Oil vs Peace
I’ve written before that the reason we invaded Iraq and will likely do the same to Iran is oil:
The real reason for the war was that Iraq under Saddam was too unstable to trust with the stewardship of America’s lifeblood. The continuing reason for the war is that we need to create some sort of stable government — democracy, dictatorship, monarchy, whatever — so that Dick Cheney’s “prize” will continue flowing into our gas tanks at less than $3 a gallon.
James Kuntsler takes this point further, making the case that arguing to bring the troops home is disengeuous unless we also argue for a total transformation of America’s car-based suburban culture:
We’re involved in Iraq because we don’t want to begin thinking about modifying our behavior at home. We are desperate to preserve our access to Middle East oil because that is the only way we can keep running our society the way we’re used to running it. Mostly, we don’t want to face the tragic misinvestments we’ve made in the infrastructure of happy motoring, and we don’t want to face the inconvenient truth that there really isn’t any combination of alt.fuels that will permit us to keep running all the cars the way we like to run them. Either we keep getting the oil or say goodbye to the American Dream Version 2.K.
But few Americans, and no electable politicians, are willing to discuss much less implement an end to car-based culture.
What cracks me up is their juvenile belief that being there is somehow optional for us, that we can keep on running Wal Mart and Walt Disney World without paying any price for it in the costs of policing the Middle East.
Does this mean we stop working for peace? No, but it underscores the fact that our problem is multi-dimensional:
I’d like to hear talk about drastically reforming our zoning laws to discourage any more suburban development or a pitch to allow some of our tax money to fund a US passenger rail revival. I’d like to see a candidate refuse to attend a Nascar race on the grounds that it’s an unconscionably stupid fucking waste of energy resources. I’m waiting for one of these birds to tell the American people the truth: you can’t have it both ways. you can’t get our military out of the Middle East without changing the way we live.