Return to Nicholas Johnson's Main Web Site www.nicholasjohnson.org

Return to Nicholas Johnson's Coralville Rain Forest Web Site
 

U.S. Presence in Mideast Fueled by Need for Oil

Kevin Woods

The Gazette

June 8, 2005

"A society that watches in amazement as cars race in circles and builds rain forests in this latitude is not seriously ready to rethink its energy use."
[Note: This material is copyright by The Gazette, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of The Gazette.]


    No doubt it is beneficial that Iraq develop into a democracy, perhaps acting as a catalyst in a part of the world well known for repressive regimes. And the world will be a better place if Saddam Hussein is soon in hell, playing cards with Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao. But the primary reason for the huge U.S. presence in the Middle East is to ensure the stability of the industrial world’s lifeblood: oil.

    Western life is underwritten by cheap oil whose delivery is guaranteed by the U.S. Navy, whose production is guaranteed by the technological expertise of western oil companies and a ring of U.S. military bases. If the war is only about deposing dictators and stopping genocide, then why the West’s deafening silence over the slaughter in oil-poor Rwanda, Congo, Zimbabwe and Darfur?

    The world is facing an oil supply problem, something oil geologists have predicted for years.

    The planet has been thoroughly pin-cushioned and seismically mapped. There simply is not adequate supply, especially with an energy-hungry China and India in ascendance.

    Protests notwithstanding, we will drill in Alaska and squeeze Canadian tar sands for all they are worth. Nuclear power is about to be raised from the dead, and windmills will be in vogue once more. Evidenced by our idiotic raising of speed limits, love affair with suburban living and petroleum-intensive agriculture, it is doubtful we will willingly give up ‘‘our way of life.’’

    A society that watches in amazement as cars race in circles and builds rain forests in this latitude is not seriously ready to rethink its energy use. So, unless you are part of the ‘‘Amish for Peace’’ movement, calls to get out of the Middle East ring rather hollow, given the bipartisan oil piggery in which we all engage.

    Kevin Woods

    Mount Vernon