Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
*Educate the American public........explaining we must prepare to use military for guarantee access to oil
*Use of US military force to secure oil fields, pumping stations, terminals and critical ocean choke points.
*A precipitive use of the military...........trigger.......escalation in hostilities......anti-American sentiment...........UN sanctions.......fracture friendships and alliances. But compared to the economic effects of an oil shortage, such risk are acceptable.
*It must assure sustained economic growth......
* A national effort on the scale of the Manhattan Project is required.
A clear call to more aggressions......only hope such thinking does not permeate among the majority of policy makers. _________________ I play the cards I'm dealt, though I sometimes bluff.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 1:45 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
The Queen of England was this adamant, this forceful, and this enthusiastic in the 1770's for holding on to the 13 colonies...
My bet, no matter what language or what force America uses, the degree of success today of reaching for world energy will be about as successful as England's hold on the 13 colonies. Right now it's a brouhaha, a storm of threats and accusations and fake missions of democracy.
Like I eluded in other posts, it's a heck of allot easier to hold on to your oil (as in Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran) than to take (as in the US, UK, EU).
Nukes or no nukes, those with oil just need to dance like Mohammed Ali until the empire starves and the threat reseeds using simple attrition.
Will America resort to inhumane methods? Will America become ugly, primitive, evil, maybe...
When I look at Bush and co, I think we already have.
Yet, I hope, as the American public accept peak oil, that we will step back and regroup and come out of this better.
I think the good side (of America) will make it right.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:09 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
But what will happen when there will be no OIL?
What will happen when the cost of producing oil + the cost of military actions to obtain it, will be at an "unusable" price.
I believe spending $1000 and the life of a few soldiers for a barell of oil ... it's not a great deal.
Offcourse ... it's a good deal on the short term ... but a very short one.
Every damn day I think of this :
How STUPID mankind is. We have the (technological) solution for everything ... yet we choose not to implement it. _________________ capitalism *is* fun | crude oil price
Joined: Apr 28, 2006 Posts: 2897 Location: East Texas
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:35 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
mrobert wrote:
But what will happen when there will be no OIL?
That is a long, long, time away. At current, the US gets enough oil to throw it away for fun, which we do on a massive scale. The US also can, quite easily, grow more food that in needs for internal consumption, even without industrial agriculture.
I will grant Monte's point about our currently spectacularly luxurious standard of living getting whacked down a bit in the process. But imagine being Saudi Arabia after realizing that the US is turning half the world's grain supply into ethanol to fuel luxury SUVs...
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:39 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
rwwff wrote:
... the US is turning half the world's grain supply into ethanol to fuel luxury SUVs...
Judging by the success in Iraq, that will be easy to achieve.
Invade half the world for SUV fuel. Doable. Damn easy. _________________ capitalism *is* fun | crude oil price
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:40 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
mrobert,
Exactly !!!!
About 300 billion dollars has been blown on "Operation Secure the Wmd From Saddam for Doing 9/11".
All that 300 billion is from tanks, and munitions, and infrastructure, the military industrial complex, EVERYTHING made from cheaper oil... In fact, much of the current consumables really are leaning also from cheaper oil (food for the mil, and others)...
What would all this cost if we had to make all those tanks and aircraft carriers, and aircraft with expensive oil?
If the accountants were clever, they would keep the numbers based on REPLACEMENT cost, not what it cost "years" ago...
Manufactured goods, equipment, and even newer output, MOST come from older infrastructures...
Whatever the life span or inertia of the economic BASE, however that effects today's costs, I don't think we are seeing YET the true effects of peak oil... Today, right now, this minute, we may still only be experiencing 1998 $10 / brl in terms of our HARDWARE... The consumables like what goes in our SUV tanks, is more REAL TIME... But the bulk of the economy and the military machines is about to implode on expensive energy. On second thought, even my gas station and the tankers, most were build pre-70$ oil...
Joined: Apr 28, 2006 Posts: 2897 Location: East Texas
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:55 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
mrobert wrote:
Even the building I am in, at this very moment, was built on $20 crude.
While true enough, I'm seeing an aweful lot of construction going on still at $70 oil. I don't think these prices are anywhere near high enough to disrupt the military industrial complex. $200 / bbl might make a dent.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:31 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
rwwff,
OK, you see allot of constuction...
But...
The trucks those guys are driving... much of the steel in them came from a few years ago... The mills that made the steel, came from a decade ago... The mines that the ore comes from, the more expensive infrastructure of those mines was setup 15 - 20 years ago. (certainly the main shafts)..
Now look at the wood and cement for the construction... Same thing, maybe the wood is fresh, but the infrastructure, the trucks, land and the forestation, all of it old... it's tax base, the maintenance, all of it was made on cheap oil...
There is a hysteresis that is not reflected in our economy (more like the accounting), some delay... Expensive oil, we are seeing in the gasoline, but not yet is it effecting the infrastructure... The hysteresis is not a happy thing, and honestly, corporate profits tend to mask "old supply", "old costs", "old prices". "New demand", "today's demand", is being satisfied by "old supplies". Matt Simmons said something to that effect... and I will add, that the accounting systems do NOT take this into account. But to repeat, corporations and tax laws don't want to...
Most of what we see in our economy right now, is "history"... Even if you go to a farm and pick a fresh tomatoes, realize, that last year, some crop was planted, fertilizers were set with anticipation of this years crop. The farm land had years of preparation.. If today, you took a forest and cleaned out, turned into farm land, it would cost allot more... Granted, you have more machinery, but, that took more energy to make..
My gut feeling is that we Americans will ignore allot of foundation of our economy... slowly things will look like crap, performance and reliability will drop... mechanical tolerance (accuracy) will slip... this will iterate and make things accumulate over time...
Joined: Apr 28, 2006 Posts: 2897 Location: East Texas
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
lutherquick wrote:
My gut feeling is that we Americans will ignore allot of foundation of our economy... slowly things will look like crap, performance and reliability will drop... mechanical tolerance (accuracy) will slip... this will iterate and make things accumulate over time...
Could very well be, I just don't think $70/bbl is anywhere near high enough to disrupt all those things. Won't really know I suppose for several more years.
Thought keeps popping up in my decrepit little brain...
2010 - 2015 is gonna be filled with lots of "oh my g--" revelations of fact.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:28 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
rwwff,
Energy will effect our economy like sloppy steering...
You turn the wheel and nothing happens, then later the car jerks to the side...
Since so much energy is required to make our economy, since there is so much inertia and delay, we aren't going to feel the painful part till later...
People are even subsidizing... That is, many businesses are not even passing the higher energy costs down to the customer because MOST ASSUME it will get better, many assume it will return to 1998 $10 / oil. They are giving up need profits or going into debt... How many people think, gee just vote for a democrat in 2008, and BINGO things start to get better... sorry, not going to happen...
Anyway...
The recession and slow down will come, later... strong dollar and debt is delaying it as well...
It's going to be jerk to the left, jerk to the right, for 5-6 years and then hard bites with probable economic contractions (not just recessions)...
For me, my career is geared towards the fact that certain markets will expand... software engineering is going to get white hot... even if outsourcing is big... Military, medical, anything OUT OF AMERICA.... American big business know this...
Look at Venezuela, they are buying Russian arms, Belarus will probably get a few billion $ in orders in 3 weeks as well... Oil exporting countries, just happen to be anti-American... places like Venezuela are going to see big economic booms... Russia is a special place because she is investing so much of the wealth back into her economy... Saudi Arabia, will loan it back to America, no benefit for them at all... Europe will do "ok"... Asia will do very well if they manage to trade more with CIS, and South America... and they know this...
You will see a big decoupling of the US economy... Demand must go down, big time in America... there is little available debt to drive it anymore... devloping nations will trade with oil exporting nations, and any anti-US nation will get losts of order from consumer to miltary...
Honestly, simply do more business and get careers out of America. On the good side, American jobs will return, excess will back off, innovation will happen again... The real key is if America stays away from trying to control the world, just reseed, and regroup and rejoin the world community. US hegemony is over, and there are going to be some very good things happening in the world "if" America can eat some humble pie.
Joined: Apr 28, 2006 Posts: 2897 Location: East Texas
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 8:24 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
I do agree with your assessments of Russia, since coming to their senses and catching their breath, they've managed to put together a fine economy, well suited ot their traditions and resources.
On the other hand, I think you are allowing emotional inputs to effect your characterization of the US's future economic condition.
Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 11:05 pm Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
Well, I guess Lt. Col. Tweksbury set forth the neocon rationale for preemptive war about as well as it can be set forth. Tweksbury's rationale, as best I can tell, is that until the US weans itself from foreign oil via alternative energies, the US must engage in preemptive war and forcibly take other countries' oil for our own use.
Tweksbury's preemptive war strategy is flawed for several reasons and on several levels.
First, while he includes a line or two (literally) of cursory lip service to exhausting diplomatic efforts before engaging in preemptive warfare, Tweksbury nevertheless effectively suggests that preemptive war should be the US' first response to a foreign nation's cutoff of US oil supply, presumably even if such a cutoff is legitimate under law. Second, Tweksbury suggests that resort to preemptive warfare should not have any basis in international law (or even traditional ethics), simply "the US needs your oil, you won't give it to us, we're going to preemptively attack you and take the oil from you."
While non-preemptive warfare must never be ruled out, I reject Tweksbury's suggestion that, essentially, preemptive warfare should be the US first response to the dwindling oil supply problem. Apart from the fact that preemptive warfare is immoral, it is simply not effective in the short term or in the long term to accomplish its goal. Namely, the securing and preservation of US foreign oil supply.
As we are seeing in Iraq, indigenous peoples don't take kindly to being invaded. So what are we to do with the indigenous peoples? Well, Tweksbury doesn't tell us. Is genocide an acceptable option to pacify the indigenous people?
While I often hear my neocon friends laugh and say, "sure, let's nuke'um, make'um glow, turn that sand into glass, etc., etc.", genocide would simply turn the US into a pariah nation, inviting all other nations in the world to unite against us. Quite simply, the other nations of the world are not going to tolerate genocide if the US morphs into an nation of evildoers. And that's what preemptive warfare is: evil, morally decadent, repulsive.
Ok, fine, maybe we can cut out the indigenous people coming from a different direction. The neocons are dying (pun intended) to use nuclear weapons. Should the US employ nuclear weapons to quickly disarm a foreign nation, thus committing genocide more palatably to the world (at least for a while) under the "war is hell" excuse? Not only is world intolerance again a major issue, but what if the fallout contaminates the very oilfields we are there to conquer? Kind of counterproductive to use nuclear weapons, don't you think?
So if not genocide, and if not nukes, then how are we going to fool the indigenous people long enough to take all their oil? Shoot'um on sight? Ok, fine. How will they work under such a regime? How will they eat? Who's going to supply the food to feed them? It's no answer to say, "let them starve" because there really are other nations out there who just might wage warfare against such a brutal, immoral nation, especially when that nation preemptively attacked the occupied nation, usurping its oil for US benefit, destroying legitimate contracts with non-aggressing nations in the process.
And we haven't even considered whether the sheer cost of such an occupation will cost more than the oil we will retrieve? Iraq is running something like $2.5 billion per week. Will foreign nations continue to subsidize American debt if we're running around destroying their oil supplies by invading countries with whom they have legitimate supply contracts?
Furthermore, do not underestimate the power of American rebellion against such tyrannical government. Because if our government is treating other peoples with such inhumane brutality, you can be sure American freedom will become quite meagre as well. And we Americans have this thing about freedom. Re-read the Declaration of Independence on this 4th of July, folks. Lots of us still believe in that document.
Now, again, if you read the report, Tweksbury claims preemptive war should only be used after "soft elements of national power" have failed. Nonetheless, Tweksbury justifies preemptive warfare by suggesting it is appropriate where "hostile powers" attempt to control an oil producing nation, citing the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 80's as an example of improper attempts at middle east hegemony. Presumably if a "hostile power" -- Russia?, China?, India?, Costa Rica? -- invaded some oil producer, then the US would be justified in using "preemptive warfare."
Well, geez louise, Russia going into Afghanistan is an easy example of a justifiable war if I've ever heard of one. Sounds like Gulf War I when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bush handled that war magnificiently, in my opinion.
But you don't have to read Tweksbury too awfully closely to see that what he really means is that the US can engage in preemptive warfare whenever the US subjectively feels it to be justified. For example, Tweksbury ominously mentions the anti-US attitude of Hugo Chavez, suggesting to the reader an example of a country worthy of preemptive warfare. So let's develop a reasonable Venezuelan hypothesis of future conduct.
What if Venezuela decides to sign a huge long-term oil contract with China (subsitute Great Britain, if you want), thus cutting off imports to the US due to supply exhaustion? Where's the "hostile power" in this example? Folks, I'm seeing a legitimate contract in this example. Neocons do still believe in contracts, right?
Yet, Twekbury's doctrine would fully justify a US preemptive attack on Venezuela, presumably if Venezuela balked at continued exports to the US after the US said "pretty please." Interfere with other nation's legitimate supplies of oil enough times, and you're looking at world war, plain and simple.
Look, the great American car culture is going to have to go at some point soon. But preemptive war after saying "pretty please" and getting a negative response? Preemptive war as Tweksbury suggests? Insanity. Bat-crap complete neocon insanity. And Tweksbury's preemptive war doctrine will insure that no one on the earth has to worry much about Peak Oil. Because the neocons will kill us all before oil depletion does.
So is there an answer for our oil supply dilimma, at least for the short run? For the next 20 years or so? Well yea, I think so.
In my view, the US must copy the Chinese paradigm of securing long-term contracts for energy supply. The US government must do an about-face, abandon certain aspects of "free market capitalism," and negotiate long-term oil contracts around the world. Exactly like the Chinese are doing.
The US must negotiate these long-term contracts on the same basis that we enter into treaties with other nations. We don't delegate treaty making to a multi-national corporation. The government negotiates the treaty. So must the government become engaged in matters of national security, such as secure energy supplies. Just as the Chinese do.
And if a foreign nation balks at complying with a legitimate contract to supply oil to the US? Now you might be talking about war. Justifiable war. Legitimate war. Not this immoral and evil "preemptive war" so much loved by the neocons.
Secondly, like China, the US needs to get other nations to want to help us. Help is a 2-way street. You help me, I'll help you.
Take Eva Morales of Bolivia, for example. Here's a neophyte President who can't think beyond Che Guevara or Hugo Chavez, because of his modest upbringing. Yet Morales has given an interview with BBC where he candidly admits he knows nothing about economics, oil, governmental organization, and so forth. You listen to him and you can tell the guy would love to get some help. As long as he feels the "help" is not there to destroy him.
Rather than ostracize a guy like Morales, like the Bush Administration is currently doing, out of pure ideological spite, the US President ought to contact him. Call him up on the phone. We ought to talk to him and cut a deal -- nation to nation, not US corporation to nation.
And you know what Morales wants and needs? Teachers. The Bolivians are screaming for teachers to teach their children. Some peasants are actually roadblocking highways, and lighting dynamite, because they don't have teachers for their remote villages. Imagine that.
The US ought to go to a guy like Morales and say, "listen, why don't you let us send down a bunch of teachers to help you folks? We'd be happy to do it. And let us send down some oil and gas folks, maybe some financial people, so you can talk to them, too. Don't worry, we'll pay for them for a year. They can help you develop your resources, give you ideas. Now, listen, Eva, if you would like this help, we'd appreciate your help too. You've got some extra oil. We would like a 10 year contract at $75.00 per barrel for X barrels per day." Ok, this is an over-simplification to some extent. But you get the picture.
And hey -- it's exactly the kind of negotiation that China is doing all over the world. And it's working for them. They are also out buying up as many oil companies as they can. The US must stop with this business of letting our multi-national corporations handle our energy needs with other nations. The free market is dwindling with every long-term contract China signs.
The Chinese paradigm represents an ancient legal concept -- contracts -- with a new spin -- nation-to-nation contracts. At least a new spin for the US.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of the Chinese paradigm is isolating the US into considering rash policies like preemptive warfare. Better to surrender a bit of ideology -- the sanctity of absolute free enterprise -- so that the US can remain dignified, moral, and strong. Long-term nation-to-nation contracts, backed up by American military projection, will insure that the US secures its energy supply until it can develop energy alternatives.
The difficult part is turning the national will to the development of those energy alternatives. But that is the subject of another post.
Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 3:52 am Post subject: Re: Pre-emptive Energy Security - A blueprint for resource w
XOVERX wrote:
Should the US employ nuclear weapons to quickly disarm a foreign nation, thus committing genocide more palatably to the world (at least for a while) under the "war is hell" excuse? Not only is world intolerance again a major issue, but what if the fallout contaminates the very oilfields we are there to conquer?
I'm sure that's a technical problem that can be safely resolved. I wouldn't trust the US to stop using nukes on those grounds.
XOVERX wrote:
It's no answer to say, "let them starve" because there really are other nations out there who just might wage warfare against such a brutal, immoral nation, especially when that nation preemptively attacked the occupied nation, usurping its oil for US benefit, destroying legitimate contracts with non-aggressing nations in the process.
You seem very worried about such things as justice and human rights. Believe me, even the most civilized nations can turn a blind eye about those issues when it's in their own interest.
XOVERX wrote:
And we haven't even considered whether the sheer cost of such an occupation will cost more than the oil we will retrieve? Iraq is running something like $2.5 billion per week.
Amazing as those figures are, invading Iraq is still likely to be significantly profitable in terms of the oil extracted from there.
XOVERX wrote:
Will foreign nations continue to subsidize American debt if we're running around destroying their oil supplies by invading countries with whom they have legitimate supply contracts?
You've hit the real point there. All of the above can be brushed aside, but America can't brush aside this one.
XOVERX wrote:
Furthermore, do not underestimate the power of American rebellion against such tyrannical government. Because if our government is treating other peoples with such inhumane brutality, you can be sure American freedom will become quite meagre as well.
Sorry, the US has been brutal and inhumane with the nations it's invaded for quite a while now. Dropping nukes on Japanese cities full of civilians isn't exactly humane. Using napalm in Vietnam isn't exactly humane. Etc, etc.
As for the American freedom, I don't know where freedom of speech is going, and a lot of people have the same doubts. And once freedom of speech is compromised, rebellion becomes damn difficult.
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