Pepe Escobar nails Palin! Excellent article.

[Emillereid]

THE ROVING EYE
All square
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JI06Ak02.html
ST PAUL - An energy explosion - literally.

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The first third of her speech was a cross between Opportunity Knocks and A Simple Life - rural, frontier, idyllic life; but then the pitbull bared her teeth and dilacerated everything in sight, from the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket to the "elitist" mainstream media (booed in unison by the audience).

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Even after her no-holds-barred speech to the convention, preceding McCain's big night, Palin remains with no national experience and no international experience - although John and Cindy McCain as well as President George W Bush's wife Laura Bush swear she's got it. After all, they argue, Alaska borders Canada and Russia. McCain actually said this week, "Alaska is right next to Russia. She understands that. Senator Obama's never visited south of the border."


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And this, finally, is the essence of Palin foreign policy - as redacted to her by McCain's battery of speechwriters holed up at the Hilton in Minneapolis, and delivered deer-caught-in-the-headlights style: "With Russia wanting to control a vital pipeline in the Caucasus and to divide and intimidate our European allies by using energy as a weapon, we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers. To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of the world's energy supplies ... or that Venezuela might shut off its oil discoveries and its deliveries of that source."

The notions that Russia wants to control the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, owned by BP; that Iran is seeking war in the Persian Gulf; and that Hugo Chavez does not want to sell his "oil discoveries" are ludicrous beyond belief. Anyway, they all fit the neo-con worldview.

more at link



Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. He may be reached at [e-mail].