Nonsense. Would you ruin your running multi-billion dollar oil trade business for some religious bullsh!t? Other than that is Israel an absolutely uninteresting country with no resources, a possible invasion and occupation creates no positive economical effect, only brings problems and drawbacks. Who with a sane brain would want to risk troubles for such a small piece of arid dirt?

Which relies on the hefty assumption that the Iranian leadership and those with access to future nuclear weapons are perfectly sane. It also neglects the importance of the presence on this strip of arid dirt of many places and buildings deemed “holy” by Islam’s finest. I would not consider the word “holy” to be even remotely related to sanity.

Interesting political rant, but I was not referring to whose country’s spokesman are ‘on average’ the more reliable sources. I was specially interested in the events of the 1982 Lebanon invasion and the aerial combat that took place. As for the sources we have to rely on to sketch a picture of what happened, I highly value the judgment of Tom Cooper and his ACIG-palls; they do not seem to be biased versus one side of a conflict and are primarily interested in extracting history instead of honoring a specific aircraft or country. If they judge an event as having taken place based on both online and offline sources, I feel I can rely on that judgment. Yefim Gordon, despite his nice (plagiarized) aircraft descriptions, seems more interested in flag waving and promoting Soviet aircraft using whatever doubtful sources available that support the thesis he intends to write.

Here’s the video of the helicopter burning on the ground:

http://www.ogrish.com/archives/2006/april/ogrish-dot-com-msc_shot_down_helicopter.wmv

(Warning, very poor quality)

——————-
Better quality video (see WARNING below):

http://www.ogrish.com/archives/2006/april/ogrish-dot-com-apachedowned.wmv

WARNING!!!: Gruesome images of abuse of burning pilots’ bodies, loud Islamic music, Allah-u-Akbar chanting. WARNING!!! NSFW, Terrorist video.

From the EUI:

Iran
Outlook for 2006-07: Economic growth

We estimate that real GDP growth in fiscal 2005 will have accelerated to 6.1%. Public consumption has risen strongly as parliament imposed freezes on the prices of subsidised goods and services. Parliament’s expansive fiscal stance (facilitated by record oil revenue) is backed by Mr Ahmadinejad. Strong public expenditure has stimulated robust private consumption. Gross fixed investment has also benefited, as a share of oil receipts has been lent to non-oil enterprises. These gains have offset a slowdown in the expansion of export volumes, as oil production has remained flat (held back by technical constraints), and there has been continued robust growth in import volumes.

Growth is forecast to slow to 4.6% in fiscal 2006, as public spending expansion eases. With the presidential election over, expenditure pressures will lessen. However, spending growth will remain strong by historical standards, facilitated by still exceptionally high oil prices. Robust public spending will support continuing strong expansion in private consumption and investment. Export volumes will grow modestly and high revenue will stimulate a corresponding large rise in import volumes, resulting in firm but reduced economic expansion. Growth will decline again in 2007, to 4.2%, as oil prices fall and growth in public spending slows, reducing expansion in investment and private consumption.

The domestic economy: GDP projected to rise from 5.8% in 2005 to 6.5% in 2006

Real GDP growth is projected to rise to 5.8% in fiscal 2005 (1384; equivalent to March 21st 2005-March 20th 2006), according to Farhad Rahbar, the head of the Planning and Management Organisation—a little below forecasts given in November by the governor of Bank Markazi (the central bank), Ebrahim Sheibany (December 2005, The political scene). He did not specify, but Mr Rahbar appears to have been referring to GDP by sector; real GDP by sector rose by 4.8% in fiscal 2004, whereas real GDP by expenditure (the measure used by the Economist Intelligence Unit in its national accounts analysis) grew by 5.1%, according to recently revised central bank data. The central bank had previously put real GDP growth by expenditure in fiscal 2004 at 5.6%. He gave no details of the main drivers of expansion, nor any breakdown of the new data that produced the revised growth figure for last year.

New data have been released by Bank Markazi for the performance of the economy in the first quarter of fiscal 2005. GDP by sector rose by 6.4% on an annualised basis, despite slow expansion in the oil sector, which grew by 2.9%, reflecting capacity constraints that held back oil production as well as long-running slow progress in non-indigenous investment—according to International Energy Agency estimates, oil output over approximately the same period fell to around 3.84m barrels/day (b/d) from 3.92m b/d. This sluggish performance was more than offset by growth in the non-oil economy, which was 6.9% over the first quarter of fiscal 2005, driven by agriculture, industry and manufacturing. Agricultural output rose by 7.2%, up from 2.2% in fiscal 2004 as a whole; “industries and mining” grew by 8.4% and “manufacturing and mining” by 11.4%. Growth in industry and manufacturing has averaged 9.8% and 11.4% respectively over the past four years. This reflects easier access to foreign currency with which to purchase capital goods and raw materials and strong growth in credit extension facilitated by windfall oil receipts—as well as robust expansion in domestic demand. The construction sector grew by 10% in fiscal 2005, after contracting by 4.1% in fiscal 2004 and stagnating the previous year. This followed years of strong growth, partly because of rapid urbanisation and partly as Iranians born during the baby-boom years of the war with Iraq started to reach marriageable age. The sector also benefited from a dearth of attractive alternative investment outlets—in particular given the limitations of the banking sector. It is not clear what caused the upturn—the issuance of new construction permits in urban areas over the same period fell in terms both of numbers (by 5.6%) and of floor space (by 9.6%), although growth in private-sector investment recovered to 26% after a slight contraction in fiscal 2004. It should be pointed out, however, that Iranian data is typically volatile, and can be affected by large individual projects. Meanwhile, officials project that in fiscal 2006 real GDP will strengthen again. Mr Rahbar forecast growth of 6.5%. The deputy governor of the central bank, Mohammed-Jaafar Mojarrad, told Reuters in late January that real GDP “could” grow by between 6.5% and 7%.

Anybody interested in the full EIU country report, pm me with your email.

Quite interesting that Goldendragon after numerous and lenghty posts still has not come up with a sound connection between racist attitudes versus mainly African Americans in the post WW2 USA and having been less reluctant to employ nuclear weapons against Asian countries in time of conflict in the same post WW2 period.
Call it a day Goldendragon, you plainly lost the argument. Perhaps you could tell us of what race you deem to be white skinned Germans, Eastern Europeans, Russians etc. Were they never the object of nuclear doctrine during the same years?

😀 😀

So public expenditure equals Keynesian economics with governments closely managing economic activity via advanced LS-IM-models and intending to fully reap the benefits of the multiplier? Come on!
Current Keynesian schools (post-, neo- etc.) within the science of economics are small and outside of the mainstream due to their sticking to Keynesian theory after the disastrous 1970s showed Keynesian economics has fundamental problems. Never head of the Monetarists, the Lucas-critique etc.?

First, does anybody have any links to the assertions about Chavez’ behaviour as described on strategy page? (For example, articles of reputable newspapers quoting the man?) When I search Lexis Nexus Academic, which contains hundreds of the world’s major newspaper and magazines, I do not find anything. Neither have I read anything in Dutch newspapers concerning this issue.

Second, what Dutch islands are we exactly talking about? Only (what we call in Holland) the down wind islands (i.e. Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire) which lie just in front of Venezuala or also the far more distant upwind islands (i.e. Saba, St. Eustatius and partially French St. Maarten)?

Third, what could Venezuela possibly do politically, economically or militarily? Pressure its heavy crude buyers to force the Netherlands to abandon the islands?