At least they are not crazy

I take back every mean, outrageous thing I’ve ever said about liberals. Watching the destructive nature of fanatical Muslims – over a cartoon no less – has made me a lot more appreciative of the nuts in our own country. That’s not to say that I necessarily like liberals, believe they are good for the country, or will be inviting Ted Kennedy over for cocktails and an afternoon drive in his Town Car anytime soon. I just don’t think they are certifiably insane anymore. (Author’s Note: Except for Dennis Kucinich.)

Which takes me to the crazed Muslims who have spent the past week burning down Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish embassies, flipping over cars, throwing rocks and other objects, burning flags, rioting, calling for executions, and promising more 9/11-like attacks. (Ironically, the Muslims were upset about a cartoon drawing a link between Islam and violence. Why would anyone say something crazy like that?) And all of this violence is coming from the moderate wing of fanatical Muslims. Jesse Jackson could only dream of inciting race riots of this magnitude.

Of course the ability of the Practitioners of the Religion of Peace to resort to mass hysteria, rioting, and death as a result of irrational overreaction isn’t limited to this past week. Just last May, hundreds of rioting Muslims were injured and dozens more died following a later-retracted Newsweek story about Guantanamo Bay soldiers flushing a Koran down the toilet. Even if the story had been true, mass uprisings leading to multiple deaths would have been a slightly overcooked response to the situation. (On the other hand, forcing detainees to watch the Rolling Stones 2006 Super Bowl halftime show again may cause understandable rioting.)

This is what happens when countries are devoid of massive amounts of “evil” western influence, or what I like to call “entertainment.” Say what you want about our obsession with reality television, video games, and porn, but at least we have more stuff to do than take to the streets like third-world Neanderthals and annihilate communities over a poorly drawn “your momma” joke.

Quick, get these kids a Playstation and a Comcast digital television package. While you are at it, forget that crazy “converting them to Christianity” idea, this will be much more effective and to the point. We need to get these kids away from forced memorized recitations of the Koran and into soccer uniforms.

Here in America, or what is known as “civilization” for those living in Syria, we respond to outrageous events in culture the old-fashioned way: by writing op-eds in newspapers! The most outrageous response you can expect from those “crazy Christians” in response to art depicting Jesus covered in cow feces or crucifixes being submerged in urine is angry opinion pieces in the Washington Times or a threat to de-fund the National Endowment for the Arts.

At the same time, liberals may be a lot of things but at least they don’t douse themselves in gasoline and set themselves on fire on my front lawn every time I crack a joke involving Hillary Clinton and her thighs. The worst that liberals regularly come up with is banging pots and pans in front of the Capitol, reciting asinine chants like “Boobs not Bombs,” and threatening to leave the country if they lose an election. And they can’t even come through with the last promise. If a fanatical Muslim says he will strap dynamite on his 6-year old son and send him into your home because you are doing whatever-it-is-we-infidels-do-today, you tend to take him seriously. We don’t so much have to worry about liberals in that way.

If the events of the past week don’t put an exclamation point on to what we are dealing with – the irrationality and hatred resulting from tools of fanatical Islamic propaganda – and force everyone to realize that the enemy we face is dangerous and only getting more daring, what will it take? How long before we can no longer say anything about the Practitioners of Peace without having them threaten to engage in their ancient ritual of removal of head from body?

Most dangerous is the willingness of those who are right to give in to the demands of the fanatics. Israel constantly gives in to the commands of the Palestinians as a result of their desire for a peace that the fanatics do not want. Countries apologize for their own free speech codes in their own country after the Crazed Ones take to the streets with torches. Late last year, France responded to mass rioting by Muslim youth by promising more welfare programs for them. Giving in to the enemy is more dangerous than fighting it and telling them enough is enough. Giving in to their demands only encourages them.

"Keep your powder dry"

You betcha. I've seen libs/lefties/socialists go violent up close. For example, it's easy for some to dismiss Chavez (Castro's mini-me), but I'm keeping a close eye on him and those he fund. The American left might have lost much of their funding after the collapse of the USSR, but along with Soros, they now have Chavez' petro-dollars. read on if you'd like:

(Pulled from http://www.vcrisis.com )

Hugo Chavez aims for $100 a barrel
G2Americas | Intelligence Brief
100206 – No. 03/06 – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seeking to raise world oil prices to $100 a barrel this year. Chavez needs a high and rising stream of oil revenues in 2006-2007 because Venezuela’s oil production capacity is collapsing, and his Bolivarian revolution can only be sustained by evergreater public spending. Chavez, who is seeking re-election to a second six-year term in December 2006, plans to spend up to $65 billion this year on social programs and infrastructure projects. He needs significantly more fiscal revenues, and oil is Venezuela’s only cash cow.

To advance his goal of $100 per barrel oil, Chavez is aligning Venezuela’s government with Iran and Syria, which are challenging the West over Tehran’s nuclear plans and the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Chavez this year also will embrace the Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement), Hamas, which on Jan. 25 won 76 of 132 seats in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, giving the group the right to form the next Cabinet. The U.S. government considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Hamas leaders already vowed they will never recognize Israel and refused to renounce violence to achieve their political aims.

Hamas already has singled out Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia officially as the most important countries in Latin America for the Palestinian group’s geopolitical needs. Mohammed Nazzal, a member of the radical Palestinian militant group’s political bureau, revealed its foreign policy agenda on Feb. 9 in Damascus. “First we’re visiting the countries of the Middle East, and then we will go to Latin America,” he said. “We are very interested in Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba and Venezuela. Up to now we have not made contacts (with the governments of those countries), but we are going to visit them.”

Iran and Venezuela have enjoyed close relations for over 20 years, based largely on oil and shared interests in OPEC. Last year, they signed bilateral investment and cooperation agreements worth over $7 billion. The Chavez government also has quietly established good relations with the Syrian government. Tehran and Damascus consider Chavez a friend and strategic ally because of his virulent opposition to the U.S. military presence in Iraq and his strong support for Iran’s nuclear development program. Chavez also endorses an independent Palestinian state, and soon he will embrace Hamas publicly as the legitimate democratic ruled of the Palestinian people.

These strategic alignments have thrust the Chavez government squarely into Iran’s nuclear confrontation with the West, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, Chavez is not alone. Cuba is also backing Tehran strongly in its nuclear stand-off against the West. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria voted against the resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and parliamentary chief Ghulam Ali Haddad Adel accepted an invitation from Fidel Castro to visit Havana next September to attend the Non-Aligned Summit, and to thank Cuba for supporting Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) vote. Fidel Castro also has warm relations with Damascus, and Havana likely will strengthen its existing links with Hamas this year.

The Caracas/Havana alignment with Iran, Syria and Hamas likely will trigger a significant increase in tensions this year between the Chavez government and the U.S., Israel and the European Union. This alignment also likely will lead to an increased presence in Venezuela of Iranian, Syrian and Palestinian nationals engaged in oil and non-oil businesses, and also in security-related activities. Venezuela’s army is already receiving strategic and tactical military advice from Cuba. It’s likely that Chavez also will quietly seek, and receive, military advice from Iranian, Syrian and Hamas experts in urban asymmetric warfare, which is the foundation of the Chavez government’s new national security and defense doctrine adopted in mid-2005.

Moscow also will engage the Chavez government with more enthusiasm in 2006, since Venezuela could become Russia’s third largest arms buyer in 2006, after China and India. In early 2005 Chavez announced that he would buy up to 50 MiG-27 Fulcrum fighters equipped with stealth technology for a whopping $5 billion. Instead, Venezuela spent close to $2.5 billion last year to buy transport aircraft, light attack turboprop fighters, eight missile-capable corvettes and coastal patrol boats, 22 Russian attack and transport helicopters, and 100,000 AK-103 and AK- 104 assault rifles. Venezuelan air force officials visited Moscow, for up-close looks at MiGs and Sukhoi Flankers, but no formal negotiations started.

However, the U.S. government in January denied Spain and Brazil authorization to sell Venezuela military transport aircraft and light attack fighters equipped with U.S. technology, and Chavez announced that he would buy his fighters and transport aircraft instead from Russia, China and Iran. On Feb. 9, Mikhail Dmitriyev of the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation said that “If Venezuela wants to obtain MiGs, we are prepared to cooperate.” Now Dmitriyev has signaled Moscow’s willingness to sign a major deal with Chavez as soon as contract negotiations (which haven’t started yet) are wrapped up.

Chavez declared on Feb. 4 that he will arm one million reservists to oppose a U.S. military invasion of Venezuela. “One hundred thousand assault rifles are not sufficient,” Chavez thundered in a speech during the official 14th anniversary celebration of his failed coup attempt in 1992. Chavez also revealed in that speech that he plans to buy “good and modern” air defense missile systems (SAMs), but gave no details.

The Venezuelan leader’s plans to buy MiGs, air defense missile systems, more helicopters and perhaps hundreds of thousands of assault rifles add up to billions of dollars in potential weapons contracts for Russia’s military industries. It also opens the door more widely in the near future for a significant Russian presence in Venezuela’s crude oil and natural gas industries.

Chavez will clash frequently with the U.S. government this year because the confrontation contributes to pushing up oil prices. More accusations of espionage in Venezuela by the U.S. military or the CIA are likely. Chavez’s recent threat that U.S. military personnel and civilians could be arrested and jailed on espionage changes should not be dismissed as rhetorical bombast. Chavez means what he says, even though to date he hasn’t carried out his frequent threats to curtail or even suspend oil exports to the United States.

Chavez also will support Iran strongly in its confrontation with the West because that helps to keep oil prices high. Tehran and Caracas will work together to persuade OPEC to reduce production in March. Outside OPEC’s confines, however, both governments will cooperate in pushing oil prices even higher by challenging the U.S. in the Middle East (Iraq, Israel) and Latin America (Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Central America). The Bolivian revolution will leave its footprints across the region, and may reach into Israel for the first time if Chavez decides to give Hamas some financial support.

The strategic alliances between Caracas/Havana and radical governments in Tehran, Damascus and the Palestinian territories also imply that Venezuela’s geopolitical importance for radical Islamic militant groups will increase this year. Fund-raising arms of Hezbollah, Hamas and other Islamic militant groups have been active in Latin America for years. Their presence has been detected at different times in Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, the Venezuelan island of Margarita, and El Salvador. However, the Chavez government’s strengthening relations with Iran, Syria and the new Hamas government imply that Islamic militant groups will enjoy in Venezuela the same official tolerance that Colombian militant groups have enjoyed since Chavez became president seven years ago.

Meanwhile, it all comes back to oil. Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, D.C. said on Feb. 9 that the Chavez government is a trustworthy oil supplier and wants good relations with the U.S. government. In Caracas, however, Chavez was more focused on increasing his political confrontation with the U.S. government by unleashing his wrath against British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now officially dubbed “a pawn of the empire,” because it contributes to keeping oil prices at high levels. If oil prices weaken, the Bolivarian revolution’s cash flow would be disrupted and the political situation in Venezuela would deteriorate very quickly.

However, high oil prices also are masking a huge structural capacity problem at PDVSA, the national oil company. The Chavez government claims officially that Venezuela’s oil production totals over 3.3 million b/d. OPEC and other independent entities estimate that Venezuela’s real production is much lower, averaging about 2.5 million b/d, give or take up to 100,000 b/d. The difference between the official production figure and independent estimates is about 800,000 b/d. Moreover, the gap between the official production figure and the independent estimates is growing.

Venezuela’s oil production capacity has a yearly natural depletion rate of between 20 percent and 24 percent, according to former PDVSA employees who were purged by Chavez, and who may be overestimating depletion rates as a result. Natural depletion refers to production capacity that is lost because reservoir pressure levels fall as oil is extracted. The older the oil field, the higher the rate of natural depletion. Venezuela’s oil industry is over 90 years old. Some PDVSA reservoirs (in the Lake Maracaibo basin, for example) have been in production almost that long.

If we assume for this analysis that Venezuela’s oil production capacity was 3 million b/d at the end of 2002, and output capacity has been dropping by 20% annually in the past three years during which there has been grossly insufficient investment in well repair and maintenance, PDVSA may have lost up to 900,000 b/d of production capacity in that period. This would imply that Venezuela’s maximum production capacity today is about 2.1 million b/d, about 500,000 b/d less than OPEC currently estimates from what it calls “secondary sources.” However, we think OPEC’s estimate is closer to the truth in terms of measuring real production levels.

If our assumption is correct, it implies that PDVSA is managing to offset some of the effects of natural depletion. The production numbers confirm that PDVSA isn’t able to expand its output capacity, but the country’s production capacity likely isn’t collapsing as quickly as the Chavez government’s critics are claiming. This doesn’t mean that PDVSA’s production capacity is not declining. There is no doubt at all that it’s falling, and we think this will start to become more visible in 2006 despite higher oil prices. However, PDVSA’s output capacity implosion won’t significantly weaken Chavez’s oil revenues or hinder his geopolitical moves against the U.S. during 2006.

Send questions and comments to analyst@g2americas.com

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