For decades,
and largely without the knowledge of the American people, the powerful, elite
ruling class in this country from both political parties has approached foreign
and some domestic policy with the philosophy that the ends justify the means.
And, in the
short term, this policy can make sense when looked at with the cold hard logic
of expediency. But the problem is not the short term – it is the long term. And
it is the long term which is now coming due.
Once again,
oil is one of the easiest examples to make as our oil policy is largely in the
public record. When you look back at our history with oil, specifically in the Middle
East, it is easy to see that we have chosen the steady supply over every other
consideration, especially the moral ones.
We did not,
and still do not care who we do business with, as long as the business is
steady. After all, the security of the nation is at stake. And, of course,
trillions of dollars in profit for American business and whoever holds the
property rights to the oil fields.
On the
surface, it seems like a reasonable payoff. The problem is, the ends that you
are getting to are rarely the ones seen by the military and political planners
of America.
The ends to
them were a fairly short term goal – ensure the supply of oil after WWII, and
do whatever was necessary to accomplish that. Allow the oil companies to act as
a monopoly and let them squash any competition. Make the military an active
partner, but more than that arm and support the people who will ensure that
unending stream of black gold.
Unfortunately,
the end they saw as a short term goal has now had long term consequences,
consequences which neither party feels compelled to tell the American public
about, or the depth of the crises which we are on the verge of suffering.
Modern
Islamic terrorism is a response to the situation which the ‘civilized’
countries have put the oil bearing countries. We do not have a good history in
this regards. We overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in the
1950’s, we supported Egypt and Saudi Arabia as they continued with some of the
worst human rights records in the earth, we supported Saddam as he was gassing
his own people, and did not object until he attacked another oil bearing
country.
Now, I am
not a conspiracy buff, and I don’t think there is any grand conspiracy where
our energy policies are concerned.
But there is
no doubt now that those policies do have alternatives – there is no doubt as
well that they have consequences. The Israel situation is not directly related
to oil, but the bulk of the terrorist threat to the Western Nations comes from,
and is financed by countries that supply oil, be it to the Western or Eastern
bloc (America and Europe or Russia and China).
So what have
our leaders done to educate us on this? Well, they’ve mentioned raising the CAFÉ
standards once or twice. Ask yourself the right questions, and then wonder why
the people with access are not asking those questions. Well, I’ll tell you one
reason – they can all afford gasoline.
It’s going
to get to a point where the rest of us can’t.
