sending Iran money is conducive to world peace. Or letting them have Yemen for that matte (to bring it back to the actual topic of the thread).

Biden was nowhere near my ideal replacement for Trump.

Oh, don't worry. Despite running as a moderate, so far he is doing the Squad's bidding.

But this is one area where old school fogies like Biden could shine. Obama picked him for VP for a number of reasons. One was Biden's foreign policy experience.
I hope and believe that President Biden can do better at bringing peace to the middle East than his predecessors of the past 50 years.
Tom

He could. Will he though? Restoring the rotten Iran deal is not a way forward.

 

[Derec]

Oh wait -

Right. You are in the wrong thread again, gramps.

 

[Derec]

Jesus Christ. Firstly, the price at your gas/petrol station has more to do with the oligopoly of fuel companies and the amount of oil refined. Not the fucking oil in Saudi Arabia itself.

Global supply and demand levels definitely affect oil prices (and vice versa). Which is why the shale revolution led to a secular drop in oil prices. And which is why Saudis flooding the market a couple of years ago in the failed attempt to drive US shale out of business led to further drop in prices. Demand too plays a major role. The high demand relative to in 2008 led to price skyrocketing to $140/bbl (and that's in 2008 dollars!). The Great Recession that followed (triggered, but not caused by the spike) led to a drop in prices as demand went down fast. Same in 2020 when COVID caused a worldwide demand collapse.

Secondly, the period when the United States was least dependent on foreign oil was during the Obama Administration, which if I remember correctly, Biden was a part of. And thirdly, your bullshit example isn't even proof of correlation much less causation.

Obama administration coincided with the shale revolution, which was almost entirely a private business venture not really dependent on the federal government. That said, early Obama was an "all of the above" guy on energy, to his credit. Unfortunately, Dems went very extremely anti-oil and gas during his presidency and Obama himself caved toward the end of his term, canelling DAPL and KXL. Biden inherited a Democratic Party far more extremist on oil, gas and pipelines than even in 2016 (let alone 2008!) and is caving to them, cancelling KXL. He will possibly also cancel DAPL even though it has been successfully moving oil for years. But that's an issue for another thread.

 

[Derec]

Left out the Keystone pipeline brings oil from Canada to the gulf coast

So far so correct.

to sell on the international market.

That is completely false. It is a bit of dumb anti-KXL propaganda promulgated by those with no understanding of how oil business works. The reason KXL would bring the oil sands to the Gulf is because there are many refineries capable of processing it and sending it to US customers via product pipelines. The Gulf pipelines have been processing heavy Venezuelan oil for decades.

It is not the US’s oil, and is not necessarily being sold to us.

Even with shale, we still import almost half of our oil. Better to import it from Canada then farther afield. And yes, it would be sold to us. It makes no sense to not, given that we have the demand and refining capabilities.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Allow me finally to observe publicly that RVonse is a <DELETED>...

I actually hope you are correct that I am <wrong>
We will know soon enough in the next 4 years whether the middle class does any better or not under Bejing Bidens leadership.

Beijing Biden? Enough. Welcome to the bozo bin, my ignore file. No more wasting time on you.