Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pompsander who wrote (18979)	4/2/2008 3:12:18 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 25737

Re: "So, if Sadr" (Or one of his sock-puppets....) "... ends up as "governor" of Basra," (Hey! It's a real title.. they have one right now --- though the Sadrists boycotted the last election for the regional offices... which they are regretting now. ;-) "... with all that oil underneath him and all the shipping facilities, his indirect influence over the government would be enormous, no? More than it is now?" I think so. After all, they have to siphon off oil now to raise their scratch. (Up to one third of Iraq's oil exports, including the South and the North, but most is exported from the Basra area, is currently 'stolen' that way.) If a Militia/political group controlled the local government and cops, along with the private armies they already field, then the access to cash commodity might be greater then the current '1/3' or so. (Note: I'm not saying that the Sadrists currently get 'all' of that 1/3. There is another, smaller, Shiite group they are allied with in the Basra region, and their opponents and rivals the Badr Brigades, and, (I guess), other factions and independent operators all likely get a slice of the action too. But full control of the local government would sure help. (Especially since the Sadr org. has always claimed to represent the poorest-of-the-poor Shia, as with the Shia slums of Baghdad where they reign supreme... and runs a lot of social welfare type of transfer efforts. Need cash to do a lot of that.) Also, remember this quote from Frank Herbert's book Dune, (which drew a lot of it's mythology and language directly from Arab and Persian Islamic sources)? "He who can destroy the spice controls the spice." Same/same in Basra: He who controls the oil (which moves through Basra from fields nearby) controls the central government (which can't survive without that cash source....)