Is Syriana about the Saudis and Iraq?

I just watched the movie last night and could not help but see some similarities between the movie and actual events from the past few years over in the Middle East.

I know I am late on discussing this but I figured this would be a good place to ask this since y'all probably have already worked through some of my questions.

Let me know what your take is on the movie and if that does not answer the questions then I will post them here in an update or down thread - whichever one makes better sense at the time.


OK - I am updating original thread - some of the parralells are -

1.Saudi money gets frozen - here are some possible link, but I don't think it is the story that I remember hearing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4123807.stm

2. Wasn't some member of the Royal family killed off in some kind of "Accident"

3. I know that soldiers in Afghanistan our guarding pipeline going through the region.

These are some basics and I know if we did further research we could probably link more real life events with the movie.

Also has anyone read the book that movie is based on: See no Evil

Thank you in advance.


Give Mommy a Kiss....."

as I have to wait until DVD comes out anyway.

movie is obviously modeled on SA. If it's an amalgam, it's mostly made up of Saudi Arabia.

Bob Baer's books are about Saudi Arabai. I believe he even mentions the estate in Spain (which was not turned into a park and still exists).The conflcts wiithin the ruling family in the film are pure Saudi-insipred. The description of the country ignoring infrastructure so that the ruling families can live profligate lifestyles (which is what the US wants) is insipired by Sauid Arabia. And the fact that the actions of the country described in Syriana determine the price of oil indicates that its model is Saudi Arabia.

While I don't really dig most Clooney blockbusters, he seems to be doing some kick ass stuff. Nice to have the blockbuster $$ so one can do what is important too. THe man has earned my respect with the way he gets out there and confronts issues on a grand big screen scale! Must get some people into theaters for some educating they might otherwise miss.

His dad must be a good guy to have influenced such courage. Wish I could vote for him!

embarassment (at the time, but now great respect), growing up in Kentucky across the river from Cincinatti, his father would never let a racist comment pass without criticism. He said that they'd be in a restaurant and hear someone say something racist and Clooney's father would speak up.

Or the reason as to why the CIA turned on him happens in an alltogether different country. So Syrianna may be not so much based on Saudi regime, but simply peppered with them.

For those who don't know, Baer came back from Iraq in 1994 or 95 faced with a criminal investigation by the FBI because Chalabi had "inadvertantly" shown a document to two iranians that suggested the CIA was plotting to kill Sadaam. Baer convincingly argues that Chalabi forged this document because he thought that if he could convince the iranians that the CIA was going to get rid of Sadaam, then Iran would back his efforts. It backfired. Tony Lake flipped out and tried to prosecute the CIA agents he thought were involved for breaking the law against assassinating foreign leaders.

At the Syriana web site there's an MP3 of a panel discussion with Clooney, the screenwriter (Gaghan) and Baer.

Gaghan says that he got a phone call from a frantic Tony Lake during the time he was writing the script. Lake said to him, "nobody knew what was happening in Northern Iraq in 94!" Gaghan told him, don't worry, Northern Iraq isnt' in the movie. So, they left out all of that stuff about Iraq.

Baer's second book is entirely about Saudi Arabia and much of what he describes comes up in Syriana (see my previous post).

Give Mommy a Kiss....."

She looks like a fucking ghoul.

... not specifically about Iraq. These countries have been at this shit for years.

even if the filmmaking wasn't.

and the quest for American hegemony everywhere. The other nations were political pawns of the USA and its quest for dominance and enrichment of the select few. Look at the cause and effect of doing and following the Law, what's right, morality and then connect the dots with what is happening today.

Syriana was extremely well done and is absolutely prescient to today's American morass and why we are unable to get out of the labyrinth.

1. Watched Jim Kunstler's DVD "The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream"

2. Read

* Jim Kunstler's "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century"

* Craig Unger's "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties"

* David Goodstein's "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil"

* Amory Lovins' "Winning the Oil Endgame : Innovation for Profit, Jobs and Security"

* William Engdahl's "A Century Of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order"

* Either or both of Ken Deffeyes' books
- "Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak"
- "Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage"

* PNAC's " Rebuilding America's Defenses"

Plus - we downsized from an SUV to a Prius, and we live in the metro San Francisco Area.

We liked the movie - but felt it was kind of "popularized."

I didn't know Kunstler had a DVD available -- good to know, as I've been wanting to read "End of Suburbia" for a while. May I also throw in a vote for Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll, about the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan?

Link to rountable discussion with Clooney, Baer, Gagan, etc.

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/syriana/podcast/SyrianaQandANov21.mp3

Peak Oil: The Reality Behind Syriana

http://www.postcarbon.org/syriana

Kunstler’s review:

A Sick Desire: Oil Realities Lost In Denial, Dependency

http://www.postcarbon.org/node/1738

. . .

But they won't get any clear ideas about the implications of our sick dependency on Middle Eastern oil for life in United States. One of the unfortunate results of this otherwise not-stupid movie, is that it will cater to the kind of paranoid fantasies that will be least helpful for Americans facing a bewildering future and needing desperately to take measured collective action to preserve living standards. Sure, there is plenty of greed and bad faith in the big leagues of geopolitics and corporate life. But the global energy predicament is foremost a geological problem.

. . .

The remaining oil is distributed inequitably around the world. More than two-thirds belongs to the nations of the Middle East. It does not come cheap, either in monetary terms or in geopolitical costs. "Syriana" is about some of those geopolitical costs. The movie is loosely based on Robert Baer's gripping 2004 account, "Sleeping With the Devil," of his career as a CIA agent operating in Saudi Arabia, and much of the book is devoted to the stupendous corruption, greed and incompetence of the al Saud royal family -- as well as the behind-the-scenes string-pulling by Anglo-American interests scheming relentlessly to do what's necessary to keep the oil flowing.

. . .

There is a whole set of intelligent responses to America's oil predicament that we ought to be talking about now. These range from restoring a passenger rail system, to supporting local agriculture in earnest, to rebuilding local networks of retail trade and economic interdependency when the Big Boxes die of oil starvation, to setting legal limits on more suburban sprawl. These are the kinds of things that will help us through the post-cheap oil world we are entering. The temptations of paranoia will only make things worse.

Interesting, and scary, stuff.

http://www.chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=667

stay out of small planes.

before us here, there, a shit load in between; most everything but for Micronesia itself, or at least mentioned by name. i recognized pieces of most all headlines interwoven; it's not john le carré, or graham greene, but i was glad i went to see it. it's grittier more direct

there's a scene where the good, ethical, hard working black guy dude goes home to his humble little crib, and across the street there is a large construction project taking place. a couple different angle shots of the project. at first i though, "hm, urban renewal of some kind" until i had hubby dissect it.

he mentioned he felt they were displaying the fact that much of the construction in the u.s. is being financed by the very people we are plotting against on the various mean streets around the world. it made sense cinematically after he mentioned it.

The connection with SA and Iraq? SA was against us invading Iraq that's why they did not let us use their bases in SA. They warned us that our invasion would lead to the balkinazation of Iraq. The main reason why they opposed the invasion was the fear of the violence spreading into SA and the emboldening of Al Qaeda in their country. Their fears have become a reality.