The Strait of Hormuz: Potential for Conflict by Christopher Hoch

• CASE BACKGROUND
• ENVIRONMENT ASPECT
• CONFLICT ASPECT
• ENVIORNMENT OVERLAP CONFLICT ASPECT
• RELATED INFORMATION

I. CASE BACKGROUND

1. Abstract

The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea and has been the focus of potential conflict between competing regional and international powers. The straits are strategically important and represents one of the nine major water chokepoints in the world, being only 50km wide at its shortest point. For this reason it is of great strategic importance, as it is the only sea route where oil from Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, as well as most of the United Arab Emirates can be transported from. Much of this oil is transported to Japan, Western Europe, and the United States who have a vital interest in securing free passage through this strait. The potential for conflict over these straits and the resources that traverse them are great. The anti-western regimes of Iran and Iraq oppose the United States presence within the Persian Gulf and the security support that the US provides for many of the Gulf states. If war were to break out in this region oil would certainly be used as a weapon, and the enviornmental consequences could be disastrous. There would be serious threats to local water supplies, marine life, and the economies of these nations. Containing conflict within this vital area has been a goal of all of the actors involved, and so far they have been successful in avoiding a major incident. (read more)

Micro Macro View —Letter to Lonbud

My Dearest Lonnie,

Thanks for thinking of me. Pretty comprehensive stuff. May indeed follow your suggestion and subscribe.

From my vantage point I am beginning to observe a macro and micro view of the politics somewhat as I described in my response to your last posting.

Micro View:

I am observing Old Republican money acting in the belief that it represents the quintessential American revolutionary patriot liberty monger thriving in the wealth of what has of necessity come to be a reverse imperial/colonial spirit. This occurred for the same reasons that Bolshevism expanded in Russia, for it was a timely reaction to the backwardness of a nation isolated from a highly industrialized world. The capability of the Russian proletariat to change the order of its government had it's birth in Wall Street according to Anthony C. Sutton, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford , Wall Street and the Bolshevick Revolution, [2001]. [Note 1914 graphic above depiciting how Wall Street embraced Marx.] Now May I quote Charles Lewis' The Buying of the President 2000, "Before the first vote is cast in a presidential primary, a private referendum has already been conducted among the nations financial elites as to which candidate shall earn his party's nomination." [p.3] The reason for this is simple. The term "Financial" represents an order much greater than the demos, and the chaotic masses, including nuvo riche, which left to themselves implode in their petty greed for useless and wasteful material stuff while stripping those who have abundance, (gained, maintained or passed on through the higher use of reason and discipline) in order to feed and sustain those who are attracted to self serving non essential things which profit little, instead of moving in the direction of wise investments which support the economy and the nation as a whole.

This kind of Republican is a distinct class of people who by necessity feels that it is quite unified and can and must govern more and more with a rod of iron. Even Jesus himself spoke of profit, abundance, growth, rewards, use, cost, earnings ... in other words, "something measurable or material" to prove one's righteousness beyond the vain trappings of vain words, wicked obsessional and common folly. And, at the same time, he abjured those in high places who defiled the human being with their hypocrisies, vain self importance and lies, which they stood upon as the only foundation for their riches gained from the dark worship of all that is closed, disconnected, protective and distant instead of yielding to a relationship with the true God and Lord of all who is represented in this world as human being open, connected, vulnerable and intimate, even while nailed to a cross dying. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" and finally, "It is finished."

Macro View:

All of mankind will be divided from this point forward in order to secure good government and proper management by retaining the right use of reason and intellect for the sake of increasing profitability and earnings for all who are capable of working together. The present corporatocracy is a microcosm of highly ordered multicultural, cosmopolitan individuals whose ideas and living manifests a heart for unity, integration, support, and the preservation and refinement of culture, the arts and the natural environment, and the responsibility and power to continue in that direction. The plain and simple truth is that all who oppose this view globally will be viewed in a non world citizen status and as such live in a great threat of losing even one's civil and human rights. For, in as much as such people manifest a willingness and capability to harm the innocent indiscriminately, united restraining forces, mobilized mainly by this government, will subdue rebellion and sedition with the hope of imposing order, stability and creating, thereby, new opportunities for education, growth and liberty based upon the system of the Democratic Republic rather than upon any religio-totalitarian regimes. Based upon what you see in the street Lonnie, what would you say the common people are capable of governing?


My View:

One never has to worry about tyranny. For, history has more than adequately proven that it never lasts too long. For this reason I am studying and refining my own life in accordance with what I conceive to be the "New Aristocracy" or Nouvaris and am applying such principles in my own life. This is the "highest mind" for me and constitutes a place of self government first and foremost, and is sufficient in and of itself to exist anywhere there are people and the appreciation of love, life, light and truth. And of course, Lonnie, I view you as more than a candidate and fine example of such a high state of being ... thus the term ... "Your Highness"!

Love

Zeppi

Lemmings in the Ides of March

My response to Lonbud's recent blog entitled: "Fear No Evil"

"On the other hand, one wonders just how much debasement of every principle upon which the country was founded might cause “the people” to assert their power, to throw off the depredations of illegitimate, incompetent rule."

"The People"? Who are the people Lon? I have been hanging out with a wealthy stock broker for the past few months who is teaching me how to invest and get filthy rich like him. This is what I have learned. The people, according to him, are a mass of dumbed down jackasses who have been trained to be loyal ignorant consumers that make him rich with everything they senselessly want, need and buy.

He sees no incompetent rule at all. According to him, America is right where it should be. The founding fathers never made any provisions to free the slaves, and in his eyes, indeed, the slaves still exist, albeit, shod and mobile, but slaves none the less.

He holds thousands of shares of America and feels that his truer vote is better represented in his equities. He really could care less what the people think as long as they keep purchasing consumer nondurables. In fact, he sees the world in terms of those capable of taking on profitable, productive progress. He wants to see earnings per share ... the bottom line. I wanted to buy a stock that showed great potential but showed no earnings per share and he asked ... "Who will buy the stock." I slept on it and returned an answer a few days later. "Fools", I said. He smiled and nodded his head slyly.

You see my friend, this man seems to be part of a contingent of Americans who have invested in America all along, and generated through her enormous wealth. I suppose that was the idea from the very beginning. If you put your money in a bank, he sees you as a fool. Now, these folk are uninterested in giving any of their wealth away, and so they are forced to divert their thinking from anything Democratic and are pleased to embrace the only system which seems to acknowledge the red bloodedness of their patriotic needs; even been passing bills recently to secure themselves and their homelands. Can you blame them? They feel that America was excellent then and now and the economics only proves it. The strong will survive by creating yet another world war to prove it.

It's all quiet simple —these Americans intend to control all the energy resources in the world because it can, must and should, they believe ... and they refuse to be challenged ... and quiver at the thought of all those young studs standing at attention before the great booty of war. The masses according to them are simply lemmings awaiting their own slaughter. They certainly believe in ecology, and feel terrible about waste on any level. They tell me that the biggest cause of waste, pollution, and scarcity is people and they intend to address that shortly through the question of Iran ... might even throw in a few more hotbeds just to handle matters efficiently all at once. Oh, I see the treacherous cliff approaching. Indeed, I do feel somewhat anxious. Beware the Ides of March.