Heidegger

So Anthony,

we have then the proposition that:

US gasoline prices are most certainly not the lowest ever… therefore oil supply was so obviously the motivation in Iraq.

I’m guessing here that you’re attempting to be ironic but taking your admission at face value then … yes! Finally we can agree on something. It is quite clear to me too that the current run up in oil prices is bringing about a geopolitical shift of historic proportions, as it’s now over half a decade since the lows of 1999 when crude oil was around $US10/barrel but accelerating since mid 2004 when it went from $35 to $40 and beyond. Crude has doubled in price over just the last 30 months. Here in Aus we are in the midst of a global commodities boom not seen since the late 1800’s gold rushes with the Chinese buying up every mineral resource they can lay hands on along with the energy resources needed to give form to their growing industrial base and middle classes. Same goes for the Indians, and between them they have almost a third of the world’s population, their burgeoning middle classes will come to dwarf the North American and European bourgeoisie, that is if they can lay their hands on ‘our’ energy supplies.

Oil markets are tightening, OPEC is pumping full tilt, the Iraq war has locked in at least a couple million barrels a day and yet the economies of China and India are still growing fast, and as any modernising industrial economy grows so too does its need for energy to feed that growth. And so too does the critical national necessity of attaining and maintaining security of that growing energy supply.

Dick Cheney saw this energy supply crisis coming in 1999 in a London speech he gave while still Chair of Halliburton.

www.peakoil.net/Publications/Cheney_PeakOil_FCD.pdf

“by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer greet oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow”.

As we enter the peak oil plateau that 50 mil bpd is looking increasingly difficult and as Cheney also said “The end of the oil era is not here yet, but changes are afoot and the industry must be ready to adapt to the new century and to the transformations that lie ahead.”

The magnitude of this problem is truly global, our entire modern hydrocarbon based industrial world civilization and in particular the continuation of US military and economic hegemony is in the balance. This for me is the fundamental political problem underlying the Iraqi WMD circus which has simply been regurgitated for the current Iranian nuclear WMD circus - any threat to the security of any modern nation’s energy supply is a direct threat to its economic and therefore national security, and most especially where that concerns the ongoing dominance of the great powers.

Cheney goes on to say that “Oil is unique in that it is so strategic in nature. We are not talking about soapflakes or leisurewear here. Energy is truly fundamental to the world’s economy. The Gulf War was a reflection of that reality.”

As US gasoline prices continue their seemingly inevitable rise, and they are still very cheap at the moment, the underlying motivation of energy security will continue to be most obviously the motivation behind the current opening campaigns of what could turn out to be the greatest war for Lebensraum in human history. A war that, quoting Cheney again, “will not end in our lifetimes” and which if the Neoconservative Pax Americana is to be successful will have to not only secure the Persian Gulf but also eventually deal with the Chinese one way or another.

Like the question of Israeli war crimes in their war for self-determination I’m not concerned with the moral problem here but rather the relations of power that animate leaders like Cheney and grant them the potential to follow through on what is nothing other than a problem of energy logistics and national survival, a problem of Lebensraum.

Cheers,

Malcolm

***************************
Dr Malcolm Riddoch
Electronic Arts
School of Communications and Contemporary Arts
Faculty of Communications and Creative Industries
Edith Cowan University, 2 Bradford St, Mount Lawley
Perth Western Australia
+61 08 9370 6034

Posted on Thursday, June 1st, 2006 at 1:45 pm
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Tags: Cheney» iraq war» peakoil» power»