Calum Grant

America's war for resources

I heard a strange claim that America is at war.

Since when does placing troops in another country consistute a war?! Or maybe it's the war on terror, which is about as much of a war as a war on litter, or a war on poverty. It's not a war, it's just rhetoric that the US administration uses to justify its actions and keep its people behind it. The stupid thing is that quite a lot of Americans believed it, at least for a while.

If it is a war, it's a war of ideology, hearts and minds. Guns aren't going to be much use, apart from to increase resentment and terrorism. Everyone has seen through America's thinly-veiled attempt at securing energy supplies. The problem is that America doesn't want to invest heavily in non-petroleum based technology since its oil-lobby is so powerful.

A few differences of ideology, the odd building rased by terrorism, a few thousand soldier's lives, or hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a war, are not really a big in comparison to the trouble America would be in if its energy supplies were cut.
But it is inevitable that oil will get much more expensive, so putting a few soldiers into a region isn't going to help.

If the West was serious about taking the moral high ground, then it should have stricter codes of conduct. It shouldn't allow oil companies to invest/bribe poorer countries into giving away their oil, money that is squandered on local wars or siphoned off into officials' private bank accounts. Unfortunately, if the west attempted a higher code of conduct, then Russia or China would happily supply arms and buy cheap oil from developing nations.

So what to do? Sit back until the oil runs out, at which point the problems caused by oil money will go away? The problem is that I can't see any of the G8 agreeing to put morality ahead of capitalism. One might think that surely we could put science ahead of capitalism, but that is not the case.

posted by Calum Grant @ 10:44 AM