Originally Posted by
West Coast
We do have an interest which is why Trump is calling out to NATO. The question is who will it have a greater impact on, the US or Europe?
Originally Posted by
Bonkey
NATO is a defensive alliance, it's charter is to spring to each other's collective defence after an attack on any one of it's member states. Not an alliance that one member can simply demand at it's will to assist in unilateral foreign adventures when said member acted as the aggressor.
Originally Posted by
Hangarless
Matt Whittaker the US NATO Ambassador just a moment ago.
Ukraine is not a NATO issue but rather a European issue in which the US has been more than happy to assist.
Somehow the Europeans and the UK are saying Iran isn't a NATO issue so they won't get involved.
Imagine if the US had said that when Russia invaded the Ukraine.
NATO has been exposed as a one way relationship and I believe we were seeing NATO loosing cohesion as members no longer share the same general political aims.
T.U. 114's "bored of peace" kind of summed it all up nicely.
NATO is a defensive alliance. Always has been. If the USA was attacked by Heard Island, then by golly, the penguins would be in a bit of trouble. The WH was not attacked by Iran in this most recent fraças, the last time it was attacked, or at least the capitol, was in 1812, by irate Canadians, who apparently were still peeved about the whole revolution thing I guess, and having a bit of a squabble with France at that time, excluding 9/11, which definitely was an Art. 5 event, and golly, NATO responded.
US is self sufficient in oil by most counts, or at least most types if not all. Canada exports... The EU is far past the Hibbert peak of North Sea Oil & Gas, but at a pinch, a lot of capacity that has been economically non-viable will start to become of greater interest.
China has issues, as does Japan, (the latter led to the whole East Asia Co-prosperity thing that was not as big a hit with the neighbours as was expected), Malaysia, VietNam, Indonesia are oil exporting nations, Philippines exports... Philippinos'; to the benefit of much of the world. Australia would be able to revert to being self sufficient at $100/bbl, so, yay. NZL, makes manure, lots of it, and that is really good for sheep, cows, and landscape paintings. Also good for Hobbits etc. With a touch of care, NZL could avoid oil other than on their Waldorf salads. Will that happen? nope, oil is easy.
India and China have the largest energy problems, and they also have for different reasons food supply stability issues which also have an oil component.
Africa, well, TIA.
Korea has NPP, as does Japan, Japan has had less success than SK has had.
Mexico, got oil, guacamole, and tequila, and tequila fixes everything. Well played.
Central America, it exports its people to scrabble on the border of the USA, even today.
South America, 5 countries produce 7.5-8 m BPD, which is about 4-5 times Californias daily dose on the 91, 5, and 405 parking lots etc. California produces 0.5 m BPD.
The removal for a period of 20% of the total oil supply will get the price hopping towards 200/bbl, but, then the game will be for how long is that the case, before wells get their mojo on. It is not TEOTWAWKI, but if you peer long enough you can see the road signs pointing the way.
I'm still stuck on the "bored of peace"... ROFL. You can't make this stuff up, no matter what.
The good thing about this day and age is, we do not have to put up with the incessant poetry of yesteryear, instead of Keats inspired poets, like W.B. Yeates, Ivor Gurney, David Jones, etc, we get... 2:00 AM CAPS updates on the progress of peace in our time. (I kind of miss the romance of the Lockheed 14 with R-1820-9's purring & drooling along, in the background cooling off as a clown waves a missive around proclaiming peace, or pieces of Czech and Slovak turf, no matter what).
If the WH wants a coalition to go and smoke out the baddies in Iran, would someone please explain what the casus belli may be, anything, anything at all that gives a cogent argument as to what all the fuss is about in Iran. After all, the "negotiations" were going along swimmingly until the other teams top goalies got capped. That clipping the leaders of a bunch of fruit bats might result in some effluent hitting the actuator disk was probably not difficult to game out, and here we are, 6 months in a leaky boat, deja vu, all over again, again.
The current predicament seems to follow at least one part of Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August, chronology of the prelude to Round 1.0, which makes the point that it became easier to have the war than not, or maybe it was Georges Clemenceau who lamented "Il est beaucoup plus facile de faire la guerre que la paix". Indeed. Whatever, he stood up for Émile Zola, by publishing J'accuse which was probably one of the better moments of a sorry set of moments. Good reading, and with some relevance to how stuff gets... stuffed.
Anthem for doomed youth,
Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
—The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.