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Edited on Wed Jun-16-10 07:14 PM by mike_c
...significant-- and rapid-- demobilization of the U.S. military, or at least its current incarnation.
In his recent speech, president Obama called for ending America's dependence upon petroleum. Although that's certainly a laudable goal, some have pointed out that simply calling for it and actually accomplishing it are so deeply divided from one another that the call for accomplishing it, without any specifics about how or where to begin that gargantuan work, is essentially meaningless. Just more political rhetoric. Pablum for the masses, who are gullible enough to swallow anything as long as American Idol doesn't suffer significant interruptions.
How are we going to reduce our dependence upon oil? If there are answers out there, why are we still dependent? The reason, of course, is that there aren't many good answers yet, or even any barely adequate ones. At this point, we have few genuine choices other than to continue dependence upon oil, or return to nineteenth century technology and industry.
But the most telling thing that Obama didn't say during his vague and unsatisfying speech was that the biggest U.S. customer for petroleum-- one of the biggest such customers in the world-- has no intention of reducing its dependence upon oil. The U.S. military is one of the largest consumers of oil on Earth, and one of BP's biggest customers.
Military infrastructure is entirely dependent upon petroleum fuels. Planes don't fly, ships don't steam (mostly), armor doesn't roll, and troops do not fight for long without oil and other fossil fuels. There are no broadly viable alternatives in the works presently, so the only way to significantly reduce U.S. dependence upon fossil fuels is to shut down much of the most pressing thirst for them-- and that means the U.S. military. Converting the military to some other energy source will take multiple generations, and we don't have that kind of time left UNLESS the U.S. continues to use its military and its foreign policy to bully and conquer our way to control of as much the world's remaining oil as we can. That seems to be the current strategy. It is not working. It will never work. It's a prescription for disaster and collapse.
The only way to make rapid progress toward reducing petroleum dependence is to start by standing down the biggest and most voracious military on the planet. Ours.
Obama isn't talking about that, so he isn't talking about real solutions that might begin to help us today. If he's not talking about real solutions, he's shining us on, yet again. Smooth talking, without substance. Mr. Obama, put some concrete action behind your proposals. End the wars, bring the troops home, cut the Pentagon budget to a tiny fraction, stand down the hardware and demobilize all but a few of the personnel, and stop the raging oil thirst that is destroying our environment. The time has come to decide between bombs and pelicans, between a future we can live in or a poisoned and polluted planet where corporations rule, the military does their bidding, and the best growth futures are in killing machines.
U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan NOW, and the rest of the world TOMORROW!
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