Heard an unusual radio spot on the news today. It was an institutional ad for Citgo (a Bracewell & Giuliani production no doubt) that boasts bringing Venezuelan oil to the United States, and come buy our gas. This, on the same day that Hugo Chavez nationalized (stole) the last of the private oil fields in the country. Coincidence?
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez nationalized the last privately run oil fields in the country Tuesday. The government is taking over four oil projects run by some of the world’s biggest petroleum companies.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, if not his U.S. Citgo business, must be feeling a pinch from consumers’ reaction to his behavior these last couple years. And nobody called for a boycott. It’s not even necessary when people just do what is right. I wish the Citgo employees luck in finding work elsewhere. How about making arrangements to find other employment by May 1st of next year. Celebrate May Day by leaving Chavez’s Citgo. Turn the lights out on your way out.
Good news trickles in from Anbar Province. Tribes in Iraq are joining the U.S. forces to fight against al Qaeda. CSM was the only media I could find that has this story, complete with pictures.Â
Like dominoes, tribes reeling from a campaign of killing and intimidation by Al Qaeda have been joining, one by one, the US-led fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq in this Sunni Arab province. Last month, US Gen. David Petraeus told Congress that violence was down significantly here and that the tribes were key to the transformation.
 And this . . .
But winning over the Bu-Fahed tribe was a coup. It had been one of Al Qaeda’s staunchest supporters, and traces its lineage to the birthplace of the puritan form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism in the Saudi Arabian province of Najd. It formally threw its lot behind Sheikh Abdel-Sattar Abu Risha.
and to the democrats in Washington who just want to leave Iraq . . .
Anbar’s provincial seat, Ramadi, which Al Qaeda declared in October to be the capital of its so-called Islamic state in Iraq, is now firmly in the grips of US and Iraqi forces.
US Capt. Jay McGee, intelligence officer with the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment from Fort Worth, Texas, says that the motivation for the tribes to join the council is largely self-serving.
“Everyone is convinced Coalition forces are going to leave and they are saying, ‘We do not want Al Qaeda to take control of the area when that happens.’ For them, Al Qaeda is a greater threat long term.”
Belly up to the counter. Politics are on the menu and Ross is on the grill.
 