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“Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism” by John Bellamy Foster in the latest issue of Monthly Review is at the tip of a growing awareness of Peak Oil among Left intellectuals. I’ve been waiting for this for a few years now, and it’s good to see that people are starting to make the connections between oil scarcity and US imperialism.
Foster is pushing a kind of “Green Marxism” – in fact the Monthly Review as a whole is beginning to focus quite a bit on energy and ecology in its critiques of US empire.
The approach is good – peak oil is examined with calm as an inevitable geological event, “alternative” energy sources like tar sands and ethanol are shown in their true nasty colors, and the reader is presented with the option of allowing the government to continue to assault those unfortunate enough to be born on top of oil reserves, or to work for a new humane world.
However, one place this critique falls short is in (explicitly or implicitly) propagating the notion that awareness of Peak Oil by neo-conservatives in the halls of power is what prompted aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq or Venezuela, and labeling this a “new energy imperialism.”
Unfortunately the capitalist system is far more complex and multi-faceted than that, and the neo-cons, like all US elites, are just tools existing to serve the interests of US corporations and the Pentagon, which they are doing quite well by continuing the same old foreign policy of trying to control the oil-rich Middle East (by force if necessary – with the added bonus of trillions of dollars of contracts for the military-industrial complex). If only it were as easy as pinning our problems on the ideas in the heads of those in power, all we’d need to do to end the crisis would be to put someone with better ideas in power! Sorry, it’s not gonna work like that.
The “energy imperialism” we see today as the US gears up for war with Iran is nothing “new” at all; it’s the exact same system that toppled Mossadegh in 1953, that provided tanks, planes and chemical weapons to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war throughout the 80s, and that has been pouring billions of dollars of military aid into Israel to act as regional policeman for 60 years.
The only thing that’s new is that the system is beginning to fail, and the US is having a much harder time maintaining its dominance over the Persian Gulf region, relying on brute force and direct occupation, and even that isn’t working for them anymore.
What we face is not a “new energy imperialism” but an old energy imperialism, newly being beaten. I see peak oil as a major catalyst in the inevitable crumbling of the US empire, and an immense opportunity for all who desire peace, justice or human rights. [alex]
Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism
by John Bellamy Foster
Originally published by Monthly Review. July/August 2008.
The rise in overt militarism and imperialism at the outset of the twenty-first century can plausibly be attributed largely to attempts by the dominant interests of the world economy to gain control over diminishing world oil supplies.1 Beginning in 1998 a series of strategic energy initiatives were launched in national security circles in the United States in response to: (1) the crossing of the 50 percent threshold in U.S. importation of foreign oil; (2) the disappearance of spare world oil production capacity; (3) concentration of an increasing percentage of all remaining conventional oil resources in the Persian Gulf; and (4) looming fears of peak oil.
The response of the vested interests to this world oil supply crisis was to construct what Michael Klare in Blood and Oil has called a global “strategy of maximum extraction.”2 This required that the United States as the hegemonic power, with the backing of the other leading capitalist states, seek to extend its control over world oil reserves with the object of boosting production. Seen in this light, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (the geopolitical doorway to Western access to Caspian Sea Basin oil and natural gas) following the 9/11 attacks, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the rapid expansion of U.S. military activities in the Gulf of Guinea in Africa (where Washington sees itself as in competition with Beijing), and the increased threats now directed at Iran and Venezuela—all signal the rise of a dangerous new era of energy imperialism. Read the rest of this entry »
Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors
By Patrick Cockburn
Published by The Independent, Thursday, 5 June 2008
A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November. Read the rest of this entry »
Two stories on CNN.com today show how the deepening oil crisis is sending the addicted US government searching in desperation for more petroleum to come to market, as prices have broken records every day for the last week.
While Congress votes to cut off sending more oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Bush is in Riyadh pleading with the Saudis to increase production, and being outright denied (see below). Though CNN doesn’t say it, the reason the Saudis won’t do it is most likely that they simply can’t. If Matthew Simmons’ book Twilight in the Desert is correct, Saudi Arabia has no more spare capacity, and therefore can no longer be called on to increase supply when the market gets tight. The US is up the creek without a paddle.
No small fix here or there is going to be anything but a drop in the bucket as this crisis develops. $4-per-gallon gasoline will be remembered as amazingly cheap in a few years, and $100-per-barrel crude oil might never be seen again.
The only solution to this crisis is to create an economy that does not rely on oil, or fossil fuels of any kind for that matter. We can accomplish it by focusing on meeting human needs above the interests of corporations and governments, who are the real petroleum consumers. One positive first step would be to abandon the $3 trillion War against Iraq and use those resources to provide universal health care and universal higher education in the US, the most backwards industrialized nation. Likewise, the smart money is on dropping ethanol and other so-called biofuels like the dead weights they are, and once again making all those millions of tons of corn and other grains available for hungry people to eat.
Common sense forever evades a junkie government.
…
Saudis rebuff Bush’s request to pump more oil
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/16/bush.saudi.arabia/index.html
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) — Saudi Arabia Friday rebuffed President Bush’s request to immediately pump more oil to lower record prices, saying it does not see enough demand to increase production.
President Bush walks with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh Friday.
The Saudis said they would increase production if customers demanded it, Steven Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, said.
Bush is spending much of the day in closed-door meetings with King Abdullah, the Saudi ruler.
Friday’s visit was Bush’s second trip to the kingdom this year, coming as oil prices reached a new record high Friday of more than $127 a barrel. When he traveled to Riyadh in January, his request for the Saudis to pump more oil was also rejected.
Oil prices were just below $100 a barrel in January, and Americans were paying an average of $3.06 for a gallon of gasoline. They were paying $3.78 on Friday, following more than week of record highs every day. Read the rest of this entry »
From March 17-21, 2008, Students for a Democratic Society led over 90 student actions across the country to mark the 5th Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq! (See newsds.org/march20 for more details of the nationwide SDS actions)
One of the most exciting actions was in Washington DC. DC-SDS’ “Funk the War 3” dance party brought together 500+ youth and students to shut down K Street, where War Profiteers like Lockheed Martin and Bechtel are headquartered.
Those companies were shut down by the mobile antiwar dance party, which also hit up the Armed Forces Recruiting Center and spread the love there.
The action culminated in an SDS-organized blockade of Connecticut and K Sts., where 11 students chained themselves to school desks and demanded money for education, not for war. The intersection was held for over an hour by 200+ youth, despite pouring rain, until it was apparent that police were not willing or able to break up the blockade, and the students declared victory!
The SDS action was the largest and most energetic event of United for Peace and Justice’s “5 Years Too Many” events in DC on March 19th. The week of action brought major media attention to SDS, including 3 days straight of “The Return of Students for a Democratic Society” headlining the front page of MichaelMoore.com, an awesome article in The Nation, and a feature in the New York Times. It seems that SDS has gained a new prominence in the antiwar movement and is taking off right now!
See below for articles, video, audio and images from the 5th Anniversary Actions. Read the rest of this entry »
Students for a Democratic Society:
Drop Debt Not Bombs Dance Party
on the 5th Anniversary of the War in Iraq!
****************************************************************************************************
FUNK THE WAR with Philadelphia Students for a Democratic Society on March 21st as we dance through Penn and Drexel Universities to demand an end to war and student debt! We are celebrating the launch of our Drexel and Penn chapters with a sonic boom for the 5th anniversary of the War in Iraq. Across the nation, Students for a Democratic Society is holding walk outs, nonviolent actions for student power, peace, and affordable education.
The $500 billion dollar war in Iraq has been paid for with cuts in education and student aid. A struggling economy, rising tuition, predatory loan companies and expensive textbooks have shouldered more than 2/3 of students with an average of $19,000 in individual debt. Universities should be actively rejecting the Federal cuts to education by funding loan education programs, providing more need based financial aid, freezing tuition, and creating more opportunities for low income students.
Meet us on FRIDAY, MARCH 21st:
UPENN MEETUP: 12 noon at the Compass (37th + Locust)
DREXEL MEETUP: 1 pm at MacAlister Hall (33rd + Chestnut)
Join us on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10449978635
Philly SDS website: http://www.phillysds.org
DC SDS Funk the War 2 Video http://www.vimeo.com/736378/
Nationwide Actions on the 5th Anniversary of the War
http://www.newSDS.org/march20/
http://www.5yearstoomany.org/
From TomDispatch, September 25, 2007
Before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, discussion of Iraqi oil was largely taboo in the American mainstream, while the “No Blood for Oil” signs that dotted antiwar demonstrations were generally derisively dismissed as too simpleminded for serious debate. American officials rarely even mentioned the word “oil” in the same sentence with “Iraq.” When President Bush referred to Iraqi oil, he spoke only of preserving that country’s “patrimony” for its people, a sentiment he and Great Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair emphasized in a statement they issued that lacked either the words “oil” or “energy” just as Baghdad fell: “We reaffirm our commitment to protect Iraq’s natural resources, as the patrimony of the people of Iraq, which should be used only for their benefit.”
That May, not long after the President declared “major combat” at an end in Iraq, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz did point out the obvious — that Iraq was a country that “floats on a sea of oil.” He also told a Congressional panel: “The oil revenue of that country could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years. Read the rest of this entry »
Declaration of Independence from Oil
July 4, 2007
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the people to rid themselves of a government which has abandoned the sound principles upon which it was founded and that increasingly threatens their lives and liberties for the sake of the Oil Industry, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are born with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. That when a long train of abuses and lies, pursuing invariably the same Middle Eastern Oil, threatens to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these American Citizens, along with the rest of the Peoples of the World. The History of the Government of the United States since the Second World War, fully exposed under the current King George II, is a history of repeated Imperial Adventures, all having in direct object the establishment of an Empire of Oil, founded upon a domestic Tyranny over these States, and a Colonial relationship with all peoples living in petroleum-rich areas of the Earth. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid audience. Read the rest of this entry »
The End of Capitalism 
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