Re: However, it is a fact that the material basis of American power is derived from oil. In fact, oil has been the cornerstone of industrial power throughout the world since the rise of Rockefeller.
Not really... Ironworks and coal mines were even more crucial to the industrial world than oil. Remember that the 1919 Versailles Treaty provided for the French to militarily occupy Germany's Ruhr, the industrial heartland of corporate Germany...
germanlife.com
Excerpt:
It is only 1,700 square miles in area, smaller than Delaware. But what a powerful little turf! It is Europe's largest single industrial region and the key to German economic prowess-the source of more than 8 percent of its gross domestic product and headquarters for 30 of the country's 100 biggest companies. This is where the dynasties of the Industrial Revolution-the Haniels, Krupps, Mannesmanns, Stinneses, and Thyssens-originated and built their empires. It is also Europe's densest conurbation: 5.6 million inhabitants and a dozen separate cities of 100,000 to 650,000 population so close to each other that you cannot tell when you leave one and enter the next.
Coal and steel were the sources of the region's wealth. For nearly 150 years collieries, blast furnaces, iron foundries, steel mills, and factories dotted its landscape. The Ruhr's rich deposits of anthracite provided the primary energy supply and resource that turned the wheels of German industry; the smelters and rolling mills produced the iron and steel with which German cars and machines made their mark around the world. The Ruhr's miners and steelworkers, with their blackened faces and sweat-glistening bodies, were heroes-knights of labor who drew the country's highest wages.
[...]
Re: To suggest that, now, while the US is manifestly involved in a war of imperialism in the country with the second largest oil reserves in the world, that it is not about, or partially about, oil is, in my opinion, bordering on the ludicrous.
If so, the US campaigns in Kosovo and Afghanistan were military follies bordering on the ludicrous? But then, you'll retort that Afghanistan borders the Caspian oil fields while Kosovo is projected to be the oil terminal of a Caucasus/Black Sea/Bulgaria/Serbia/Kosovo pipeline (pipe dream?)....
Re: For some reason, however, you persistently refuse to accept that the traditional US foreign policy is likewise busy in the Mid East, not merely to enable Sharon's West Bank land grabbing to succeed, but to promote the US' own interests in the region.
Well, before promoting "US interests" abroad, in the remote deserts of Central Asia and the Mideast, the US must care about its interests AT HOME, mustn't it? Now, it's more and more obvious that the US is currently torn apart by a form of cultural civil war --religious conservatives vs liberals. In that perspective, the Judeo-Protestant ideology is part and parcel of the US's domestic interests, and a key tenet of Judeo-Protestantism is Israel (cf my current read [*]).
Of course, my opinion is somewhat counter-intuitive because when talking about "US interests" we usually mean rational interests --not religious or ideological fantasies. Then again, as I told you in previous posts (**), the US theocracy is no less fanatic than Hezbollah and other Islamic militants.
Somehow, I'd say that to claim that US crusaders have stormed Iraq just to grab the oil is as ludicrous as to pretend that Islamic terrorists' hidden agenda is to take over Microsoft and all the US companies that make up the S&P 500! No, Islamic terrorists don't want to destroy America --they just want to have a share of it! The Taliban want to have a seat on the board of every Fortune500 corporation! They want to control the Fed too --and kick Greenspan out! Do you know what's Bin Laden's wildest, fondest dream?? I'll tell you: to get a CBOT license and become a US Treasury Market Maker!
Okay, Okay! I'm stretching it... Your Commander-in-Chief told you: "the terrorists hate Americans because of what/who they are", that is, Muslim terrorists are but a bunch of wild-eyed, bloodthirsty freaks --not rational people. Well, I don't buy that --and I believe the opposite is true: American Judeo-Protestants wage war on Muslims not because of oil or greed but because of what/who they are --namely, a geopolitical challenge to Judeo-Protestantism.
Gus
[*] discerningreader.com
(**) Message 20124234 |
