For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Watching the news from out of the Middle East, you might be wondering what's going on and why -- and, mostly, when's it going to stop. The simple answer is: it isn't. The world is now in the first stages of a multistep "end game" for global domination by the last remaining superpowers.
The "energy wars" have begun in earnest and will keep on going, from here onwards. These are the times that backward, politically unimportant weak little countries such as South Africa should shut up and keep their heads down if they want to remain untouched during the coming covert and overt conflicts.
We have to begin somewhere, so I'm choosing to start with two published "blueprints" that both lay out exactly what the United States would have to do, and is doing, in order to survive through the coming century. (And don't worry, there are lots of downloadable goodies to sweeten the medicine.)
You might want to grab Michel Chossudovsky: America's "War on Terrorism" -- a presentation to the Perdana Global Peace Forum (2005) in Malaysia (36-meg download) -- here.
Putting it simply, the two plans argue for never-ending global domination by the US -- which also requires taking firm military control of a sizeable quantity of the last remaining oil reserves on Earth and keeping control of them...
This article contains just about all of my perspective on Peak Oil - or it links to other articles that flesh out the position.
These precepts began to emerge nearly 5 years ago and have been developing steadily ever since. The alternate theory of US foreign policy, national security and energy strategy seems to be - "D'Oh!" _________________ "May you live in interesting times"
Joined: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 1677 Location: Republic of Texas
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 10:29 am Post subject: Re: Energy Wars: Beneath Iraq and a hard place
Ian Frasier wrote:
Quote:
It's a good wake-up call to realise that the name "al-Qaeda" (which means "the database") comes from the CIA's own descriptive term for their files on the fighters they were training and arming in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation.
It is my understanding that "Al-Qaeda" translates to "The Base" as in military base, base of operations, "fort".
How could a journalist get such a simple fact so fundamentally wrong?
Anyone here speak Arabic? _________________ Conform . Consume . Obey .
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 10:50 am Post subject: Re: Energy Wars: Beneath Iraq and a hard place
Yeeeeeaaaaahhhh. I'm useful for once. Al-Qa'ida (stop between the a and i) translates as foundation, groundwork, basis, fundament, base, support, base, socle, foot, pedestal, chasis, undercarriage, precept, rule, principle, maxim, formula, method, manner, mode, model, pattern
Nothing about 'database'. But you conspiracy theorists should remember that 'al-qa'ida' isn't really the name. It's just what's popular in the West. Real name is something like the Coalition to Fight the Crusaders and Zionists. I believe bin Laden said that Afghanistan would be their 'base' from so on til so on. Stuck with the government and media.
Definition was taken from Hans-Wehr Arabic to English Dictionary. They give more definitions, but those are with adjectives and complex nouns. Still nothing about 'database' though.
Joined: Jan 07, 2005 Posts: 139 Location: Mpls, MN, USA
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 11:03 am Post subject: Re: Energy Wars: Beneath Iraq and a hard place
Three things will shape our lives almost exclusively over the next twenty or thirty years.
Resource depletion, resource war, and global climate change.
The USA consistently exacerbates global climate change. The implications of this are stunning, to say the least. Global climate change is likely to be the most powerful problem we face, and the matter we most need to address by far.
The USA addresses resource depletion by using more resources more quickly. This is another problem we seem to be addressing by making things worse rather than better.
The USA is clearly, overtly engaged in a war of aggression oriented toward resource domination. This approach is described by Heinberg in "Powerdown" as "the last man standing" approach to the problem of resource depletion. The message "you are with us or against us" amounts to putting the world on notice that we will destroy anyone who is not compliant.
As resource depletion and the impacts of global climate change become more extreme, it will be more difficult to be compliant with the USA, which will demand more sacrifices from more people. This will in turn intensify the resource war as it becomes apparent to more people that they are pawns who will be sacrificed in turn as conditions worsen.
The US policy amounts to a game of "wreck it and run" with no where to run in the end. The policy also assumes the ability to successfully mount a propaganda campaign which manipulates people into thinking that the war is about some other noble cause than "Kill Off."
This approach taken by the USA is the weakest, most destructive approach possible. We have evolved into creatures who can only survive this crisis through careful cooperation rather than through competition to the death. In addition, the weapons and tactics used in the resource war ensure environmental devastation which will make survival even more difficult as the war proogresses. The resource war will demand resources which could be directed toward cooperative development of technologies and approaches to mitigate the negative impacts of resource depletion and global climate change.
Reversion to the "last man standing" approach to survival is the worst approach we can take at this time. My guess is that those who survive will be those who develop an agile approach, responsive to the challenges presented by an increasingly volatile and violent world. Meanwhile, those who live by violence will die by violence.
Things are likely to be messy and downright unpleasant at times. _________________ pedaling for peace and ecojustice -- Gary
Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject: Re: Energy Wars: Beneath Iraq and a hard place
Gary wrote:
The USA is clearly, overtly engaged in a war of aggression oriented toward resource domination. This approach is described by Heinberg in "Powerdown" as "the last man standing" approach to the problem of resource depletion. The message "you are with us or against us" amounts to putting the world on notice that we will destroy anyone who is not compliant.
...
Reversion to the "last man standing" approach to survival is the worst approach we can take at this time. My guess is that those who survive will be those who develop an agile approach, responsive to the challenges presented by an increasingly volatile and violent world. Meanwhile, those who live by violence will die by violence.
The following video talks about this subject as it relates to oil geopolitics.
Joined: Dec 02, 2005 Posts: 6284 Location: Oil-addicted Southern Californucopia
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:06 am Post subject: Re: Energy Wars: Beneath Iraq and a hard place
Yeah, but at least things are winding down and becoming peaceful and tranquil in Iraq. I'm sure we'll be able to pull all our guys out of there in just a few more weeks:
Joined: Apr 07, 2005 Posts: 225 Location: West of Chicago
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 5:56 pm Post subject: Re: Energy Wars: Beneath Iraq and a hard place
My two cents:
I think that if the goals of the PNAC et. al are going to be met and furthered, there is an awful lot of work that needs to be done in the next two years. I think the American Public are starting to get fed up with the government and there may be a house cleaning in the next election.
What if someone campaigns for president on the platform they will get us out of the wars we are fighting like Nixon did? It's not that far afield.
There aren't any Republican candidates that strike me as those that would uphold the resource wars.
Then again, I'm not very politically charged (other than being a libertarian).
My point: our involvement in the ME could take a radical change as early as the next presidential election.
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 7:18 pm Post subject: Re: Energy Wars: Beneath Iraq and a hard place
canis_lupus - I think America has almost reached a point of no return towards a police state. The PNACians had great influence over Clinton from what I understand and the US being basically a 2 party nation, neither looks much better than the other. A complete house cleaning and reduction in government (libertarian) is not too likely, the deck is stacked against it happening.
One more terrorist act on American soil - and that will be all she wrote IMO. The sad part is the new police state will be dressed up by the media as necessary new security measures when in fact it will be a desperate grab for control over oil reserves without silly American voters getting in the way. Most will support it and FEMA already has a plan for those pesky dissenters
If there is an election in 2008, putting a vote into a diebold machine may make you feel better but will unlikey change the way things have been going for a long time
There is less clean water, less sewage control, less gas, less petrol, less power. Baghdad now has an average of only 5.8 hours of electricity a day. At present Iraq is producing 1.8 million barrels of oil a day; just before the invasion the figure was 2.5 million barrels a day.
_________________ "Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
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