[GJM] Ecologically safe America , India, China and rest of the world /US garrisons and global gas stations

[Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam]

Dear Mary and all,
 
The call of Global Justice Movement, American Monetary institute and other movements for creaqting eco-friendly and socially equitable interest free money needs to be taken by all in US, India, China and rest of the world. It is  high time we got liberated from those who think that resources are abundant for tapping ,controlling and exploiting. Peak oil estimates are wellknown. It is also wellknown now that green energy is the energy of the future and that is not as abundant as we have been made to think. 
 
There is an urgent need to work for ecologically safe habitats all over the world with reduced demand on both renewable and non-renewable energy and therefore reduce consumption of fossil fuel based utilities. For peace and equity to prevail. it is important to unite men and women globally in upholidng the culture of prayer 5 times a day, pious standards, donation , prevention of usury, compassion and so on.
 
Centre for Ecological Audit, Social Inclusion has been calling for neighbourhood discussions all over the world for considering the best community measures locally for reducing the emission of green house gas emissions..
 
Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam
 
 
 
 
 
 
--- On Tue, 17/6/08, mary rose <maryrose333 at att.net> wrote:

From: mary rose <maryrose333 at att.net>
Subject: [GJM] Fw: [globalnetnews-summary] US garrisons and global gas stations
To: FixGov at yahoogroups.com, "Discussion Forum for Global Justice" <discussion at globaljusticemovement.net>
Date: Tuesday, 17 June, 2008, 6:09 AM

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From: "GlobalCirclenet" <webmaster at globalcircle.net>
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Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 11:21 AM
Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] US garrisons and global gas stations



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JF14Ak03.html\

The protection of overseas oil supplies as essential to "national
security", 
sometimes through the use of military force, is now an unquestioned part of 
American foreign policy. But with the costs of such operations - in both 
blood and dollars - rising precipitously, their practicality is under 
scrutiny. -

US garrisons and global gas stations
By Michael T Klare

American policymakers have long viewed the protection of overseas oil 
supplies as an essential matter of "national security", requiring the
threat 
of - and sometimes the use of - military force. This is now an unquestioned 
part of American foreign policy.

On this basis, the George H W Bush administration fought a war against Iraq 
in 1990-1991 and the George W Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. With 
global oil prices soaring and oil reserves expected to dwindle in the years 
ahead, military force is sure to be seen by whatever new administration 
enters Washington in January 2009 as the ultimate guarantor of the US's 
well-being in the oil heartlands of the planet.

But with the costs of militarized oil operations - in both blood and
dollars - rising precipitously, isn't it time to challenge such
"wisdom"? 
Isn't it time to ask whether the US military has anything reasonable to do 
with American energy security, and whether a reliance on military force, 
when it comes to energy policy, is practical, affordable or justifiable?

How energy policy got militarized
The association between "energy security" (as it's now termed)
and "national 
security" was established long ago. President Franklin D Roosevelt first 
forged this association in 1945, when he pledged to protect the Saudi 
Arabian royal family in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil.

The relationship was given formal expression in 1980, when president Jimmy 
Carter told the US Congress that maintaining the uninterrupted flow of 
Persian Gulf oil was a "vital interest" of the United States, and
attempts 
by hostile nations to cut that flow would be countered "by any means 
necessary, including military force".

To implement this "doctrine", Carter ordered the creation of a Rapid 
Deployment Joint Task Force, specifically earmarked for combat operations in 
the Persian Gulf area. President Ronald Reagan later turned that force into 
a full-scale regional combat organization, the US Central Command, or 
CENTCOM. Every president since Reagan has added to CENTCOM's 
responsibilities, endowing it with additional bases, fleets, air squadrons 
and other assets. As the country has, more recently, come to rely on oil 
from the Caspian Sea basin and Africa, US military capabilities are being 
beefed up in those areas as well.

As a result, the US military has come to serve as a global oil protection 
service, guarding pipelines, refineries and loading facilities in the Middle 
East and elsewhere. According to one estimate, provided by the conservative 
National Defense Council Foundation, the "protection" of Persian Gulf
oil 
alone costs the US Treasury US$138 billion per year - up from $49 billion 
just before the invasion of Iraq.

For Democrats and Republicans alike, spending such sums to protect foreign 
oil supplies is now accepted as common wisdom, not worthy of serious 
discussion or debate. A typical example of this attitude can be found in an 
"Independent Task Force Report" on the "National Security
Consequences of US 
Oil Dependency" released by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in 
October 2006.

Chaired by former secretary of defense James R Schlesinger and former 
Central Intelligence Agency director John Deutch, the CFR report concluded 
that the US military must continue to serve as a global oil protection 
service for the foreseeable future. "At least for the next two decades,
the 
Persian Gulf will be vital to US interests in reliable oil supplies," it 
noted. Accordingly, "the United States should expect and support a strong 
military posture that permits suitably rapid deployment to the region, if 
necessary." Similarly, the report adds, "US naval protection of the
sea 
lanes that transport oil is of paramount importance."

The Pentagon as Insecurity Inc
These views, widely shared, then and now, by senior figures in both major 
parties, dominate - or, more accurately, blanket - American strategic 
thinking. Yet the actual utility of military force as a means for ensuring 
energy security has yet to be demonstrated.

Keep in mind that, despite the deployment of up to 160,000 US troops in Iraq 
and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars, Iraq is a country in 
chaos and the Department of Defense has been notoriously unable to prevent 
the recurring sabotage of oil pipelines and refineries by various insurgent 
groups and militias, not to mention the systematic looting of government 
supplies by senior oil officials supposedly loyal to the US-backed central 
government and often guarded (at great personal risk) by American soldiers.

Five years after the US invasion, Iraq is producing only about 2.5 million 
barrels of oil per day - about the same amount as in the worst days of 
Saddam Hussein in 2001. Moreover, the New York Times reports, "At least 
one-third, and possibly much more, of the fuel from Iraq's largest refinery

.... is [being] diverted to the black market, according to American military 
officials." Is this really conducive to American energy security?

The same disappointing results have been noted in other countries where 
US-backed militaries have attempted to protect vulnerable oil facilities. In 
Nigeria, for example, increased efforts by American-equipped government 
forces to crush rebels in the oil-rich Niger Delta region have merely 
inflamed the insurgency while actually lowering national oil output. 
Meanwhile, the Nigerian military, like the Iraqi government (and assorted 
militias), has been accused of pilfering billions of dollars' worth of
crude 
oil and selling it on the black market.

In reality, the use of military force to protect foreign oil supplies is 
likely to create anything but "security". It can, in fact, trigger
violent 
"blowback" against the United States. For example, the decision by
the 
senior president Bush to maintain an enormous, permanent US military 
presence in Saudi Arabia following Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait is now 
widely viewed as a major source of virulent anti-Americanism in the kingdom 
and became a prime recruiting tool for Osama bin Laden in the months leading 
up to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"For over seven years," bin Laden proclaimed in 1998, "the
United States has 
been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian 
Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its 
people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula 
into a spearhead through which to fight neighboring Muslim peoples." To 
repel this assault on the Muslin world, he thundered, it was "an
individual 
duty for every Muslim" to "kill the Americans" and drive their
armies "out 
of all the lands of Islam".

As if to confirm the veracity of bin Laden's analysis of US intentions, 
then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld flew to Saudi Arabia on April 30, 
2003, to announce that the American bases there would no longer be needed 
due to the successful invasion of Iraq, then barely one month old. "It is 
now a safer region because of the change of regime in Iraq," Rumsfeld 
declared. "The aircraft and those involved will now be able to
leave."

Even as he was speaking in Riyadh, however, a dangerous new case of blowback 
had erupted in Iraq: on their entry into Baghdad, US forces seized and 
guarded the Oil Ministry headquarters while allowing schools, hospitals and 
museums to be looted with impunity. Most Iraqis have since come to regard 
this decision, which insured that the rest of the city would be looted, as 
the ultimate expression of the Bush administration's main motive for 
invading their country.

They have viewed repeated White House claims of a commitment to human rights 
and democracy there as mere fig leaves that barely covered the urge to 
plunder Iraq's oil. Nothing American officials have done since has
succeeded 
in erasing this powerful impression, which continues to drive calls for an 
American withdrawal.

These are but a few examples of the losses to American national security 
produced by a thoroughly militarized approach to energy security. Yet the 
premises of such a global policy continue to go unquestioned, even as 
American policymakers persist in relying on military force as their ultimate 
response to threats to the safe production and transportation of oil. In a 
kind of energy "Catch-22", the continual militarizing of energy
policy only 
multiplies the threats that call such militarization into being.

If anything, this spiral of militarized insecurity is worsening. Take the 
expanded US military presence in Africa - one of the few areas in the world 
expected to experience an increase in oil output in the years ahead.

This year, the Pentagon will activate the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), its 
first new overseas combat command since Reagan created CENTCOM a quarter 
century ago. Although Department of Defense officials are loathe to publicly 
acknowledge any direct relationship between AFRICOM's formation and a 
growing US reliance on that continent's oil, they are less inhibited in 
private briefings.

At a February 19 meeting at the National Defense University, for example, 
AFRICOM deputy commander, Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, indicated that "oil

disruption" in Nigeria and West Africa would constitute one of the primary

challenges facing the new organization.

AFRICOM and similar extensions of the Carter Doctrine into new oil-producing 
regions are only likely to provoke fresh outbreaks of blowback, while 
bundling tens of billions of extra dollars every year into an already 
bloated Pentagon budget. Sooner or later, if US policy doesn't change, this

price will be certain to include as well the loss of American lives, as more 
and more soldiers are exposed to hostile fire or explosives while protecting 
vulnerable oil installations in areas torn by ethnic, religious and 
sectarian strife.

Why pay such a price? Given the all-but-unavoidable evidence of just how 
ineffective military force has been when it comes to protecting oil 
supplies, isn't it time to rethink Washington's reigning assumptions 
regarding the relationship between energy security and national security? 
After all, other than George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who 
would claim that, more than five years after the invasion of Iraq, either 
the United States or its supply of oil is actually safer?

Creating real energy security
The reality of America's increasing reliance on foreign oil only
strengthens 
the conviction in Washington that military force and energy security are 
inseparable twins. With nearly two-thirds of the country's daily oil intake

imported - and that percentage still going up - it's hard not to notice
that 
significant amounts of our oil now come from conflict-prone areas of the 
Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. As long as this is the case, US 
policymakers will
instinctively look to the military to ensure the safe delivery of crude oil.. 
It evidently matters little that the use of military force, especially in 
the Middle East, has surely made the energy situation less stable and less 
dependable, while fueling anti-Americanism.

This is, of course, not the definition of "energy security", but its 
opposite. A viable long-term approach to actual energy security would not 
favor one particular source of energy - in this case, oil - above all 
others, or regularly expose American soldiers to a heightened risk of harm 
and American taxpayers to a heightened risk of bankruptcy. Rather, an 
American energy policy that made sense would embrace a holistic approach to 
energy procurement, weighing the relative merits of all potential sources of 
energy.

It would naturally favor the development of domestic, renewable sources of 
energy that do not degrade the environment or imperil other national 
interests. At the same time, it would favor a thoroughgoing program of 
energy conservation of a sort notably absent these past two decades - one 
that would help cut reliance on foreign energy sources in the near future 
and slow the atmospheric buildup of climate-altering greenhouse gases.

Petroleum would continue to play a significant role in any such approach. 
Oil retains considerable appeal as a source of transportation energy 
(especially for aircraft) and as a feedstock for many chemical products. But 
given the right investment and research policies - and the will to apply 
something other than force to energy supply issues - oil's historic role as

the world's paramount fuel could relatively quickly draw to a close.

It would be especially important that American policymakers not prolong this 
role artificially by, as has been the case for decades, subsidizing major US 
oil firms or, more recently, spending $138 billion a year on the protection 
of foreign oil deliveries. These funds would instead be redirected to the 
promotion of energy efficiency and especially the development of domestic 
sources of energy.

Some policymakers who agree on the need to develop alternatives to imported 
energy insist that such an approach should begin with oil extraction in the 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other protected wilderness areas. Even 
while acknowledging that such drilling would not substantially reduce US 
reliance on foreign oil, they nevertheless insist that it's essential to 
make every conceivable effort to substitute domestic oil supplies for 
imports in the nation's total energy supply. But this argument ignores the 
fact that oil's day is drawing to a close, and that any effort to prolong 
its duration only complicates the inevitable transition to a post-petroleum 
economy.

A far more fruitful approach, better designed to promote American 
self-sufficiency and technological vigor in the intensely competitive world 
of the mid-21st century, would emphasize the use of domestic ingenuity and 
entrepreneurial skills to maximize the potential of renewable energy 
sources, including solar, wind, geothermal and wave power. The same skills 
should also be applied to developing methods for producing ethanol from 
non-food plant matter ("cellulosic ethanol"), for using coal without 
releasing carbon into the atmosphere (via "carbon capture and
storage," or 
CCS), for miniaturizing hydrogen fuel cells, and for massively increasing 
the energy efficiency of vehicles, buildings and industrial processes.

All of these energy systems show great promise and so should be accorded the 
increased support and investment they will need to move from the marginal 
role they now play to a dominant role in American energy generation. At this 
point, it is not possible to determine precisely which of them (or which 
combination among them) will be best positioned to transition from small to 
large-scale commercial development. As a result, all of them should be 
initially given enough support to test their capacity to make this move.

In applying this general rule, however, priority clearly should be given to 
new forms of transportation fuel. It is here that oil has long been king, 
and here that oil's decline will be most harshly felt. It is thanks to this

that calls for military intervention to secure additional supplies of crude 
are only likely to grow. So emphasis should be given to the rapid 
development of biofuels, coal-to-liquid fuels (with the carbon extracted via 
CCS), hydrogen, or battery power, and other innovative means of fueling 
vehicles. At the same time, it's obvious that putting some of the US's 
military budget into funding a massive increase in public transit would be 
the height of national sanity.

An approach of this sort would enhance American national security on 
multiple levels. It would increase the reliable supply of fuels, promote 
economic growth at home (rather than sending a veritable flood of dollars 
into the coffers of unreliable petro-regimes abroad), and diminish the risk 
of recurring US involvement in foreign oil wars. No other approach - 
certainly not the present traditional, unquestioned, unchallenged reliance 
on military force - can make this claim. It's well past time to stop 
garrisoning the global gas station.

Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at 
Hampshire College and the author of several books on energy politics, 
including Resource Wars (2001), Blood and Oil (2004), and, most recently, 
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.

(Copyright 2008 Michael T Klare.)



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