D Slavovich Ratz: Russians don't need Iraq

Russians don't need Iraq.  United States would have to invade simultaneously 17 Iraqs and incorporate them peacefully into it's territory to just be at 99.9% of Russia.  There is no shortage of resources in Russia.  There is a shortage of young able bodies men in the Federation.  So if we should invade any country it should be above all, we should go to the Albanian-SerbiaMontenegrian border.

Americans want to get out of that "hell hole", too.  We don't need to declare war on EU or SerbiaMontenegro, but just go there under UN peacekeepers.  (Even Georgia sent peacekeepers there just few months ago.)  However, in this case majority of population wants us there, and can clearly tell us and the British apart.  While in Iraq the locals could easily take us for Westerners, and consequences are bloody.  Plus, I'm not sure they even want 40,000 of us there even though they like Russians.

Once on the ground in Iraq communication would be limited, because we don't know what the locals are saying, and they sure as "hell" don't know what the deep voiced Russians are going about.  In SerbiaMontenegro the language is so similar we have same words, or they sound similar enough to recognize.  Plus, many speak Russian there that they also learned.

Iraqis are so deep in debt that they would have to funnel their oil proceeds for years to pay it off.  Then they have to rebuild the infrastructure that was devastated.  So even if someone does not get all happy with the matches around the pipelines there they still have so much "baggage", that aside from all
the blood and gutting and the thing with sawing heads the economic benefits are slim.

The World Trade Organization membership to "sweeten" this lame deal doesn't exactly call for toasts.  That small percent that we allegedly lose, 1 to about 2% of all our exports is more to do with Russian negligence than someone pushing the largest country on the face of the earth around.  Russian inefficiencies in a year surpass any negative effect of none WTO membership by 10 fold.  It would take decades of none WTO membership to just meet a fraction of what Russian inefficiency encompasses in terms of loses in two years!  Negotiating skills would eliminate all non WTO membership loses.

This is where Serbs come in.  Instead of exporting oil, we should export gasoline.  Now 9,000,000 barrels of oil to process in one day is going to take a lot of facilities and manpower.  Serbia is perfect in meeting both instances. 

Serbia is strategically West of us, and we can ship oil there to process, before having it go to it's destination further west.  The willing workforce is there, because SerbiaMontenegro has over 10 million people, highly educated (93%) and over a third are unemployed (34.5 % are unemployed).  So there is no
problem in filling the needed positions.  And no Serbian government, be it pro-Western, Communist, or Democratically pro-Russian will turn down such lucrative offer of immense revenues for the budget, and the economy at large.

Shipping the soldiers with the raw oil would get rid of costs of exerting troops in the area.  Since government holds a stake in LUKOIL (largest Russian oil company) there shouldn't be any problems in implementation.  The Russians could deputize the Serbs on the ground, like westerners did in Southern Serbia
with "local police".  The SerbiaMontenegrian government should help cover the costs of Russian stay, and deputized Serbs.  It shouldn't be a problem with flood of dollars from oil processing revenues.

With now work for Serbs and Albanian Serbs in the area and money to buy DVDs and sexy lingerie for their women they have more reasons to stay home.  Plus, during the day they are occupied with work, and less time to plan on how to make the other's life more miserable.  This gives tid bit more stability in the region, and hence Russian tourism would increase at Montenegrin coast, beaches.  Hawaii is like golfing grass compared to Yugoslavian pristine waters and accommodations.  This would again, flood former Yugoslavia with cash.

Serbs, and even Albanian KLA are not stupid enough to blow themselves that seems to be strictly limited to those in Iraq.  The SerbiaMontenegrian border is a lot easier to enforce, too.  In Iraq the Russian army would have to deal with 2,268 mile border, and there are some sick murdering head sawers at the
south (Saudi Arabia), enthusiastic blow up fanatics at the north-west (Syria), trigger happy terrorists at the west trying to penetrate from Jordan, and really, really pissed of Muslims at the East (Iran).  And then add to that these groups also hating each other and trying to kill each other in Iraq, you might just die from the crossfire.

Albanian-SerbiaMontenegrian border is just mire 178.3 miles.  On the north we have fellow Bosniak Serbs, and Croatian Slav brothers (who are ticked of at Serbs, but some still like Russians, and the Serb-Croat situation is not cut throat / stab attitude, more like give each other a bad look on a bus, or spit
into a drink if serving one at the restaurant.  Nothing to lose one's head over.  Romania and Bulgaria are pretty much neutral, and smuggling from Macedonia shouldn't be a problem, either:  Macedonians are actually Slavs that like both
Serbs and Russians.

So there you have it.  Economically sound, geographically strategic, financially conservative, profit reaping plan.  The implementation problem is to adequately arm dress the Russian soldier, and have most of Russian army of volunteers - is going to happen in / around 2007 at current pass of transition.  As for Iraqis, since they are human, and Russian allies economically if not militarily we shouldn't forget them in their dire need.  At www.HungerSite.com you can help Americans in their stabilization and delivery of assistance to Iraq, and to lots of other countries.  The credit will go to Americans, but at least the money won't end up buying bullets as was the case when money went to Muslim charities.  Even if you're poor, broke, don't have any money, or just enjoy seeing Arabs die, check out HungerSite.com it's really interesting.

D Slavovich Ratz
Russian Investor
Sacramento, California, USA