Osama bin Laden accomplishes major goal - oil prices $144 a barrel

[motivez]

A new story entry has been added:

http://www.libertylounge.net/story/2...ces-144-barrel

THEY are the nightmares, the worst confluence of misguided decisions and startling violence, that politicians and oil executives ponder briefly and then shoo away: ...

''If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he'd turn off the tap,'' said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. ''He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel'' -- about six times what it sells for now.

Fears, Again, of Oil Supplies at Risk - New York Times

Oil prices neared $146 a barrel Thursday for the first time ever on reports of declining U.S. stockpiles and the threat of conflict with Iran.

Comments by Saudi Arabia's oil minister suggesting his country had no immediate plans to boost production also lifted prices.

Expectations that the European Central Bank will raise interest rates later Thursday could further weaken the U.S. dollar and drive oil prices even higher, as investors turn to commodities as a hedge against a falling greenback, traders said.

The Associated Press: Oil prices near $146

Who's winning the war on terror, really?

Sure we've killed a lot of extremists who hate the United States and want to kill Americans and other people who refuse to follow their ideology.

But in the mean time they continue to succeed in changing the way Americans (and the rest of the world) live their lives. Oil prices have skyrocketed, forcing financial hardship on many Americans. The Bush Administration has sought and succeeded in many instances to place greater restrictions on the freedom he says they hate us for, capitulating to their desire that we live in a less free society.

Osama has said his goal was to break us financially in the same way they believed they succeeded against theSoviets into a long war in Afghanistan:

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.

He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."

"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said. ...

"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said. ...

As part of the "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan," bin Laden cited a British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001, an amount that he said paled in comparison with the costs incurred by the United States.

"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs," he said. "As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars. ...

"And it all shows that the real loser is you," he said. "It is the American people and their economy." ...

"So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future," bin Laden said.

Who's to say he's not on course to succeed unless we start changing some of our economic and foreign policies that continue to cost us so much financially, and some of our domestic policies which seem increasingly Orwellian in nature?

[DosEquis]

He might be an asshole that should be captured or killed... but he is smart and his plan is working.

[thewise1]

Dude knows how to fight superpowers, as evidenced by the Soviet Union and now us.

[Phantom]

What's the connection between OBL and $144 oil?

I know he wanted to hurt us financially, and expensive oil is hurting us, but I don't see what Mr. OBL did to cause the expensive oil.

[thewise1]

Originally Posted by Phantom

What's the connection between OBL and $144 oil?

I know he wanted to hurt us financially, and expensive oil is hurting us, but I don't see what Mr. OBL did to cause the expensive oil.

Manipulation of easily manipulated Americans and their leaders, although he certainly didn't do it on his own

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Phantom

What's the connection between OBL and $144 oil?

I know he wanted to hurt us financially, and expensive oil is hurting us, but I don't see what Mr. OBL did to cause the expensive oil.

The attacks on 9/11 lead to our attack on Iraq, and tensions and other things arising out of that action have played a huge role in the price of oil increasing

Obviously he didn't do it entirely by himself, we're to blame for our response, but this was one of his goals, and he's accomplished it.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by motivez

The attacks on 9/11 lead to our attack on Iraq, and tensions and other things arising out of that action have played a huge role in the price of oil increasing

Obviously he didn't do it entirely by himself, we're to blame for our response, but this was one of his goals, and he's accomplished it.

He bet on our own hubris. He just had to make a big symbolic attack and wham, he made us react exactly how he wanted. We lashed out with our military, expending 10's of thousands of lives, ruining our economy, creating instability in the oil producing region and ultimately decreasing our ability to intervene in thier part of the world.

[Phantom]

Oil is high because of an enormous drop in the value of the dollar, increasing demand and to a limited extent supply and speculation.

The connection between these things and OBL is extremely remote.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by Phantom

Oil is high because of an enormous drop in the value of the dollar, increasing demand and to a limited extent supply and speculation.

The connection between these things and OBL is extremely remote.

I dunno, I think the decline in the dollar has alot to do with us waging two wars at once and running massive budget deficits to do it. It wouldn't say that he was THE cause, but he definately nudged it in that direction.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I dunno, I think the decline in the dollar has alot to do with us waging two wars at once and running massive budget deficits to do it. It wouldn't say that he was THE cause, but he definately nudged it in that direction.

The dollar was massively overvalued for some time now. The deficits partially caused by the wars haven't helped though.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

He bet on our own hubris. He just had to make a big symbolic attack and wham, he made us react exactly how he wanted. We lashed out with our military, expending 10's of thousands of lives, ruining our economy, creating instability in the oil producing region and ultimately decreasing our ability to intervene in thier part of the world.

Exactly

[kinggovernor]

I am still not seeing the connection

[Fed Up]

JMO, but who's to say that Obama is alive? The War on Terror has no stated enemy outside of the CIA contrived (IMO) al-Qaeda, and who better to instill fear in the minds of American citizens than bin Laden? - I can expand on this in greater detail or you can look for my last couple of posts in this thread: Cheer up, we're winning this War on Terror

This in turn allows the military industrial complex to kick into gear, a goal of the New American Century, Kagan, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz etc. crowd before 9/11, and the rich get richer. Oil skyrocketing hurt exactly who in the Bush administration?

Interesting enough, the New American Century site is "suspended." Guess they didn't want their names exposed any longer. These are the folks who advised Bush to go into Iraq. I copied their names from the website preceding its demise: See if you recognize any of these names:

Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush

Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes

Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz

Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz

For those interested, I posed these questions (in particular pertaining to an email exchange with Gary Bauer) to Tom Woods who will be interviewing Lawrence Vance on his radio show next Tuesday, July 8th 2pm EST. Tom told me he would get to them on his show. You can tune in here: RevolutionBroadcasting.com (schedule at the bottom)

Off to take the ferry into San Francisco and watch me Cubbies stomp on the Giants!



Fed Up

[SoFlaJDM]

Mission Accomplished

[Simius]

It may have been one of his goals... and our reaction to 9/11 probably had some effect on oil prices. But mostly I think the rise in prices are completely unrelated to Osama and our invasion of Iraq. Mostly, I think the increased demand world wide is a much bigger factor.

Originally Posted by Fed Up

JMO, but who's to say that Obama is alive? [/size]


Fed Up

I just saw an ad for him the other day on TV.

[thewise1]

Originally Posted by Simius

It may have been one of his goals... and our reaction to 9/11 probably had some effect on oil prices. But mostly I think the rise in prices are completely unrelated to Osama and our invasion of Iraq. Mostly, I think the increased demand world wide is a much bigger factor.



I just saw an ad for him the other day on TV.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that caught that

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Simius

It may have been one of his goals... and our reaction to 9/11 probably had some effect on oil prices. But mostly I think the rise in prices are completely unrelated to Osama and our invasion of Iraq. Mostly, I think the increased demand world wide is a much bigger factor.

I just saw an ad for him the other day on TV.

How can our reaction to 9/11 have some effect on the rise in prices and be completely unrelated to Osama and our invasion of Iraq? That's a completely contradictory statement

[Simius]

Originally Posted by motivez

How can our reaction to 9/11 have some effect on the rise in prices and be completely unrelated to Osama and our invasion of Iraq? That's a completely contradictory statement

I did say mostly.

But to be more clear. I think there are a number of reasons for oil prices spiking so much. Most of those reasons are completely unrelated to Osama. Of the ones that are related to Osama/our reaction to 9/11... They make up for less than 50%* of the increase in oil prices.

*I haven't seen a study that breaks down why prices have gone up... so the 50% is a high ball estimate. I imagine the Iraq war and the regional instability it created at most caused prices to go up $10-$20... but I don't know an exact figure.

[kinggovernor]

if you want to talk about victories for terrorists, a good place to start is here:
Boumediene v. Bush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia