This fear which may be based on real data that a man like Cheney would be privy to, may well have made it vital that the U.S. not merely seize all available oil supplies in the Middle east and the Caspian basin, but deny it to any one who even tries to compete with us in securing supplies. Iraq was the first domino in that scenario.Iran is the other prize the administration is seeking.Countries like Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Angola and Nigeria are in their gunsights.
here is no other way to interpret their desperation to proceed to a war on any pretext except in this rationalization.Saddam was a dictator who was defanged and was in no position to offer any meaningful resistance.Yet, the need for simply seizing those oil assets in Iraq and strip that country of its vital resource became so overwhelming, the excuses had o be invented.And so a War was born.
that this is exactly what’s going on. If humankind survives, some future historian will certainly refer to this period as the Oil Wars. The minutes of the Energy Task Force meetings that Cheney holds so tightly to his chest are likely devoted to three topics: the impending crisis of Peak Oil, the need to secure all oil resources for US use and how Those Who Rule can get richer doing so.
The fear that the American way of life is ending may have precipitated the war on Iraq?
Well…YEAH.
The question is…what IS “The American Way Of Life?”
Mahatma Gandhi, upon being asked what he thought about Western civilization, answered “I think that it would be a very good idea.”
Yup.
This is a country that is suffering from an original sin…racism. It was founded upon the twin principles of genocide and slavery, and those two errors continue to haunt it over 300 years later.
The reactionaries wish to continue that tradition, and in fact they wish to continue EXPORTING it. To them, “The American Way Of Life” has to do with taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Since the end of the 19th century, they have increasingly pursued this goal on an international level. If given sodium pentathol, they would say that they are just practicing realpolitik as humanity has practiced it from the beginning of history. In fact, as nature ITSELF practices it. Survival of the fittest, red in tooth and claw, etc.
However, there are new paradigms at work here.
The concept of ecology and the separate but parallel development of weapons of mass destruction.
Maybe NOT so new.
The great religious teachers have ALWAYS preached equality, forbearance, mercy…do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Maybe Jesus foresaw all of this in some sense and was the first to express the ideas of what I call Human Ecology. The tending of the entire flock in the knowledge that even from the least of us there is something to be gained for the mass.
2000 years later…we still have not caught up with him.
Only now…it’s getting close to being too late.
We had some wiggle room for a few thousand years…an eyeblink in the history of the universe…but presently that wiggle room is being cramped by the diffusion of WMDs all over the globe.
“Them injuns got REPEATIN’ rifles now, podna!!!”
Thus the Tancredos of this world advocate first strike tactics…the ULTIMATE “shock and awe” approach…and our rough beast lurches ever closer to Armageddon.
We shall see.
No matter what happens, “The American Way Of Life” is shot all to hell.
We will either wake up to the new deal that is going on in the world and accept our own true place in a world society (not starving in huts and caves, but not gorging ourselves on the fat of the land, either), harden into true fascism of some sort and eventually be blown away (quite possibly along with most of the the REST of humanity and life on Earth as well) in a nuclear war of our own devising, or bumble along halfway between this and that until the other 4/5ths of the population of the world ALL figure out our paper tiger status and bleed us as dry as they did the U.S.S.R.
Time to voluntarily change “The American Way Of Life”. We are fat, complacent, and headed for a fall if we do not change. We need an effort equivalent to that of W.W.II…a real mobilization of the entire society. Historically, nations have only managed to do this in time of war. They need an enemy.
Well…
Walt Kelly knew this in 1971.
Time for us to at least catch up with him, if not with Jesus.
Later…
AG