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Strategies & Market Trends : P&S and STO Death Blow's -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ajtj99 who wrote (20716)	12/19/2002 8:18:19 AM
From: LTK007	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30712

from your second link this remark jumps out at me <<One man, Youssef, in his mid-30s, told me he had devised his own computer programs he was busy downloading software from the internet as we spoke. He had served recently in the Iraqi Army, near Basra, near the Iranian border in the south. “No one is worried about the war,” he said, “except for our children’s sake. We’re Muslims. We don’t worry about death, not like the Americans and their fear of bodybags.” He does not appear to boast.>>

To: ajtj99 who wrote (20716)	12/19/2002 8:26:43 AM
From: LTK007	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30712

The reason that quote jumps at me is in my listening to the Persian Gulf vet in enumerating reasons why this war would be a bonehead, plain big mistake move( this fellow voted enthusiastically for Bush, so he is in strict analytical mode) he stated Americans are not factoring the Iraqi soldier is going to be totally different in defending their country than fighting to keep Kuwait. Max

To: ajtj99 who wrote (20716)	12/19/2002 12:02:30 PM
From: jjkirk	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 30712

OT Thanks for the articles, Paul. I had seen the first one about Saddam wrecking the oil infrastructure. That is to be expected. He knows that oil is a major factor in the equation. Meanwhile, in Texas, today's Red Adair, his sons and grandsons are probably anticipating travel orders. I am sure that an annex in the admin/logistics order deals with the eventuality of flaming wells. The latter part of the second article confirms my suspicions that the sanguine nature of the Iraqui is pretty much a necessary part of their living under Saddam all these years. (Unsaid is that the overthrow of Saddam will give legs to the current mass demonstrations against the ayatollahs in Iran.) The article posted yesterday about the Baghdad market posting gains these days gave another insight into the unvoiced thoughts of the merchants and traders...that things will improve without Saddam. The third article about the poll re: Is Bush making the case for war, is also understandable. As a people, we were reluctant to enter WWII. Suspicions exist about "what FDR knew and when he knew it" in the days before Dec 7th, to scrounge a phrase from HRC. Regardless of the facts, FDR knew that we had an obligation to enter the fray. I suspect that FDR's advisors were attuned to the prospects of Japan controlling SE Asia commodities, including oil. Regarding Indochina in the sixties, LBJ used the North "Veet" Nam gunboat story to trigger our intervention. Regardless of the facts of the day, LBJ felt that communism had to be stopped at the Ben Hai River. We lost that one because LBJ was not politically committed to the destruction of Hanoi, IMHO. The CTs on the Malaysian peninsula were defeated, so we knew that the VC were not invincible. Our forces were jacked around by the invisible hand of LBJ and McNamara. They ran the war from DC like a daytrader when the only real daytraders in the war were the combat troops in the field who faced each morning twilight with the same indomitable nature manifested by today's Iraqi. Whereas in WWII, FDR used monthly charts, LBJ used 15 min charts, figuratively speaking. LBJ was afraid of Jane Fonda and the longhairs...the same generation that today, as professors and Hollywood types have imbued Marxism and personal destructiveness as laudable goals for our society. From the beginning, I was taught that war is the extension of politics by another means...our goal is the imposition of political, not military will. I think the Marshall Plan and MacArthur's treatment of the Japanese are testaments to this fact. However, the natural tension that exists between any two cultures is no less real between politicians and military types. Like the Army and Marine Corps service chiefs today, I can never remember being too enthused about the last leg of my flights into Danang from Okinawa or that ship ride from White Beach, Okinawa, to Chu Lai. In those days, the warnings of former Marine Corps Commandant David M. Shoup that the US should never get involved in another war on the Asian land mass gave us inward pause. To a combat engineer captain commanding a company supporting an infantry regiment in 1966 in RVN, there were no outward pauses. I did not understand why Diem had been killed, but then there was much I did not understand in that day. There is much today that some don't understand...like the relationship of the security of this country and our access to oil. Disagreeing with that relationship no more invalidates its existance than does our personal disgust/disagreement in watching a woman trying to shoehorn her new Expedition into the same old small parking space that she had always used for her Honda. For the Marine or soldier on the ground, the pucker factor is higher in this day and age than in my day, if that is possible. Unconventionals, nuc, chem & bio, and their current air, arty and rocket delivery systems introduce vast complications and the compression of time and distance factors unfaced in my 2 1/2 mph lieutenant days. Complicated chores are no less compelling. We all have a right to be concerned. However, we don't need to turn "canadian" over the whole thing. I believe it must be done...it is our Ben Hai River.... Ciao! jj PS I apologize to the thread for my lengthy response. I realize that we need to address the Iraqi issue as it relates to the market, but perhaps I got too much OT. Sorry. I would recommend the FADG thread for those so interested in more discussion. Subject 51724