I Can See More Clearly Now

I watched an interview with Michael Klare (The New Geopolitics of Energy) in which he was discussing the two different foreign policies which come out of the Bush White House...the Condoleeza Rice/State Department and the Neo-Cons led up by Dick Cheney...Dick Cheney's policies apparently encourage confrontation with the Russians (and global hegemony as in the PNAC statement of the late 90s)...so the Georgian president felt that he was told that we and NATO would have his back if he moved on South Ossetia...which is why he excoriated the west for not 'showing up'...meanwhile, Russia is pissed at the oil pipeline which is crossing Georgia and the proposed gas pipeline...all coming from former soviet states north of Iran...and possibly Iran herself... So...once again...it's all about oil/oilmen/money/power/greed...and innocents are caught in the crossfire...(an excuse for land grabs/ethnic cleansing or whatever you'd like to do as the army of the moment)... "While the day-to-day focus of US military planning remains Iraq and Afghanistan, American strategists are increasingly looking beyond these two conflicts to envision the global combat environment of the emerging period--and the world they see is one where the struggle over vital resources, rather than ideology or balance-of-power politics, dominates the martial landscape. Believing that the United States must reconfigure its doctrines and forces in order to prevail in such an environment, senior officials have taken steps to enhance strategic planning and combat capabilities. Although little of this has reached the public domain, there have been a number of key indicators... ... Russia, too, is being viewed through the lens of global resource competition. Although Russia, unlike the United States and China, does not need to import oil and natural gas to satisfy its domestic requirements, it seeks to dominate the transportation of energy, especially to Europe. This has alarmed senior White House officials, who resent restoration of Russia's great-power status and fear that its growing control over the distribution of oil and gas in Eurasia will undercut America's influence in the region. In response to the Russian energy drive, the Bush Administration is undertaking countermoves. "I do intend to appoint...a special energy coordinator who could especially spend time on the Central Asian and Caspian region," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in February. "It is a really important part of diplomacy." A key job of the coordinator, she suggested, would be to encourage the establishment of oil and gas pipelines that bypass Russia, thereby diminishing its control over the regional flow of energy..." The article (and book) go much deeper into global competition and arms build-ups to surrogates...China, Africa...increasing grabs and tension over oil and other depleting resources... So who's the bad guys and who's the good guys? I believe we as homesteaders (and individuals) can and will understand more and more that it is "control" which is the bad guy...and independence the good guy. To me, McCain isn't so frightening as McBush...as he is as McCheney... It ain't pretty. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080519/klare