"Sane": the pursuit of policies that achieve a successful outcome, that improve
one's position on the grand chessboard of international politics. For
instance: Adolf Hitler's invasion of Russia was insane from the standpoint of
German interests. Neocon plans to hurl American military force at Israel's
neighbors is insane from the standpoint of American interests (and especially
from the standpoint of American oil and energy interests).
How does one extract oil profitably from a region that is boiling over with
hatred for those doing the extracting? The American military has already
exhausted itself in Iraq, and the game has barely begun.
We know the neocon solution to this problem: exterminate tens of or hundreds of
millions of Arabs and Muslims with nuclear and biological weapons, to commit
the most evil act of genocide in human history. Do most Americans really want
to go down that path? Do American industrial and business elites want to go
down that path? I strongly doubt it. The rest of the world would rip us to
shreds.
There is enormous opposition to the neocon agenda within the American power
elite, and even from leading members of the Bush 43 administration. Have you
been reading the memoirs and comments of the Bush 43 dissenters and defectors?
If my analysis is correct, and I am confident it is, we are on the verge of a
major explosion between the traditional American power elite and the neocons.
I hope this development won't take you by surprise -- you've been given the
straight dope. :)
I'll get to your other points later.
Alan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
--- In political-research@yahoogroups.com, Sean McBride
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I'm a big fan of Kevin Phillips -- his analysis of the current
> fragile state of the American empire is dead on -- but there is
> nothing here developing a sane rationale for getting into a world
> war with Islam as part of a program to seize Mideast oil fields by
> military force.
What is your definition of "sane"?
I keep using phrases like "SEEMING insanity" or "SEEMING
imbecility" because I am looking for (at least semi-rational,
at least semi-intelligent) stuff that might lie
underneath. And maybe this is foolish; maybe there is
nothing underneath, and we are dealing with outright insanity
or imbecility. But maybe it isn't foolish, either. We should
at least consider the possibility.
Further, even if we were dealing with "outright insanity" -- what
exactly does that mean? It does not mean clinical psychosis, I'm
fairly sure (though not entirely sure). How did it come to pass
that an entire administration, with hundreds of at least
superficially intelligent, and unquestionably experienced, people,
could all come to believe the same things and enthusiastically
support the same ("insane") initiatives? Maybe there is some
occult force operating on their minds, or maybe they are not real
humans (like maybe David Icke's reptiloid shape- shifters). One
version of the "occult force" idea is that the influence of Israel
and radical Zionism has so dominated their consciousness that they
are impelled to do seemingly insane things, i.e. things that are
inconsistent with what most of us would agree to be rational. (You
might say that this has nothing to do with the occult, but I am
using "occult" in more the literal sense of "hidden, obscure,
behind-the-scenes".) But you must admit that that is quite a
stretch.
Beyond all that, there is the possibility that they ARE behaving
rationally, or at least semi-rationally, given their set of
givens, which includes the criticality of the global energy
resource picture and the absolute requirement to maintain dollar
hegemony.
> I am still convinced that the neocons have been
> pushing the oil argument through their fellow travelers on the
> left (like Greg Palast) as a means to distract attention from the
> real motives behind the Iraq War and the wars to come for which
> they have been agitating (next stop, Iran). The neocons are
> obsessed with smashing the Arab and Muslim oil weapon, not with
> improving the strategic position of the American oil industry OR
> working to insure the economic survival of the United States.
Smashing the Arab and Muslim oil weapon DOES, necessarily and
powerfully, improve the position of the oil industry (some parts
of it, at least) and, of much more significance, work to ensure
the economic survival of the U.S. The prosperity of the U.S.
depends on keeping the oil weapon smashed, and keeping oil priced
in dollars (and not too many of those). It also depends on control
of the oil vis a vis resource competitors -- particularly China.
Which brings us to this:
> In fact, they are behaving as if they are in cahoots with Russia
and
> China, luring the United States into a trap in the Middle East
> that could lead to its destruction as a superpower. What we did
> to the Soviets in Afghanistan, the neocons are doing to Americans
> on a much grander and more ruinous scale in Iraq, Iran and the
> Mideast in general.
?!
How are they behaving as though in cahoots with China? How is the
U.S. being "lured into a trap"? The "lure" is our own patterns of
resource use, and our own absolute requirement for oil priced in
dollars (i.e. our own requirement to maintain dollar hegemony),
and the necessity of securing our position in the region (and
globally) against resource competitors like China -- not some evil
occult power (the neocons, the Zionists, etc.) stepping in
suddenly, without cause, rhyme or reason, and exercising control
over us as innocent, uninterested bystanders. At least so I think,
again allowing for the possibility that I am wrong about
everything.
The "innocent, uninterested bystanders" (and "evil-occult-power")
model requires, IMO, incomprehension of cheap oil as a strategic
resource, essential (NOT OPTIONAL) for maintenance of anything
resembling the "American way of life", as we've known it, and
indeed for the maintenance of AMERICA, as we've known it. Cheap,
high-EROEI oil built our so-called civilization, and underlies
every material aspect of it. And no, we cannot "just switch to
ethanol", or "just use the Alberta tar sands", or "just drill
ANWR". "Just"! That's more incomprehension, based on ignorance of
energy resource realities.
This is, as I wrote before, what guys like Roberts and Buchanan
and the antiwar.com-ers (I will henceforth refer to them as the
"anti-empire right") do not yet understand. They imagine that the
U.S. can simply withdraw and live peacefully in the world, and
everything will carry on as it has carried on for many decades,
with all of us staying as rich as we've always been. This is an
illusion. The U.S. withdrawing from the M.E. and elsewhere, and
living peacefully in the world, will result in the end of cheap
oil and the end of dollar hegemony, on which all our material
prosperity is based. Depression, mass unemployment, breakdown of
infrastructure, mass poverty, ongoing public health disasters, the
appearance of 21st-century "Hoovervilles", permanent and worsening
stagflation, and on and on -- THOSE will be the result of the end
of empire, the end of cheap oil, the end of dollar hegemony. As I
wrote, the anti-empire right will get the end of empire, and they
will not like it.
America will descend into a neo-feudal hell, with the rich and
some of the upper-middles surviving in gated communities patrolled
by armed guards (and perhaps even razor-wire and machine-gun
nests), and hundreds of millions of the poor and destitute left to
scramble for themselves, outside. Reactionary though some of the
anti-empire right may be, that is not quite the America of liberty
and opportunity that they had in mind! Our land of liberty and
opportunity was built, over the last century, on cheap, high-EROEI
oil, and now depends on it, utterly. We had our chance to make the
transition -- in the 70s and 80s -- but we blew it. Now it is too
late.
The anti-empire left is in for some big and unpleasant surprises,
also. All their favorite nanny-state programs and perks will
evaporate or take unrecoverable hits -- the social security
system, Medicare and Medicaid, welfare, the schools, the works.
The social safety net will dissolve, a piece at a time. The
vaunted 2-trillion-$$ "health care" system will disintegrate,
though surviving in pockets here and there, affordable only by the
rich.
Sean, you speak (still) as though oil were NOT a strategic
resource, and truly vital. You speak as though you do not
understand what I am saying about oil and dollars, above and in
previous posts. Perhaps you are unconvinced of my assertions about
these things. If so, fine. Say so, and we'll discuss that.
Keep in mind that I do NOT reject the idea that Israel and the
Zionists are influential, and that their jingoistic and
chauvinistic tribal impulses (insinuated with increasing
effectiveness into American politics and policy) have exacerbated
things, perhaps greatly. To that extent I buy the "evil-occult-
power" model. I just do not accept it as the main driver. Energy
resources, and dollar hegemony, are the main driver. Always have
been, and would be even if Israel did not exist.
A simpler way of saying it all is this classic: "We have met the
enemy -- and they is us".
Alan
