Scoop Feedback: International Law, Oil & Pax USA

Thursday, 26 September 2002, 1:42 pm
Opinion: Scoop Feedback

In This Edition: Re: Scoop Editorial: Let There Be No Mistake - Discussion of Energy Resources – Re: Let There Be No Mistake - Scoop - Paranoid and Anti-American

Scoop welcomes reader feedback. Please send your comments to editor@scoop.co.nz

Re: Scoop Editorial: Let There Be No Mistake

Editor, The Scoop

Well, for once you are completely on target! You have laid out the issues of this seminal debate within the U.S. in a fair, balanced, and accurate manner. Let's hope that we all awaken from our slumber over here prior to serious damage being done to the rule of International Law.

Congratulations,

Bruce W. Dobbins (Bd)

Discussion of Energy Resources

Thanks for your latest Scoop 141 - Discussing Oil with the Beeb.

Much of the information therein has been covered at-length at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/. This forum contains some of the most respected energy/oil business insiders including Colin Cambell, Buzz Ivanhoe, Jean Leharre and many others. General concensus includes:

* We are experiencing Hubbert's Peak at the moment.

* Govt. Insiders are well aware of this.

* The War on Terror is a War for Oil.

* Oil Prices may see triple figures shortly.

* Economic deflation will escalate rapidly leading to a severe and prolonged depression from which there will be no recovery.

* Industrial Civilisation as we know it has about five years left.

You may wish to join.

All the best,

Adam Whaley. U.K.

[Readers interested in this issue may also benefit from a gander at http://www.oilcrisis.com & http://www.dieoff.org - Scoop Editor]

Re: Let There Be No Mistake

Editor:

I wonder whether a new trend is emerging in European public opinions and politics, with very far-reaching consequences. Amid the unfolding Iraq war buildup, I find that most commentators - especially Americans - appear to be skirting the most portentous of all international issues: namely, that western Europe's sixty-year relationship with America is faltering in ways that could doom it. Besides undermining the entire UN framework of international law, Washington's hubris strikes at the very heart of the Atlantic alliance, which has always been predicated on shared democratic values and international cooperation among nations treating one another as peers despite America's dominant role. The potential implications for Europe, Russia and Japan are therefore compelling. I would submit that, faced with a central ally that has morphed into a war-mongering hegemon, the Europeans have no choice, in the long run, but to turn to their Eastern neighbors to help them redress the balance of power.

From its Atlantic to its Pacific shores, the northern Eurasian landmass (augmented for the sake of this argument by Britain and Japan) affords enough capital, human resources, raw materials, energy reserves, and synergies of all kinds to offset US power before it can be taken to the level of world domination. Europe has a surfeit of capital, much of it squandered on dubious programs, while it suffers from an evident paucity of defense investment. Russia's Cold War cornucopia of defense-related science, technology, facilities, programs, and human capital is withering on the vine, while it desperately needs economic growth, stability, and a new security infrastructure. Japan is still mired in recession, as dependent as Europe on America's armed forces, its rudderless potential in search of a chart for the future. With US military bases dotting the European Union, Japan, the Middle East, and now the hydrocarbon-laden underbelly of the Russian Federation itself, the case is increasingly obvious for a strategic trade addressing the long-range interests of all three major powers. Namely, a trilateral defense cooperation agreement designed to give each partner the state-of-the-art defense infrastructure needed to fend off any major challenge, including one from the odious 'imperium' so dear to Charles Krauthammer and his ilk.

A triple alliance comprised of Europe, Russia, and Japan could prove a match for today's self-absorbed hyperpower, and thus defuse US military adventurism before direct conflict begins to loom as a distinct possibility. There appears to be little choice, besides, to avert the wreaking of global environmental havoc at the hands of an American rogue state acting in tandem with unaccountable multinationals. This alliance, commanding vastly greater populations, resources, and territories than the United States, could offer the first credible alternative to the current US-led globalization process and its new military extension, the so-called war on terrorism. Under its impetus, a new era of more balanced international trade and cooperation would become possible in a world returned to bipolarity after a decade-long hiatus of deepening predation, decay, and chaos.

America's trump card against any such challenge - which in this case would greatly strain the logistics of its military control over Middle Eastern and Central Asian hydrocarbon reserves and supply routes - is the US Space Command, the dark forest hidden behind the tree of missile defense. Washington has been plowing vast sums into this space-age equivalent of the British Empire's vaunted Royal Navy, and plans to use its unprecedented capabilities to project its military might anywhere at short notice without having to confront the logistics of forward deployment, much as Britannia once relied on sea-borne power to avoid the need for large, far-flung armies.

If allowed to come to fruition, this master plan will eventually give Washington the means to cow rival industrial states into submission, ever at risk of energy blackmail, military intimidation, or both. Through Eurasia-wide defense cooperation, the European Union, the Russian Federation, and Japan could successfully blunt the leading edge of this implicit US threat to their sovereignty, while averting direct conflict. They would also be in a position to move to deprive Washington of its lock on the energy lifelines of Europe and Japan. As the dominant interlopers in Eurasia's oil-rich regions for the past half-century, the Americans clearly perceive this, a likely factor in their decision to go for broke in Iraq and elsewhere. It is all too evident, as well, that they care little if the ultimate outcome is to force former allies and adversaries alike into vassalage under a growing swarm of armed military satellites.

In a move that would result in a far more enviable position than its subservient role in the 'special relationship,' Britain could restore itself to eminence as the alliance's gateway to its former colonies and dominions - a magnificent prize if it can be wrested back from the American grip. Japan could address the mounting Chinese challenge, remove the Korean threat, and secure its energy imports while reclaiming Okinawa. France could open up former French colonies and protectorates and bring its own far-flung stategic assets into play. Germany, the Union's demographic and industrial powerhouse, could take its traditional Ostpolitik to an entirely new, mutually benefical, level. Russia could stand center stage as the territorial, military, and energy linchpin of the security compact, accruing enormous benefits in a remarkably short time. Burying old grudges and re-uniting with Russian support, Korea might gravitate closer to the Japanese on the eastern flank of the alliance, removing a major flashpoint. India, with its old links to Britain and Russia, might move to reinforce its southern flank. Assuming an end to outright European exploitation, Africa would probably side with the alliance to escape American plunder. Most of the Middle East, with old links to Britain, France, and Russia, would gladly cast its lot with the alliance as well, if offered better treatment along with respect for national sovereignty.

The alternative to such a radical reshuffling of international relationships is, of course, the consummation of the 'Empire' openly propounded in Washington, where eschatology increasingly trumps diplomacy. Europe, which should really be looking back to a prescient De Gaulle, has so far refrained from denying the US the huge advantage of its bases, deep-water ports, listening posts, troops, intelligence, and logistics. If its leaders defy the rising mood in the face of a worsening American rampage, it will translate sooner or later into major upsets at the polls amid the rise of a novel form of anti-American, Euro-nationalist sentiment. A Eurasian alliance is the most rational answer to the destabilizing schemes of Washington's posse of neo-conservative likudniks, religious extremists, and US supremacists, who are fast eroding what few democratic checks are left to their domination of US society in general, and of the formidable apparatus of the federal government in particular. Could such a challenge be taken all the way to a cold war? Possibly. But the cementing of US hegemony would only prove worse, as subjugation to Washington could very well force the entire planet past the point of environmental no return, wreaking unprecedented devastation.

A Eurasian defense cooperation alliance would signify military power, denied, built, or consolidated, on an immense scale. It would far exceed what the United States could muster on its own. It would provide the strength to steer the courses of Europe, Russia, and Japan free of the dictates of America's piratical elites while containing China. Ultimately, by wrecking the schemes of the hegemonists, it would help restore true democratic control to American voters, whose enforced ignorance and complacency have allowed the plot of Empire to be hatched under the rotting aegis of a constitution penned in the days of goose quills. Across Eurasia, from London to Tokyo, great peoples harbor the memories of their own past empires. After two world wars, a Cold War, and now its disastrous aftermath, they will inevitably refuse to be bowed by a latter-day creed of God, greed, and guns proclaimed from a onetime colonial outpost. By insulting the old imperial prides of Eurasia while lunging shamelessly for its riches, the warfare queens of Washington may have already overplayed their hand.

Sincerely,

Philippe Dambournet

Scoop - Paranoid and Anti-American

Dear Editor,

I write to express my concern at the direction in which Scoop is heading.

As a regular visitor to your site I have found it to be an interesting source of media releases and a range of commentary but of late the overall tone of comment published has become increasingly conspiratorial and anti-American.

The recent correspondence between yourself and Paul Reynolds does you no credit. Your continually miss the point that Reynolds was making - that in his opinion US policy towards Iraq is influenced not just by oil. You may disagree but you offer no argument merely endlessly quibbling, and in an increasingly belligerent tone, over how much oil is left in the ground. It is embarrassing to read.

And as for Selwyn Manning's "Pax American" - what a load of complete paranoia. To start quoting Chomsky is to give in to the mire of conspiracy. Chomsky has this bizarre theory that we are "brainwashed" by the media. This is merely an attempt to say that anyone who holds an opinion different to that of Chomsky does so not because they have good reason to but because they are "brainwashed".

Scoop is turning into Sludge.

Regards

Neil Morrison

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