Chomsky Says President Obama Continues Bush Policy To Control Middle East Oil

[Truthway]

Political activist Noam Chomsky says that although President Obama views the Iraq invasion merely as “a mistake” or “strategic blunder,” it is, in fact, a “major crime” designed to enable America to control the Middle East oil reserves.

“It’s (“strategic blunder”) probably what the German general staff was telling Hitler after Stalingrad,” Chomsky quipped, referring to the big Nazi defeat by the Soviet army in 1943.


http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/12532/2009-11-04.html">http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/12532/2009-11-04.html

[iceman66]

1. The sad reality is,

that until we become energy independent, it is necessary to insure access to Middle East oil reserves.

The best thing Obama can due to change this fact is to increase government investment in alternative energy sources.

[indepat]

2. How many trillion dollars and much carnage and destruction are we willing to inflict to hopefully

assure access? :D

[iceman66]

3. That is a question for the President and Congress

The fact remains that we will never be able to completely disengage from these sorts of conflicts until the country is no longer dependent on foreign oil.

Do you realize that if the oil spigot from the middle east were turned off that our entire economy would collapse? That could very well happen given a significant escalation in the region, like an attack on Iran. This is how vulnerable the last 30 years of energy policy has left us.

We SHOULD have pursued alternative energy full-bore after the gas crisis in the '70's, but instead we got Reagan.

[kenny blankenship]

12. Yes! That is a question above our heads! FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

[arcadian]

27. Yeah, funny how in this "democracy" the People were never asked if they wanted to go to war for oil.

n/t

[timeforpeace]

33. Obama found out that it was never about oil, but keeping a lid on violent Islam by staying there.

[indepat]

35. It would seem a lid will never be kept on violet Islam as long as this radical ideology

being profusely funded. :D

[FiveGoodMen]

34. We also should have been serious about the CAFE standards

Instead of letting them slip and then exempting the worst offenders.

[napoleon_in_rags]

36. I think the problem is deeper than that.

I don't believe there IS a solution in alternative energy that will fix what ails us, barring a breakthrough in nuclear fusion reactors. Its not the energy itself that's the problem, we have all the energy we need for a good standard of living through renewables. The problem is that our economic system can't work with sustainable resource consumption. The 20th century saw the birth of a financial system based on plentiful energy, and endless resources increasingly exploited. The whole thing is centered on growth, and this is most directly manifest through the concept of credit and debt. Today, most of the wealth in the world is not backed by goods or services, but by the goods and services of future generations: Our children and grandchildren. Our debt to China comes to mind. This would be ethical if we assume increasing growth, if we assume this debt is a pittance of what will be available to future generations. But if its not, the whole thing comes crashing down - and I mean the WHOLE thing.

So that's the problem. Moving to a sustainable economy takes a really deep restructuring of pretty much everything, a tectonic shift in how everything is done. Renewables alone won't support the current system, thus the support for developing them isn't there in the current system.

[Subdivisions]

16. Enough so that we don't have to go back to the 1800s. Which will

happen eventually anyways whether we want to go back there or not.

Anyone who's studied crude oil dynamics want to debate this with me please feel free to do so.

[iceman66]

18. Crude oil is 1800's technology

which we continue to use because it makes a small number of people an enormous amount of money, and yes it will eventually run out.

The best thing Obama could do for this country, both short and long term, would be to invest in alternative energy.

[Subdivisions]

21. Crude oil production is currently sliding 5% YOY since 2005. It will tip

to a decline of 6.5% sometime betweeen 2012 and 2014. All one needs to do to know the situation we're in is do the math based on that decline scenario. We don't have alot of time left.

And, think about this: How long will it take before us proles no longer can afford fossil fuel energy? How long before oil is simply no longer available to anyone other than government services, police and security orgs, and the military?

We're in for some hard, HARD times. I contend that nearly everything we're seeing geo-politically and economically is because of declining oil production. The Wall Street/K Street/Congress criminal alliance is a sideshow occurence which is merely exaserbating the underlying issue of energy decline.

[iceman66]

23. This just underscores why we need to invest in alternative energy

We should be building a lot more wind farms, and putting a lot of money into R&D of new technologies. Even things like coal and natural gas are preferable to oil as a stop gap measure because we have abundant domestic supplies.

[kenny blankenship]

11. We don't even get our oil from the Middle East. Reading this place just gives me a headache

The invasion of Iraq was a crime of historic proportions, not just self-inflicted disaster of "strategery".
DU: We HAD TO invade Iraq to assure access to Middle East oil! We will kill however many we must kill and we will occupy for however long we must stay. WAR IS PEACE.

We don't even import oil from the Middle East, our suppliers are ourselves, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria.
DU: We must have access to oil we don't use! IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.


This place is degenerating into a bund of good followers who would justify mass murder for resource wars.

[iceman66]

13. You're wrong about that.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm

Even IF what you said was true, as long as the US has to buy oil on the global market, the price we have to pay depends largely on the situation in the Middle East.

[kenny blankenship]

17. We can get all the oil we need from non ME Suppliers FACT.

Another fact: the destabilizing influence on the Middle East which has caused speculative runs in the global price of oil IS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, its invasions of Iraq, its threats to invade Iran and its general destabilization of the region.

Time for good followers to goosestep off into the sunset.

[iceman66]

19. Of course the destabilizing influence is the US,

and Bush made the situation a lot worse by invading Iraq, but things are not going to magically re-stabilize themselves if Obama pulls all the troops out.

We could NOT get all the oil we need from non-ME suppliers if we have to bid against China, India, etc. due to a major supply disruption, not at prices that would not themselves cripple the economy.

Do you have any quarrel with my basic premise, that the US needs to become energy independent, or are you just going to make more stupid cracks about goosestepping?

[Subdivisions]

25. You said: 'We don't even import oil from the Middle East'. Yet, when

you are shown otherwise, you opt to ignore the FACT that we get A LOT of our oil from the Middle East. Why is that?

Tell me, why don't we supply ALL of our own oil needs?

[bullwinkle428]

15. Maybe I'm weak at math, but 21% seems significantly more than "none".

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/summary2007.html

[harun]

31. You say "assure access", this is WRONG. If you did your homework

and listened to the Chomky's of the world you would know it is NOT about access. It is about CONTROL.

Anyone can access oil through the various markets of the world. Control is different.

[Subdivisions]

14. Why are we dependent on Middle East oil?

[salguine]

22. The sadder reality is, all the money and lives being wasted stealing Iraq's oil would

have, and could have, been much better spent on clean, renewable domestic energy here at home, with an astronomically better rate of return on investment. But that wouldn't have made Big Oil happy.

[Subdivisions]

26. Yes, what WE have spent taking OTHER PEOPLE'S OIL would have

paid for a renewable energy infrastructure. But WE decided that WE would go and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and childred.

WE DID THIS TO THEM! WE ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN! WE, AS A NATION, ARE GUILTY OF GENOCIDE! THE BLOOD OF THOSE INNOCENTS ARE ON ALL OF OUR HANDS!

[rollingrock]

30. No, it is not necessary

Saddam was selling us all the oil we wanted at market prices before we invaded them.
and there are plenty of other sources of oil, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Iran, etc. we get the majority of our oil from Canada anyway. Iraq isn't the only country with oil.

the real reason for the war is to enrich the defense sector and steal our tax dollars.

[rollingrock]

32. dupe

[eridani]

37. That does not require conquest of every country not under our thumb yet

Or, as the Japanese diplomat put it when the Bush I administration was twisting his arm to help pay for Gulf War I, "We don't care who controls the oil. Whoever controls it will quickly find that they have no alternative but to sell it." (paraphrase)

[the other one]

4. Rec'd. Who unRec'd Chomsky?

?

[cali]

6. I did and partially in response to your being aghast that anyone would do such

a thing.

[arcadian]

28. I recced it response to cali's response.

Double Plus Good, huh Cali> Bwaahahaha.... :rofl:

[cali]

5. He provides exactly zero evidence, linguistic or otherwise

to demonstrate how he knows how Obama views the Iraq invasion. He doesn't provide a quote by Obama or an action.


He's bloviating. And for that reason the OP gets an unrec from me.

[Echo In Light]

9. He's been at it forever, & understands the underlying nuts n bolts that nullify importance of puppet

I mean, yes Cali, I understand that you disagree with that, and even Chomsky advocated Obama over the alternative. He just doesn't cling to any illusions as to the aims of power and empire.

[cali]

20. yikes, word salad.

This sentence should be enshrined in the Museum of Meaningless Statements:

"He's been at it forever, & understands the underlying nuts n bolts that nullify importance of puppet".

[Echo In Light]

24. Trying to cram too much into the header. Apologies

... although I would have thought my follow through explained it; our democracy is a sham, hence are our elections, as well as any "electable" candidate which is more or less fulfilling a symbolic role for deeply entrenched, vested interests, and the ongoing 'democratic' disguise those systems still rely on to decrease genuine democratic interference.

So at the end of the day, The Establishment, so to speak, never actually has anything to genuinely fret over re wondering which direction US foreign and domestic policies will lean since the notion of a candidate who would actively oppose and work against corporate aims being elected is so remote that it's not even a legitimate concern.

Understandably, those who enjoy the 'game' of American politics will refute the six of one, half a dozen of the other perspective since doing so nullifies the subjective criteria required for adhering to the illusion. And no, that's not suggesting an Obama need be the exact same as a Bush - it's a finer point than that.

[Luminous Animal]

10. Actually, it was the reporter who provided zero evidence.

You (and I) have no idea in regards to the contents of Chomsky's speech other than what the reporter chose to reveal.

[harun]

29. Staying the course is as much an action as withdrawing all troops now.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Replacing neo-cons with neo-libs is like replacing the Hell's Angels with the Mafia.

The neo-libs are just better at PR when they justify their killing.

[Echo In Light]

8. I sourced this the other day - better reception than I figured it would receive

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6917272&mesg_id=6917272

[pleah]

38. Shock and Oil! Wars that never end. n/t