re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Geopolitics is not merely a zero sum game. You see only geography, but you forget the most powerful dimension of geopolitics: time.

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What the frick are you talking about?

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What country is 6000 miles from the Russian border that is in NATO?

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The United States. Oh, I'm sorry. Is it 4000 miles? 3000 miles? You're laughing at my expense because I flubbed the milage? Gotcha.

In one year you'll be dealing with the fact that Russia is going to control 30% of Ukraine. It will be Russia. If you know generational history you'd be nonplussed, but here we are talking about "this moral travesty" as our government siphons off the funds for this war for their own piggie bank. My opinion is, frick all that.

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They would have alerted the military that would then hide Bin Laden somewhere else. That’s what I’m saying.

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And all I'm saying is that who is in charge and the broader context of the political situation was directly relevant. You are going to respond in incredibly bad-faith regardless with something insanely glib like 'while that may be true, I still think [insert idiotic phrase here]' even after I write a too-long piece discussing features of the Pakistani state.

So for the board, this is for the purposes of general knowledge, and not a specific attempt to elucidate more diarrhea from OML. I apologize for even engaging with him, given how often he posts in bad-faith.

First, we have to understand the structure of the Pakistani military state. It is primarily made up of Punjabi, many of whom are classed as 'muhajir's,' in reference to people who lived on the Indian side of Punjab before the Partition in 1947. They are motivated distinctly by the insecurity of the state itself, as the country is Punjabi-dominated. At the same time, unrest in Afghanistan has caused demographic issues, causing Pashtun and other groups to move into both Pakistani cities as well as frontier areas. This focus on retaining the interests of the Punjabi elite lays the groundwork for much of Pakistan's extra-territorial operations. The interests of Zia ul Haq once he displaced Pakistan's civilian government was to ensure control of Afghanistan proper. Included in this program was training for Afghani militants which ramped up after Zia took full control. The US was fully on-board with this, as Zia sort of sweettalked US conservatives by insisting he was going to implement a similar program for Pakistan.

The wide leeway Pakistan primarily fell under the direction of the S-Wing of ISI, and later complaints from CIA officers as well as members of other ISI wings was that the S-Wing operated directly counter to the interests of other wings. This included training and support for students associated with an Islamic revival movement, the only one centered on Hanafi Islam rather than Hanbali Islam, the Deobandis. This is the particular brand of Islamism to which the Taliban prescribe, and it is uniquely South Asian in character, not that it means much to the outsider. But regardless, this became a vehicle by which Pashtun national sentiment could be moved away from Pashtuni nationalism, and circumvented the possibility of a Pashtun national state, which would by definition include lands under Pakistani sovereignty.

There are several instances where the Pakistani courts and military have worked together to oust PM's and cabinets who are not sufficiently concerned with the military's interest, including the recent removal of Imran Khan from PM. But regardless, in terms of the raid, there are some oddities. One oddity about the raid is that ISI initially claimed credit for the raid, saying they were part of it. That claim was rebuffed by the civilian government, which is an odd thing to suggest if the notion is that the civilian government and the military government are aligned. The second issue is of rumors of a Pakistani intelligence insider who provided information to Western sources about the compound in Abbottabad. The lack of communication with ISI is more meaningful under that view, as possible communication could have compromised hard-won intelligence assets within Pakistan itself.

But the notion that Pakistan's civilian and military states were in concert flies in the face of certain inconvenient facts. There are large pro-Western wings of both the Turkish and Pakistani military and intelligence apparatuses (among many other militaries), and treating the entire structure because someone is emotional about one aspect is definitely myopia. The situation in 2011 in Pakistani politics was contentious, and the Pakistani PM had to rely on what ISI told him about the raid, as Gilliani was a civilian who worked under Bhutto and thus would understand the reality of the military/civilian states better than most. When the truth came out of what occurred, that undermined the military and state apparatus in a massive way, which was ultimately a good thing and something we should have done far more.

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In one year you'll be dealing with the fact that Russia is going to control 30% of Ukraine. It will be Russia. If you know generational history you'd be nonplussed

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Why would one be surprised if they know generational history? What are you trying to say there?

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The United States. Oh, I'm sorry. Is it 4000 miles? 3000 miles?

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55 miles you dumb frick.

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but you take care of your own people first before giving out money.

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Where we differ is I see the money as helping the American people even if not directly. I get where you are coming from but just have a differing opinion on the efficacy of the aid being given via a vis the US.

Capping likely refers to plugging and abandoning. Shut is the proper term. Seems to be a term the public uses. Just like the public calls all production platforms, oil rigs. You get laughed at for saying oil rig in those industry circles. I was the butt of such laughter in 2008

If the flow stops for a period of time, a workover rig is needed to redrill the well. The decline of crude oil production due lack of demand of higher priced Russian crude in the 1980's, shut in wells out the wazoo. They all required reworking to flow again. It took a decade to get production up to par in Russia. A production engineer could better explain than I can. Oil always contains some amount of sand in it when produced. This is always part of spec in crude oil sales under BS&W (Basic Sediment and Water) Every ship which comes to port has this as part of the gauging and sampling.

When the covid lockdowns occurred in 2020, we lost 2 million barrels per day of production PERMANENTLY. This was due 1000's of stripper wells flowing just a few barrels per day. The cost to rework these was more than each well was worth. The owners had to pay to have them plugged and abandoned.

I'm not anything close to a production engineer, so this is the best I can describe it. This is not like your water faucet that you can turn on after being off and it flows just the same.

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OML is one of the straight facts only poster in this thread.

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I have not laughed harder after reading this than I have in months. That dude is nothing but a headline reader who obviosly has a mom's trailer park basement mentality. I know that trailer parks don't have basements but it fits he/she/it

Do we really think that security of the First Lady of Ukraine is guarded by squad of 110 lb super models?