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.]
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Bush, Economy, energy, Foreign Relations, Government, Iran, Military, national security, Politics, taxes, War, World News.
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April 12th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
A very interesting and plausible scenario, Ken, but I doubt if Congress and/or the American public would allow Bush to roll over Iran. We’re having a tough enough time in Iraq and I feel most citizens want out and cannot stomach another conflict. Would we allow our president to go nuclear or otherwise – to utilize his own WMD – when that was what he was trying to rid the area of to begin with? Or, at least, that was his excuse to go to war. He went after Saddam. If WMD were really on his mind back then, he would have thought twice about Iran instead and we certainly don’t have the manpower to stage a conventional war with that country now.
I’d be interested in knowing what the behind the scenes, not just the official, take is on Iran by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other “US friendly” Islamic nations.
We may have religious nuts in this country, but I don’t believe there’s even a small margin of them who want to meet their maker through an invitation by George W. Bush and I think he’s aware of that, too. At least, I hope.
April 13th, 2006 at 2:26 am
Recently I read that God speaks to President Bush, (http://arepublic.blogspot.com/2006/04/conversation-with-god.html)this frightens me.
God Bless America, God Save The Republic.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
The national debt is probably the most important and ignored issue facing the country today. 90% of that debt is held overseas and using questionable accounting practices the government has hid $2 trillion worth of our debt is the Scoial Security surplus, the actaul debt is closer to $10.5 trillion. This is an unsustainable pattern of spending and an issue that must be adressed by those in Washington immediatly. But, as long as voter will take tax breaks in exchange for the votes reckless spending will continue. http://payyourshare.blogspot.com/
April 20th, 2006 at 6:31 am
Hi Ken,
Have you seen the latest polls on the approval rating of the Senate and Congress.
About half of President Bush’s approval rating.
This is not a Dem or Rep thing, Americans are disgusted with their representatives, both Dem and Rep.
Hopefully you will learn from all the bad of today and work for a better tomorrow.
Will you be making decisions before or after checking the polls?
Catch you later.
April 20th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Hi there, like some of your stuff. I think you assumption that the US and China will eventually end up at war is wrong, but I agree with the fears you have. I think that WW3 will come with a micro act of nuclear terrorism. America invaded iraq and afghanistan after 9/11. Imagine what it’s blood thirsty population (present company excepted, of course) would want if someone nuked, say, Dallas?
Good luck with the blog and the campaign. I’m not anti-American, but you guys really know how to FXXK things up sometimes.
E.R.
April 21st, 2006 at 6:06 am
This might sound like a weird offshoot of this topic, but what do you think about the fact that Canada is our top petroleum supplier? They don’t have the most, but they’re our biggest source. Does it seem odd that we haven’t dug our claws more deeply into Canada? Or is their new conservative government evidence that it is already happening? Or do the Saudis have first dibs? I dunno…
April 21st, 2006 at 6:07 am
And hey, Mexico is second, but “conservatives” are alienating them with anti-Mexican sentiments… I dunno…
April 24th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
(responses)
To everyone- my apologies for the delay in responding.
Marinade Dave- I would like to agree with you, but then look at Iraq. Everyone rolled over on that one. I hope I am wrong, I really do. Current events lead me to be worried. Thanks for the comment.
David Schantz- Yes, scary indeed. And which ‘God’ speaks to Bush anyhow?
Young Activist- Indeed. And that is part and parcel of our current global problems. This administration has sold our country and its future to foreign nations like never before. If we don’t go down due to war it will be to economic collapse, unless current trends are quickly changed.
Thanks for dropping by.
Web Loafer- Good to hear from you again. Yes, I’ve seen the polls. They are part of the reason I’m running for Congress. It would seem that people not only want an alternative to the two party system, they are practicallyl begging for it. I hope to offer that option and see if the whining is for real.
As for making decisions based on polls, that all depends on what the decision is about. Some things necessarily must follow the will of the people, say like an overwhelming desire to keep Social Security, albeit with some necessasry revisions.
Others, like ensuring equality for all people regardless of race, sex, etc. is a constitutional given and not restricted by occassional uproar of the masses.
English Ranter- Thanks for dropping in. And granted, America’s government has made a mess of things lately. We aren’t all in lock step over here though, so don’t paint us all in the same brush. Sadly, our government gives us our international reputation these days, and I can’t blame other nationas for not really looking kindly on us these days.
Shea- yeah, I know all about our Canadian and Mexican fuel imports and that they surpass those from the Middle East. We still get a lot from the Middle East though, as does China, our current economic rival. And that is part of why I think Bush wants to conquer so badly those areas. Leverage, control and money. Simple and stupid.
May 3rd, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Well said Ken. Hear are my thoughts from up here in Canada. A war between the dragon and the eagle is unlikely. It would be against China’s interest to call-in U.S. securities. Asia has amassed a dearth of cash and they have to put it somewhere. The U.S. will remain the choice of destination for the foreseeable future. China has way too many internal problems – including an Islamic fundamentalist one – to engage the U.S. More importantly, they know India and the U.S. are allies now. Geo-politics are in America’s favor for now. I remain unconvinced of the religious power in the U.S. Yes, it does have some voting weight but to direct and guide U.S. policy? I point to Bush’s record which seems right in-line with the doctrines laid down by Jackson with a sprinkle of Wilsonian idealism – dare I say he’s doing nothing out of the ordinary? Canada is indeed rich in oil – getting to it is another matter. The Alberta sands is deep and rich but America is addicted to OPEC prices for now. Last, I see America as less a bully than a nation with an overflow of power that is bound to ruffle any country whatever they do. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t in a cynical world. It’s a tough gig being the leader of a nation with the high standards it has prescribed itself. My concern is how contemporary America is misinterpreting the Constitution. In fact, to me anyway, it follows what is happening here as Canada is dictated by the Charter. At this pace, criminals will be able to band as a lobby group. The Declaration of Independence is the single most poetically brilliant document ever penned. I wonder how its signatories would view the state of affairs. I can picture Jefferson saying “pack it up boys. Start over.” Great post.
May 9th, 2006 at 6:01 am
(response)
Commentator-Maybe it is unlikely, but not in the realm of impossible.
Which would hurt China more- the loss of US markets or the loss of easy fossil fuel? They can still find markets for their trinkets, especially if US policy makes us a pariah state of sorts.
As for China’s internal problems, I’ve seen no indications that would lead me to believe that they could not quell most revolts ala Tianneman Square. While there certainly is more prosperity in China, that does not equate to freedom, and their culture has milleniums old history of autocracy to break out of.
The religious zealot element in US politics is enjoying a crest right now, but the length of their ride is yet to be determined. They may well have over-played their hand a bit, but again, events may be created to assist their longevity.
Jackson’s push to the West, and Wilsons detente ( and then some) with the Western Hemisphere were different than Bush’s own doctrine of expansion in several ways, not least of those the fire power under his disposal.
Canadian oil…mostly in shale, right? Turns out that America’s ever prescient Congress passed some laws about oil company exploration costs or tax levies or something along that nature being tax free once oil passed $50 a barrel. (I’m a bit too lazy to get the exact details, but bottom line is it increases their bottom line.) Extraction of once costly fossil fuel is now profitable.
Sure we do ruffle feathers in the U.S. Partly because of our prosperity, partly because of how we achieved it. Yes, we are both envied and despised. It is a hard dichotomy to live with, but we’ve earned both reputations. BUt we are facing an extreme administration with access to horrible weaponry and less than stable or competant administrators. Troubling times my friend.
Jefferson may indeed be looking for a renewed rebirth of governing from his desk in Monticello.
Thanks for the comment.
May 11th, 2006 at 12:31 am
I honestly can’t decide which scares me more: The thought that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest are purely self-interested, playing to (and paying lip service to) their base in the Religious Right and elsewhere in order to maintain support, or the thought that Bush honestly believes that he’s doing God’s work on Earth and that God has led him to do all of this.
Because very little of what Bush has done fits in with what I learned of the Christian morality, growing up in the Presbyterian church. Which lends credence not to it actually BEING God’s will, but being a madman who hears voices and has convinced himself they are the words of God. Who knows what such a man might do, always convinced that he had the moral high ground, because after all, what could be more moral than obeying the direct and unambiguous word of God?
It’s far easier on my blood pressure, I think, to believe that Bush is either feigning his support for things Christian (as he does his “just plain folksiness”) or is truly the village idiot figurehead for the evil puppetmasters behind him than to believe he honestly and truly is in control and believes he’s being directed by God.
Lord help us all if it’s true.
Liam.