Surviving Capitalism (Not) : US’s Saudi Oil Deal from Win-Win to Mega-Loose (sic)

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, August 13, 2015

US’s Saudi Oil Deal from Win-Win to Mega-Loose (sic)

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook. (Note: I realize that "loose", as he used the word, seems to be rapidly entering the English language through frequent (mis-)usage, but I resist. The correct hyphenated word should have been "Mega-Lose". See conventional definitions of "lose" and "loose".)

Are Saudi leaders becoming mavericks while deviating from the grand strategies of the Empire? Engdahl finds evidence to suggest the affirmative.

Who would’ve thought it would come to this? Certainly not the Obama Administration, and their brilliant geo-political think-tank neo-conservative strategists. John Kerry’s brilliant “win-win” proposal of last September during his September 11 Jeddah meeting with ailing Saudi King Abdullah was simple: Do a rerun of the highly successful State Department-Saudi deal in 1986 when Washington persuaded the Saudis to flood the world market at a time of over-supply in order to collapse oil prices worldwide, a kind of “oil shock in reverse.” In 1986 was successful in helping to break the back of a faltering Soviet Union highly dependent on dollar oil export revenues for maintaining its grip on power.

So, though it was not made public, Kerry and Abdullah agreed on September 11, 2014 that the Saudis would use their oil muscle to bring Putin’s Russia to their knees today.

It seemed brilliant at the time no doubt.