Warning: Sentiment Grows in Oil-Hungry U.S. for Extended Middle East Presence

[babylonsister]

Warning: Sentiment Grows in Oil-Hungry U.S. for Extended Middle East Presence
by Sherwood Ross | Oct 31 2007


Sentiment is growing in both political parties for extending the U.S. military presence in Iraq in order "to ensure the safe flow of petroleum," according to the Nov. 12th issue of The Nation magazine.

Not only is President Bush protracting U.S. engagement in Iraq but the two leading Democratic contenders for his job, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, seek to keep a U.S. military presence in the region.

Clinton told The New York Times Iraq is "right in the heart of the oil region" and thus "it is directly in opposition to our interests" for it to become a pawn of Iran or failed state. Obama has also spoken of the need to maintain a robust US military presence in Iraq and the surrounding area, writes Michael Klare, the magazine's defense correspondent and professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College.

Senior officials in both parties, he notes, "are calling for a reinvigorated U.S. military role in the protection of foreign energy deliveries."

Klare writes no dramatic change in U.S. policy in the Gulf region should be expected from the next administration, whether Republican or Democratic. "If anything," he says, "we should expect an increase in the use of military force to protect the overseas flow of oil, as the threat level rises along with the need for new investment to avert even further reductions in global supplies."

The likelihood of a continuing U.S. presence in the Middle East is framed against a backdrop of growing demand for oil. The global output of "liquids," the U.S. Energy Department says, using its new term for oil, is expected to rise from 84 million barrels of oil equivalent(mboe) per day in 2005 to about 117.6 mboe in 2030. And that's virtually the same as anticipated demand, Klare reports.

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http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10742

[lovuian]

1. its always been about Oil

they need it for their army

[Jade Fox]

2. What am I missing here?

Our "presence" in the Middle East for the last six years has done nothing but drive the price of oil up! :crazy:

Here's a crazy idea: Why don't we take all that money we're pouring into our Middle East "presence" and put it into developing alternative energy?

[The2ndWheel]

3. It depends on what you're looking for

If you want growth, we'll go to war over any alternative we come up with.

No alternative, outside of nuclear, is as ready made and concentrated as oil.

No alternative by itself will replace oil, other than nuclear. So it will take a complex infrastructure to harness all the alternatives, which will take quite a bit of energy.

Any form of energy we use will have its fair share of unintended consequences.

Physical reality will always push back.

If you're looking for a quick and easy fix to the problem of not only keeping current energy demands satisfied, but constantly increasing demands from more and more people satisfied, without altering or impacting the environment, habitat, and all living things on larger and larger scales, then you're missing something.

[eridani]

6. Why do you define growth in terms of more throughput of energy and raw materials?

I say that increasing our knowledge of how to get the same results with less of both counts as growth as well.

At any rate, we ought to take a tip from the Japanese, who are far more dependent on imports than we are. Less than enthusiastic about signing on to the first Oil War, a Japanese diplomat was asked why he wasn't scared of someone like Saddam Hussein controlling all that oil. The diplomat replied "We think that whoever owns the oil will quickly realize that they have no alternative but to sell it."

[The2ndWheel]

9. But we don't want the same results

"I say that increasing our knowledge of how to get the same results with less of both counts as growth as well."

We want more results. That's the whole point of increasing that knowledge. That's the whole point of economic efficiency. What's going to happen to the energy and materials that we save by getting better at using them? Are they just going to sit there? Are we not going to find some new way of using that energy? There are still billions of people on this planet not hooked up to the global socio-economic system. Not to mention the billions of people who are hooked into it, and want more. That system needs more people pumping energy into it to grow(by producing, consuming, paying taxes, doing anything), so whatever we end up saving in terms of energy and materials will still be used. They have to be in order to grow.

Speaking of Japan, aging populations are another new problem we'll have to deal with.

We're also not attacking Saudi Arabia, so we know how to play that game too. However, we do bomb countries as well. I guess that would technically be diversity in action.

[Syntheto]

7. Here, here!...

As I told my sons:

"Hey, if they figured out a way to engineer vehicles that run on sunflower seeds, within six months we'd have a carrier task force group off the coast of wherever they grew the most sunflowers, and the media would suddenly start reporting about serious human rights abuses of some obscure group or another that had been previously unknown, and suddenly there would be a great hue and cry about restoring democracy to..what? Patagonia?" Meanwhile, the other big energy users, China, Russia, etc, would be trying to aid whatever faction of the Patagonian population they thought would be able to ensure their side the smooth, uninterrupted flow of sunflower seeds.

As you pointed out, and some of us at work were musing over, nothing beats petroleum's literal bang for the buck. I mean, one single gallon of gasoline can move an Abrams tank at least a mile, maybe two. How many horses would it take? How many guys on ropes? "Damn, Janet! Do you have your fargin' foot on the brake?" What would a gallon of milk do? I mean, it's really amazing.

The only technology that seems to make sense is electricity-generating geothermal plants or the construction of monstrously large elevated reservoirs that could be used to produce hydroelectricity.

Both technologies would have to take place in the Western states, because of topography, geology, and relatively low populations.

The only place that geothermal energy could be usefully harnessed in the lower 48 states is Yellowstone. What are the chances of some gigantic facility being constructed in one of our national parks, even if it could power the entire West Coast? Not good, not now, anyway. That might change someday, even though it wouldn't be a government project, but built by the only people who have the resources: the energy companies. They will always be around, as long as we keep our system of government. On that note, you would probably agree that we would never be able to build a Three Gorges Hydroelectric Dam as the Chinese are doing, because our system of government wouldn't allow that.

Finally, unless every car, truck and semi in America was equipped with an electric drive motor, we're still going to be dependent of petrol. You might sell a few hybrid cars, but we're talking new vehicles. What about the 85 Buick Century out there, or the semis? Unless some sort of retrofit is developed, what happens to all the existing automobiles, 99.9% of which burn some sort of petroleum-derived fuel?


You hit it on the head with your post. The bottom line is that you truly don't get something for nothing. Sunlight is free. Developing and manufacturing the technology to use it and store it is not.

I will be very happy when some real, sober, realistic discussions start on this topic, instead of the usual simple mantra: "Oil companies are bad. We need to develop Alternative Energy."

Yeah? Okay, let's start by being realistic about the various alternatives and what's involved.

[rAVES]

4. Clinton and Obama = more of the same please!

I'm starting to think a lot of folks are not actually anti war, just anti Republican war, that is unacceptable.
The world is very soon going to bite back.

[eridani]

5. Clinton = Obama = Bush

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/103107F.shtml

Lately, even Democratic candidates for president have been weighing in on why the U.S. must maintain a long-term, powerful military presence in Iraq. Hillary Clinton, for example, used phrases like protecting our "vital national security interests" and preventing Iraq from becoming a "petri dish for insurgents," in a major policy statement. Barack Obama, in his most important speech on the subject, talked of "maintaining our influence" and allowing "our troops to strike directly at al Qaeda." These arguments, like the constantly migrating justifications for invading Iraq, serially articulated by the Bush administration, manage to be vaguely plausible (with an emphasis on the "vaguely") and also strangely inconsistent (with an emphasis on the "inconsistent").

That these justifications for invading, or remaining, are unsatisfying is hardly surprising, given the reluctance of American politicians to mention the approximately $10-$30 trillion of oil lurking just beneath the surface of the Iraq "debate" - and not much further beneath the surface of Iraqi soil. Obama, for example, did not mention oil at all in his speech, while Clinton mentioned it twice in passing. President Bush and his top officials and spokespeople have been just as reticent on the subject.

Why then did the U.S. invade Iraq? Why is occupying Iraq so "vital" to those "national security interests" of ours? None of this makes sense if you don't have the patience to drill a little beneath the surface ? and into the past; if you don't take into account that, as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz once put it, Iraq "floats on a sea of oil"; and if you don't consider the decades-long U.S. campaign to control, in some fashion, Middle East energy reservoirs. If not, then you can't understand the incredible tenaciousness with which George W. Bush and his top officials have pursued their Iraqi dreams or why - now that those dreams are clearly so many nightmares - even the Democrats can't give up the ghost.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

8. What is our oil doing under their sand?

And why won't they let us put wind power
in our skies?