The following facts are necessary to understand, as they play an integral part of the following essay.

FACT: Oil is the world’s largest source of convertible energy at the present time.
FACT: Most of the world’s known oil sources lie beneath the sands of the Middle East, specifically in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, in Russia, and in Venezuela.
FACT: Most of the oil in the world is used by the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
FACT: Current U.S. debt is around $8.5 Trillion.
FACT: Japan holds $440 Billion of that debt. China holds $122 Billion. China also holds $361 Billion in foreign currency reserves, much in U.S. dollars.
FACT: The U.S. and Russia have the largest operational nuclear stockpiles with 8,000 warheads and 8,600 warheads respectively. China has around 400 operational nuclear warheads.
FACT: Other nuclear nations include Britain, France, India, Pakistan, probably Israel, and recently, North Korea. No other nations are known to possess operational nuclear warheads, though Iran is making great efforts to produce some.
FACT: China is the most populous nation on Earth. As it continues to modernize itself, it’s need for resources and goods will result in a shifting of global resource allocation causing either greater cooperation between nations or giving rise to great enmity.
FACT: China’s major trading partners include Japan, Russia, and the United States.
FACT: Iran is governed by fundamentalist Islamic religious leaders who vilify the western world and Israel. Their interpretation of their religious texts drives their ideology towards conflict with those whom they describe as infidels.
FACT: Iran’s major trading partners include China, Japan, and Russia.
FACT: George W. Bush comes from a wealthy oil family. He has numerous ties to the oil industry, the Middle East and specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Prior to entering politics and government, George W. Bush was a failed businessman, losing money in Texas oil over 10 years. George W. Bush is a fundamentalist Christian who has said that God chose him for the job of president. Among fundamentalist beliefs is the ‘end times’ scenario, a time of great upheaval, war, natural disaster and various maladies upon Earth and the human race.

When I was a young boy, growing up in eastern Washington State, I became aware of nuclear weapons. I read all about the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II and the resulting devastation that they caused. I learned that in the years following WWII, the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia) engaged in a tremendous build-up of nuclear arms, each pointed at the others country. Many U.S. nukes were located on the Soviet doorstep, so to speak, in Western Europe and the Soviet attempt to place nuclear missiles close to America resulted in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which had the potential to escalate into a full-scale nuclear war. As history tells us, war was narrowly averted, but the arms race continued unabated through the 1970’s and 1980’s culminating in over 100,000 nuclear weapons between the two nations. With the flick of a switch, the annihilation of the human race was a distinct possibility, and tension between the two nations was high. In the early 1980’s, I lived near one of our major SAC bases where nuclear-armed B-52’s were housed. My town was listed as a primary target for Soviet nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear war. When I allowed myself to think of the possibilities, I was very much afraid.

But then the Cold War came to a screeching end with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, largely because they had spent themselves into bankruptcy trying to amass the largest nuclear arsenal. Arms reduction treaties between the U.S. and what was once again known as Russia helped decrease the likelihood of nuclear holocaust. Fears of being evaporated faded, not just for me, but for most of the world. It seemed that we had moved on, as a species, away from nuclear Armageddon. Conventional wisdom held that the United States, although the only nation to use a nuclear weapon in war, would never again use a nuclear device against another country unless first attacked by nuclear weapons itself. No U.S. President ever credibly considered nuclear warfare as a viable option, instead understanding that the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was lose-lose for everyone, including the U.S.

The last decade of the 20th century seemed to be a turning point in the nuclear gambit, as the world turned away from Cold War nuclear ambitions and turned towards creating a global economy. Advances in communications helped launch an era where national boundaries were more blurred, especially in relation to economic growth and the pursuit by corporations to extract every ounce of profit from every corner of the globe. Fueled in large part by American multi-national corporations, the control and acquisition of energy, specifically oil, became the bedrock foundation of national goals as modernization spread across the globe. Where once countries vied for political advantage, they now compete more heavily for resources and access to resources.

Enter the presidency of George W. Bush, a man who has adopted a doctrine of preemptive war and embraced the goals of multi-national corporations as his own. A man who avows a religious worldview that includes an eventual Armageddon in which only ‘true believers’ will be rewarded. A man who has recently renewed the possibility of nuclear war with a newly updated nuclear doctrine that departs from the conventional wisdom of our predecessors, stating that the U.S. objective is now “to ensure the most efficient use of force and provide US leaders with a broader range of [nuclear and conventional] strike options to address immediate contingencies. Integration of conventional and nuclear forces is therefore crucial to the success of any comprehensive strategy. This integration will ensure optimal targeting, minimal collateral damage, and reduce the probability of escalation.” (Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations p. JP 3-12-13). As a corporatist, George W. Bush views the accumulation of wealth as a prime goal, and any means that achieves that end is considered a victory. George W. Bush is also an evangelical Christian who views the end of this world and the second coming of Christ as the ultimate goal to be eagerly anticipated. Is it time to be afraid again?

On September 11, 2001, America sustained a horrific attack that has been attributed to the fundamentalist Islamic group al-Qaeda. As rationale for this attack, al-Qaeda alternately uses their interpretation of the Quran’s dictum to attack all infidels and their underlying hatred of American governmental intrusion to the politics of the Middle East in general. In retaliation, and under the guise of defeating Islamic terrorism, the U.S. attacked Afghanistan, the host country of al-Qaeda. Much of the world supported this action by America. But then, George W. Bush turned his sights on Iraq. And now he is aiming at Iran.

Put together some of the facts that preceded this essay and see how those pieces fit together to form a very bleak picture of where things may be headed if this president continues along the present path.

Here’s one possible outcome that I can derive: Eventual war between the United States and China, and possibly Russia too, with the Middle East being the initial stomping grounds. If the U.S goes into Iran, China will have to respond because this would be a serious threat to her own ambitions. China will
likely begin with economic warfare, calling in much of their U.S. debt holdings. This will result is economic turmoil across the globe, either because the dollar will fall to disastrous levels or because the U.S. will refuse to pay and will instead ratchet up their war efforts in Iran, possibly using nuclear weapons in the process, in an effort to control more oil in the region. (We already have some marginal control over Iraq’s oil, in that U.S. troops and corporations are operating in Iraq much like early American settlers conducted themselves in the Western regions of America during the 1800’s.) U.S. control of the oil will be used against China in retaliation for calling in U.S. debt, forcing China to engage in active warfare against U.S troops to reclaim access to the oil. With the introduction of nuclear weapons by the U.S., several nations will side with China to rein in American aggression and irresponsibility.

The net result of this scenario could well be the destruction of much of this planet through nuclear warfare, giving the ‘end times’ scenario a chance to play out. In this scenario, anyone not part of the fundamentalist Christian religion loses out, because according to their doctrine, anyone not part of their group is damned to hell. Whether that hell is literal or not becomes irrelevant as the actions of Bush’s warmongering will make this planet much like depictions of hell anyhow.

Of course, all of this is simply supposition on my part, but with the trend of current events, it is hard to see where else the foreign policy aims of this administration will lead us. Is this outcome unavoidable? I would like to think it is, but with the current make-up of the U.S. government, acting largely as a rubber stamp to Bush, it is unlikely that they will stop Bush’s plans for control of the oil of the Middle East. For Bush, who really cares mostly about himself and his group of corporate benefactors, either situation is win-win. If he attacks Iran and no one stops him, he gets more oil, thus more money and economic leverage- a win in Bush’s book. If his war turns out to be a disaster and leads to nuclear warfare and widespread destruction, he’s just created the conditions for Jesus to return, according to his evangelical beliefs- a win in Bush’s other book.

But for most of the world, both scenarios are losers. We are indeed at another crossroads in world and American history. As George W. Bush says, “One of our making at a time of our choosing.” The problem is, Bush is choosing these paths and making these realities, not based on widespread support of the American people, not based on sound economic, scientific, military or foreign relations principals, but instead on his own desire to see his warped worldview come to fruition- a worldview that says he who dies with the most money and power gets to sit on Jesus’ lap for eternity.

The only chance of avoiding these scenarios is a serious cleaning of house in the U.S. Congress, the administration and it’s ministers, in favor of people who will turn towards a new course for America, followed by a revamped foreign policy that embraces cooperation, energy exploration, reparations for past U.S. aggression, and a greatly changed attitude and expectation of the future. I hope it won’t come too late.

Of course, I could be totally wrong about all of this. I hope I am. But using the facts presented at the beginning of this post, can you offer another possible outcome? Remember too that no one likes a bully, and at the very least, the actions of George W. Bush give the United States of America a big reputation as the world’s bully. As I recall, most playground bullies eventually get their comeuppance. Ours is coming too, if we don’t seriously change the path we are on.

[All the information presented as FACT at the beginning of this essay were found from various publications and websites using google search words. If you don’t believe them, look them up for yourself. I don’t intend to debate the facts, but I will debate their interpretation.]