Tuesday, August 12, 2008

COMMENTARY CONTINUED - AUG. 13, 2008

WELCOME TO THE NO BS ZONE OF TEDDY JACOBSON

Revealed: Iraq Contracts Cost Taxpayers At Least $85 Billion

Quick Read

UPDATED - WEDNESDAY - AUGUST 13, 2008

Its not often that I have the energy or the time to type a long personal commentary but now its time to say a few things in behalf of Americans that not only love their country but come from and were raised in the America that is no longer here. We are still very much pro Americans but we can no longer be the Policemen of the world with our military in about 60 countries. SADLY OUR MILITARY IS BROKEN, IT NEEDS TO BE REPAIRED. WE CAN NOT SUSTAIN ANOTHER FRONT ON THE GROUND WITH NATIONAL GUARD PEOPLE.

Our borders remain open and our politicians as a rule do not care, sure they have their own personal agenda of getting richer but as far as you and I are concerned we will be left to fend for our selves in due time. ITS ALL ABOUT OIL AND POWER AND MONEY, IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN. We must prepare to survive on our own.

OUR TWO INNOCENT BORDER PATROL AGENTS CAMPIOS AND RAMON ARE STILL IN JAIL AND THE POLITICIANS EXCEPT FOR A FEW LIKE REP. TANCREDO AND RORBACHER AND TED POE DO NOT CARE - WHY ?? WHY ??? THIS ALONE HAS WORRIED ME SOMETHING TERRIBLE.

WHERE IS THE AMERICA THAT I GREW UP IN, WHAT HAPPENED TO LOVE OF G-D AND COUNTRY AND NOT OIL AND POWER AND MONEY FOR THE ELITE.

The best time that I can honestly remember was my life in the 50's - I made $12.00 per week, I had a used bicycle and we had no TV and no air conditioning. We had no electronics of any kind but a simple tube radio. After school I worked in a butcher shop for 3 years delivering orders in all types of weather on a bike. That was my life, I was mostly a street kid, not home very much but it was a good life for me. The streets of Brooklyn taught me a great deal of how to survive.

I remember that there were very few gas stations but gas was about 9.9 cents per gallon. Of course my dreams of ever owning a car were beyond my comprehension with the pennies that I made. There was alternate parking in Brooklyn, each day you had to move your car to the other side of the street if you owned one so the street sweeper could clean the streets. Signs were posted every where.

If there was a fire you had to walk to a corner where there was a fire box that was free standing with a large pull handle. It was all painted in RED. If you needed a phone you had to walk many blocks in order to locate a pay phone and hope it still worked, it went from five cents up to ten cents when they raised it for each local call.

BUT there was a true belief in G-D and a love of country that does not exist today. Immigrants that came from all over the world tried to conform to the American way of life, they all wanted to learn English as there was no future for them without learning the language of the land of America.

The Police were ruthless and they were corrupt in my opinion and no one talked back to them, it was that simple. They were poorly armed but they commanded respect. They all carried 38 special revolvers using 158 grain lead bullets and carried spare ammunition exposed in a looped belt, you could see many cartridges were corroded but no one cared.

In Canarsie Brooklyn many bodies were left there by the Mafia and no big deal was ever made of it, at least these organized crime people would never kill women or children like they do today. In those days it was just business as usual.

I went to many schools and I had my share of problems but I learned to resolve them. Brooklyn was sectioned off in street gangs and they were territorial and you had to be careful. But with no money and all our problems there was still a tremendous loyalty to G-D and AMERICA that is long gone.

This country has now turned away from G-D and now you see the results of what prophecy is going to do to us. If you do dot believe me just read LEVITICUS - Chapter 26, Verse 19,20 ----- this tells you that G-D has already broken the pride of our power and it is meant for three countries, the US and the UK which is now down to a 25 ship navy and ISRAEL that is now run by EREV RAV TRAITORS. Payback from G-D will be hell on earth. IT IS HAPPENING NOW.

If you really want to know the details of what G-D is going to do to the three countries I mentioned please read the entire chapter in DEUTERONOMY - CHAPTER 28. This is certainly no laughing matter.

The next three months will be very bad. August has always been my worst month. I do not have much immediate family left anymore, just my wife and son and dog. I have learned to accept G-D's will regardless of what we are in store for.

I can never vote for a Democrat because of their agenda but most of the Republicans are not of my ideology or that of our creator. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IS NOT JUST A PIECE OF PAPER. Look how many superb American soldiers have sacrificed their lives for this piece of paper.

We are on the road to destruction, we no longer manufacture anything in this country, we have been sold out by greedy men and women that can not take their money and power with them to the next world. Next time you see a funeral procession I want you to look for the Armored car carrying that dead persons money and valuables to their grave.

I see no point in antagonizing Russia by inserting weapons and military instructors into their broken satellite countries - this is all on their southern border. LETS NOT FORGET when JFK almost went to war when Russia sent missiles to CUBA. Only this time its all about oil and more oil. CASPIAN SEA OIL.

I am an ole bird now, I can only think of what used to be while our borders remain open and our government sends our military troops around the world when we need them 5 hours south of here. Can you please explain this to me. Who in there right mind would want to be a border patrol agent when our agents are in jail for about 11 and 12 years.

COMMENTARY CONTINUED; 8-13-08

Lets go back to New York for a short time and let me explain how it is laid out for those that do not know. I am not as educated as most of you so I like to break things down and make them easy to understand. New York consists of five boroughs and Brooklyn is just one of them. When I lived there the population was about two million people just in Brooklyn alone so we are talking about a very congested area where people in the 50's got along some what. Life was hard and not many people made much money.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were a big thing to see in Ebetts field and I have been there many times, I have been to see all the famous players but never had the interest that most of you have. I was not a friendly kid as life was too hard but in order to survive one learned to cope with the streets or you never could make it and come out strong. One school I went I had to take 4 trains each way in order to get there, but when you are young it did not matter.

I saw Crazy Joey Gallo all the time because he was only three blocks away from where I lived and the Police were definitely afraid of him. This in itself is a very long story. And then there was Arnold Shuster who told the Police where to find Willie the actor Sutton and Arnold was gunned down at his front door in Boro Park for squeeling to the Police. These stories never end. I went to High school with Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond, never saw them but they were in the same school with 8000 kids. Corruption in New York was the American way, to survive you had to be like the three monkeys that see no evil and speak no evil and hear no evil.

Coming back to present day we have all been had by greed and lies and deceit and corruption that is beyond my comprehension. There are about 160 countries in this world give or take, my figures are not exact. This world is run by about 115 greedy and corrupt people that have started many years ago to organize a new world order. They are bound and determined to control six to seven billion people and make all the money and they must control the oil and food and what ever else it takes at any cost.

Right now there are some major obstacles in their plan. Putin of Russia is KGB and is not a person to fool with and he is now redefining his borders. Russia now controls all the natural gas that goes into Europe for there use. America basically does have some what of a control of the tankers that control the flow of crude oil in the world which can move it. MOST ALL THE SEA GATES HAVE BEEN LOST. You must understand there is no immediate replacement for crude oil as there are approx. 400 by-products made from crude oil such as plastic and nylon and they use it in asphalt and the list is endless. Without oil this world is finished.

The old testament states that "ASHERS FOOT IS DIPPED IN OIL" and "ISRAEL WEALTH SHALL COME FROM BELOW" - that is why the ZION oil company is digging and searching for a major oil find in Israel exactly where the Bible says it is. Right now there are pipe lines into Israel that are kept quiet and this world is so complex that we do not even know a fraction of what is really going on behind the scenes. Look at all the UFO sightings - these people are not crazy - ask your self where could alien space craft really hide in minutes, the answer is under the seas.

Its not easy for me to type long commentaries but if I break it up into days I can do it. MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT CURRENT EVENTS RIGHT NOW, THINGS ARE NOW BEING CONTROLLED BY G-D. He has seen the corruption of man and is fed up and there will be no peace, G-D will resolve this final resolution on his terms in short order. This country as well as most of the world has strayed away from the teachings of Moses and the TEN commandments and its time for G-D to act, which is what he is doing right now, only its going to get much worse before it gets better.

REMEMBER in our world we go by time - this means that we use a clock and a calendar and everything is dated BUT ON THE OTHER SIDE THERE IS NO CONCEPT OF TIME, THAT IS WHY WE CAN NOT UNDERSTAND THE TIME TABLE THAT G-D HAS.

Let me prove my point about crude oil, this country is super rich in crude oil, the crooked politicians will not let you drill in your own country. Do a search on google for GULL ISLAND OIL and you will see a major find in this country that was found and drilled and capped and its now "HANDS OFF" - WHY ??

Here is the killer, even if you get more crude, you do not, repeat YOU DO NOT have the refining capacity to convert any more crude oil in this country. NO NEW REFINERIES HAVE BEEN BUILT IN THIS COUNTRY FOR ABOUT 35 YEARS. What will you do with more crude oil, nothing. answer is nothing. This was done deliberately by crooked people in government.

American soldiers are superbly trained but do you think that they can go into a war against the killer mindset of third world crazy fighters that are not only high on drugs but they do not have to worry about being court martialed by their government. The American National Guard troops did not always join for the fight in a foreign nation, they had another agenda like school and a monthly pay check and benefits etc, etc. Our national guard belong on our border to keep illegal aliens out of this country. Some National guard troops are in their 40's and 50's age wise and are on their 3rd and 4th tour over in the sandbox. THIS ALONE IS INSANITY.

To sum it all up you must decide for your self, just think it through, how come I understand so much - I DO NOT KNOW, I ALWAYS HAVE. We have not won a major war since 1945, and you must always remember what President Dweight D. Eisenhower said - "BEWARE OF THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX"

Do you know which company paved all the roads for "LBJ" in Vietnam" it was Brown and Root owned by Halliburton a family business.

WHAT ABOUT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER, WHAT WOULD WE SAY IF THE RUSSIANS STARTED TO ARM THE MEXICANS AND THE CUBANS LIKE WE ARE ARMING POLAND AND GEORGIA ETC. WHY DOES NOT ANY ONE CARE ABOUT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER AS WE REALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN BROUGHT IN TO BE USED AS WEAPONS AGAINST US. THESE WEAPONS COULD HAVE EVEN BEEN BROUGHT IN BY DIPLOMATS AS YOU CAN NOT SEARCH A DIPLOMATIC TRUNK OR CAR OR WHAT EVER IS PROTECTED UNDER DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY.

Read your Bible and seal your primers and pray to your G-D.

Teddy

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Troops from Atlanta will train in Republic of Georgia


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/14/08

A large contingent of Georgia Army National Guard soldiers flew to the Republic of Georgia on Sunday for joint military exercises at a time when tension is brewing in the region.

The soldiers, mostly from the metro area, will be part of "Immediate Response 2008," which will amount to the largest U.S. footprint on the crossroads of Asia and Europe since the Cold War began.

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Jumblatt deserts Lebanon’s pro-Western camp, signs pact with pro-Iranian Hizballah

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 13, 2008, 1:38 PM (GMT+02:00)

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt

The fervently pro-US, pro-Israeli Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, has decided to hold out no longer. He has thrown in his lot with the most extreme pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian, anti-Israel force in Lebanon, the Shiite Hizballah, which has gained veto power over the government in Beirut unopposed.

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources disclose that over last weekend, Jumblatt quietly signed a “defense cooperation pact” with Hassan Nasrallah, affording Hizballah a strong foothold in the Lebanese Druze bastion of Mt. Chouf.

Drawing the hostile noose around northern Israel ever tighter, Lebanese president Michel Sleiman was due in Damascus Wednesday, Aug. 13, to celebrate the thaw in relations between the two countries.

Neither Israeli ministers, sunk in an acrimonious contest over the succession to Ehud Olmert, nor the United States in the dying days of the Bush presidency, have lifted a finger to arrest Lebanon’s swift slide into the Iranian-Syrian orbit.

Jumblatt, after watching pro-Western strategic positions crumble in his country, decided to join forces with Hizballah to shield his ancestral mountain domain from Syrian domination.

The Druze and Hizballah militias agreed to set up a joint commission for coordinating military operations. Hizballah is represented by its security and intelligence commander, Wafiq Shafa (who was in change of the recent prisoner swap with Israel) and the Druzes by Akram Shahaib.

The joint security patrols for the Druze communities of the Chouf, will also give Hizballah a military presence on its third strategic Lebanese peak, after Mt. Sannine and Jebel Barukh.

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U.S. puts brakes on Israeli plan for attack on Iran nuclear facilities
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: U.S., nuclear program, Iran

The American administration has rejected an Israeli request for military equipment and support that would improve Israel's ability to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

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Russia masses naval force opposite Georgia’s third sensitive region, Ajaria

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 12, 2008, 11:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

Georgian president addresses mass rally in Tbilisi

Georgian president addresses mass rally in Tbilisi

While the world’s attention was fixed on the Russian-Georgian contest over two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources reveal that Russia has massed a fleet of warships and marine forces opposite the Gerogia's semi-autonomous Black Sea region of Ajaria.

Moscow is preparing to punish what it regards as Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili’s further provocations by occupying this coastal strip on Georgia’s southwestern border with Turkey.

The appearance of Ukraine’s president Viktor Yushchenko alongside Saakashvili, leaders of the pro-Western Orange and Rose Revolutions, at a huge national rally outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi Tuesday night, Aug. 12, may well be seen by the Kremlin as over the top. It came hours after Russian President Dimitry Medvedev’s gesture to the European mediation bid of ordering the Russian military operation in Georgia halted there and then.

Half of Ajaria’s ethnically Georgian population professes Islam, in contrast to the country’s Christian majority. The other half is Russian.

Ajarian has come to mean a Georgian Muslim.

The Russian Black Sea buildup is deployed opposite the Ajurian capital of Batumi, an important port for the shipment of oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its oil refinery handles Caspian oil from Azerbaijan.

When Saakashvili was elected president five years ago, the region’s leaders refused to recognize his authority and maintained close ties with Moscow up until May 2004 when, after Ajurians demonstrated against Tbilisi, he ordered them to obey the Georgian constitution and disarm.

Russia maintained a military base at Batumi which it agreed to close by November 2007.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that by recovering the base, Moscow will not only punish the Georgian president, but also profit from the turmoil of the past week in three ways:

1. A third semi-autonomous province will be hacked off Georgian territory after the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

2. Russia will gain a strategic Black Sea foothold at Turkey’s back door.

3. It will also control a gateway to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

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War Threatens Key Pipeline For Crude Oil

By Guy Chazan and Benoit Faucon
Word Count: 584 | Companies Featured in This Article: BP

The conflict in Georgia is placing grave doubt on the country's reliability as an energy corridor bringing Caspian crude to global oil markets.

Some 1.2 million barrels of oil a day flow through Georgia, 1.4% of global crude supply. Attacks could send shockwaves through the world-wide supply chain. Alarm was triggered over the weekend by reports that Russian planes had bombed near a pipeline, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, or BTC, which brings 850,000 barrels of oil a day from Azerbaijan's Caspian oilfields through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.

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Nuclear Weapons on the Battlefield in South Ossetia


Col. Sam Gardiner notes, in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons to South Ossetia. The SS-21 Missile launchers are relatively small compared to bombs that have already been used against Georgia by the Russian air force. However, this move does indicate Russia is potentially upping the game from a conventional weapons war to a tactical nuclear weapons war. Gardiner notes that at a news conference on Sunday, the US Deputy National Security advisor has noted these weapons arriving.
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August 10, 2008
War In Georgia: The Oil Angle

News reports indicate that Russia may have tried to bomb the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which runs through Georgia. If so, the bombs missed, and flow of oil through the pipeline was not interrupted. The BTC pipeline runs from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean coast of Turkey; note Russia to the north and Iran to the south:

The BTC pipeline runs through Georgia, well south of South Ossetia:

79361.jpg

The pipeline, in which British Petroleum is the lead partner, can carry up to one million barrels of oil per day. It is of considerable strategic significance, as it is the only means by which countries in the region like Azerbaijan can get their oil into the international market without relying on Russia. The Daily Mail writes:

It is crucial to the world’s volatile energy market and the only oil and gas route that bypasses Russia’s stranglehold on energy exports from the region.

In 2002, when the pipeline was being planned, the BBC reported:

BTC is said to be an effective alternative to Russia's pipeline network. ... [O]il experts believe political considerations played a major role in the choice of the route.

American officials prefer a route that would weaken Russia's stranglehold on regional pipeline network and leave Iran on the sidelines. Local governments want less dependency on big regional powers, too.

"This pipeline is of strategic importance not only to Azerbaijan, but to the other new independent states as well", says Ilham Shaban, oil analyst in Baku. "This is a reliable way to the world markets. Take Turkmenistan with its huge resources of natural gas and no access to the world markets. As a result, The Turkmens have to sell their gas 2.5 times cheaper than the world price."

Turkmenistan could join a gas pipeline which is likely to be built alongside BTC to the Turkish town of Erzurum.

That natural gas pipeline has now been built immediately adjacent to the BTC oil pipeline and is called the South Caucasus Pipeline. It has a capacity of 16 billion cubic meters per year. Plans are now being laid to connect Turkmenistan's vast natural gas reserves to the SCP:

Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are central to the EU’s plans to reduce its energy reliance on Russia which supplies a quarter of Europe’s needs. ... Both the Azeri and Turkmen leaders said they wanted to improve relations and diversify their export routes — a natural move, analysts said. The vast majority of Turkmenistan’s gas currently travels north to Europe through Russia’s network of pipes.

Because the BTC pipeline gives the USSR's former breakaway republics a way to deliver their petroleum to the world market without relying on Russia, Russia "steadfastly opposed" its construction, recognizing that "the new conduit stands to severely weaken Russia’s grip on regional energy exports."

For these reasons, it would be of enormous strategic benefit to Russia if it could reassert dominance over Georgia, or merely have an opportunity to demonstrate to Turkmenistan and Azerbaijain that any means of getting their petroleum products to market independent of Russia may be unreliable. These issues are a key subtext to Russia's conflict with Georgia and Georgia's desire to join NATO, and otherwise seek protection from the West.

One can only imagine the astonishment and glee with which Russia's leaders are observing Nancy Pelosi's nearly hysterical determination to prevent the United States from developing its own oil resources, and the fecklessness of Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama in the face of their aggression against an American ally.

UPDATE: This report appears to confirm that Russia has targeted the pipeline:

Deep craters pockmark the landscape south of the Georgian capital Tblisi in a Y-shaped pattern straddling the British-operated pipeline. The attack left two deep holes less than 100 yards either side of a pressure vent on the pipeline. Shrapnel of highly engineered munitions litters the area.

There was no visible damage to the pipeline. ...

Local police recorded 51 strikes. "I have no doubt they wanted to target the pipeline, there is nothing else here," said Giorgi Abrahamisvili, a policeman who witnessed the attack.

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It's all about oil

If this war was taking a bite out of Exxon or the House of Saud, a ceasefire would have been imposed.


I can't tell you how it started - this war has been fought since the Levites clashed with the Philistines - but I can tell you why the current mayhem has not been stopped: it's the oil.

I'm not an expert on Palestine or Lebanon, and I would rather not pretend to be one. If you want to know what's going on, read Robert Fisk. He lives there. He speaks Arabic. Stay away from pundits whose only connection to the Middle East is the local falafel stand.

So why am I writing now? The answer is that, while I don't speak Arabic or Hebrew, I am completely fluent in the language of petroleum.

You don't need a degree in geology to know that there's no oil in Israel, Palestine or Lebanon. (A few weeks ago, I was joking around with Afif Safieh, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the US, asking him why he was fighting to have a piece of the only place in the Middle East without oil. Well, there's no joking now.)

Let's begin with the facts we can agree on: the berserkers are winning. Crazies discredited only a month ago are now in charge, guys with guns bigger than brains and souls smaller still. Here's a list:

1. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, whose approval rating in June was down to a Bush level of 35%. His poll numbers among Israeli voters have now more than doubled (to 78%) as he does his bloody John Wayne "cleanin' out the varmints" routine. But let's not forget: Olmert can't pee without George Bush's approval. Bush could stop Olmert tomorrow. He hasn't.

2. Hezbollah, a political party rejected overwhelmingly by Lebanese voters sickened by their support of Syrian occupation, holds a mere 14 seats out of 128 in the nation's parliament. Hezbollah was facing demands by both Lebanon's non-Shia majority and the UN to lay down arms; few Lebanese would now suggest taking away their rockets. But let's not forget: without Iran, Hezbollah is just a fundamentalist street gang. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, could stop Hezbollah's rockets tomorrow. He hasn't.

3. Hamas, just days before it kidnapped Israeli soldiers, was facing certain political defeat at the hands of a Palestinian majority ready to accept the existence of Israel as proposed in a manifesto for peace talks penned by influential Palestinian prisoners. Now the Hamas rocket brigade is back in charge. But let's not forget: Hamas is broke and a joke without the loot and authority of Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah could stop these guys tomorrow. He hasn't.

Why not? Why haven't those we laughably call the "leaders" of the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia called back their delinquent spawn, cut off their allowances and grounded them for six months?

Maybe because mayhem and murder in the Middle East are very, very profitable to the sponsors of these characters with bombs and rockets. America, Iran and Saudi Arabia have one thing in common: they are run by oil regimes. The higher the price of crude, the higher the profits; and the higher the profits, the happier the presidents and princelings of these petroleum republics.

This Thursday, Exxon is expected to report the highest second-quarter earnings of any corporation since the days of the pharaoh: $9.9bn in pure profit collected in just three months. This is courtesy of an oil shortage caused by pipelines on fire in Iraq, warlord attacks in Nigeria, the lingering effects of the sabotage of Venezuela's oil system by a 2002 strike ... The list goes on.

Exxon's Brobdingnagian profits simply reflect the cold axiom that oil companies and oil states make their loot not by finding oil but by finding trouble. Finding oil increases supply, and increased supply means decreased price; finding trouble, however, - wars, coups d'etat, hurricanes, whatever - can disrupt supply, raising the price of oil.

A couple of examples from today's Bloomberg newswire:

Crude oil traded above $75 a barrel in New York as fighting between Israeli and Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces in Lebanon entered its 14th day ... Oil prices rose last month on concern that supplies from Iran, the world's fourth largest producer, may be disrupted in its dispute with the United Nations over its uranium enrichment.

And, according to a trader:

'I still think $85 is likely this summer. I'm really surprised we haven't seen any hurricanes.'

In Tehran, Ahmadinejad may or may not have a plan to make a nuclear bomb. But he sure as heck knows that hinting at it raises the price of the one thing he certainly does have: oil. Every time he barks, Mad Mahmoud knows he's pumping up the price of crude. Just a $10-a-barrel "blow-up-in-the-Middle East" premium brings his regime nearly $0.25bn each week (including the little kick to the value of Iran's natural gas). Not a bad payoff for making a bit of trouble.

Saudi Arabia's rake-in? Assuming just a $10-a-barrel boost for Middle Eastern mayhem, you can calculate that the blood in the sand puts an extra $658m a week in Abdullah's hand.

And in Houston, you can hear the cash registers jingle as explosions in Kirkuk, Beirut and the Niger delta sound like the sleigh bells on Santa's sled. At $75.05 a barrel, they don't call it "sweet" crude for nothing. That's up 27% from a year ago. The big difference between then and now: the rockets' red glare.

Exxon's second-quarter profits may bust records, but next quarter's should put those to shame, as the "Lebanon premium" and Iraq's insurgency have puffed up prices by an average of 11% in the last three months.

So there's not much incentive for the guys who supply the weaponry to tell their wards to put away their murderous toys. This war is just too darn profitable.

We are trained to think of Middle Eastern conflicts as modern flare-ups of ancient tribal animosities. But to uncover why the flames won't die, the usual rule applies: follow the money.

Am I saying that Tehran, Riyadh and Houston oil chieftains conspired to ignite a war to boost their petroleum profits? I can't imagine it. But I do wonder whether Bush would let Olmert have an extra week of bombings, or the potentates of the Persian Gulf would allow Hamas and Hizbullah to continue their deadly fireworks if by doing so they would cause the price of crude to crash.

You know and I know that if this war took a bite out of Exxon or the House of Saud, a ceasefire would be imposed quicker than you can say "Let's drill in the Arctic."

Eventually, there will be another ceasefire. But Exxon shareholders need not worry: global warming has heated the seas sufficiently to make sure they can look forward to a hellacious - and profitable - season of hurricanes.

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