THE CONTINUING INFLUENCE OF OIL

 

In all the media coverage of the current months long war with Iran, none of the reporting points out an interesting fact: the last three Republican Presidents have all started wars in the Middle East in which oil reserves played a factor.  Yes, the American addiction to oil has been influencing American foreign policy for a long time.  

It's not just wars that have been fought over oil; in 1949  General Motors, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, and Standard Oil of California were all found guilty of buying and dismantling the Los Angeles electric transit system to promote oil using vehicles.  In 1953 Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown by the CIA and British Intelligence at the behest of western oil companies.  He was replaced by the Shah of Iran, who ran the country with an iron hand until he was overthrown in 1979.  This caused the emergence of an even more repressive theocratic government in Iran,  which was the beginning of the American adversarial relationship with that leadership.  And, of course, for decades the oil industry has spent billions of dollars attacking the science of climate change, pushing the Republican party to be the only major political party in the entire world that denies that science.  And, to be fair, our oil addiction hasn't only been driven by Republicans; during the Bill Clinton era of the 90's, oil consumption increased in this country, and Clinton did little to fund renewable energy.

Yes, much of  America's political history in the 20th and 21st. centuries has been driven by oil. But  it's the three outright wars we have fought in the past forty years that are the most dramatic examples of that, with trillions of American tax dollars and thousands of American lives lost for those wars.  And the sad fact of the matter is that each war has been fought for worse and worse reasons.  The first Gulf War in the 1990's, however you may feel about it, was perceived by the public as a smashing success.  Perceptions aside, it did have clear goals going in that were met with a minimum of American casualties.  While the ostensible reason for the war was a retaliation against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Paul Wolfowitz, the Under Secretary of Defense, put it in blunt terms when he said "the fundamental US interest in the security of the Persian Gulf is oil."  

Then came George W Bush's far more disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.  Although oil interests were never given as the reason for the invasion,  with false allegations of weapons of mass destruction and links to Al-Qaeda given, oil certainly played a factor.  Once again, Wolfowitz, serving under another Bush president, claimed that Iraqi reconstruction after the war would not be heavily funded by the US because of high Iraqi oil revenues.  Those claims would, of course, be proven wrong as the Iraq war quickly became a multi trillion dollar boondoggle, sending the second Bush's approval rating down to record lows.

And then we have the Trump war on Iran, the worst planned and ill conceived of them all. While Trump's reasons for starting the war back in February have been vague, other than a desire to be remembered as the president who "solved" the Iranian problem that has bedeviled the country since 1979, it's easy to believe that increased access to Iranian oil fields for American oil companies was a factor in his thinking.  That has, of course, blown up in his face as Iran's  shut down of the Straits of Hormuz has  hurt the entire world's economy and driven oil prices up in the US.  Trump's approval ratings now have never been worse, and while he may publicly deny this, privately even he must realize that the war has gone poorly, which explains why he tried to negotiate a recent cease fire that has, not surprisingly, already fallen through.

As the primary fuel of the 20th century, the importance of oil is undeniable, especially in the US, which still leads the world in overall oil consumption.  But now, with the global oil market again having prices soar (they also did in 2022 after Russia invaded the Ukraine), and climate change being seen as a reality by most of the world (and even most Americans), it appears that the age of oil may finally be coming to an end.  More and more countries are making the common sense switch to cheaper forms of energy like solar and wind power.  But, sadly, the US is a pariah on this issue, still clinging to fossil fuels, brought on by decades of mostly Republican policies; as we've gone from Ronald Reagan saying that trees cause pollution to Trump calling climate change "a hoax", America has been feeding its oil addiction with our tax dollars and the deaths of thousands of American service people for far too long.  It's time to end it.

NOT FEELING TOO PATRIOTIC RIGHT NOW

 While America may be passing a big mile stone with its 250th anniversary, I can't say that I feel patriotic about this country right now.  But then, I've never really been particularly patriotic.  When it comes to that subject, I tend to agree with my all favorite movie star, Charlie Chaplin, who once said "The fact is that I am no patriot.  Not for moral or intellectual reasons alone, but because I have no feeling for it.  How can one tolerate patriotism when six million Jews were murdered in its name?  Some might say that was in Germany; nevertheless these murderous cells lie dormant in every nation."  

Still, I won't lie, I was feeling pretty good in about America in 2012 when Barack Obama won his second term in office and even some conservative media members said it was time to soften their point of view.  And then Donald Trump came along, and for the last ten years I have felt ashamed to be an American.  That goes double now that we are in his far worse second term.  I know its been over a year since the election, but I still struggle to see how tens of millions of my fellow Americans could somehow forget the terrible events that Trump set into motion on January 6th. 2020.

In his second term Trump has trashed everything good about America.  He's attacked freedom of speech, suing news outlets for running negative stories about him, getting Stephen Colbert fired and Jimmy Kimmel suspended. He has used the once independent Justice Department to investigate and make fake charges against his political enemies. And he still refuses to accept that he lost the 2020 election, maintaining without a shred of evidence that millions of undocumented immigrants vote illegally in this country.  He's wrecked our once great scientific community, slashing university research spending that has lead to some of our best scientists leaving the country to do research else where.  He's also denied climate change, even as we swelter under a heat wave that scientists from World Weather Attribution say would be impossible without climate change.  And he appointed vaccine skeptic and unscientific crank RFK Jr to run our Health and Human Services department.  He's put an end to the idea that the US was a generous nation, as his slashing of the USAID budget could, according to the medical journal The Lancet, result in the death of hundreds of thousands of people, just to save less than 1% of our federal budget.  Those cuts are already being felt in the ebola crisis in the Congo, which may be the worst ebola outbreak ever.  Meanwhile his usage of ICE to hunt down undocumented immigrants, combined with a message to legal immigrants and refugees that they aren't' wanted here, has tarnished our image as a country founded by  and open to immigrants.  And forget America being seen as a good friend to our allies too.  Trump has pulled us out of the World Health Organization,  threatened to pull us out of Nato, got into a tariff driven trade war with out allies, (before being stopped by the Supreme Court) and has even threatened to take over Greenland and Canada by force.  And, don't forget that he lead us into an unpopular war with Iran, without any discussion with congress or the American public beforehand, or any attempt to bring along allies other that Israel.  And that war has hurt the entire world's economy, making the US even more unpopular in other lands. 

All of this has happened because the Republican congress has just let Trump get away with almost everything, and our Supreme Court has also barely stood up to him.  And even when the court does, it's nothing to proud of: Trump's executive order striking down birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th amendment, was overruled recently by the Supreme Court.  But it was only a 5-4 decision, meaning that a near majority of judges on the court are open to overturning what has been a bedrock right since the amendment was first passed in 1886.  

Add to that the unprecedented way that Trump has made over 2 billion dollars in one year, mostly from a crypto currency company he started before being sworn in, and you can see the stain that this man has put on the presidency.  While some of the damage he's done can be repaired by the next president, it will be hard to win back the good will our country has lost with our allies.

But I will end this essay on a positive note: a short distance from when I live in San Francisco is the Chinese Consulate.  Often when I walk by there, I see people protesting by sitting on the sidewalk, (without blocking foot traffic) and meditating.  They are practicing the religion of  Falun Gong, a religious movement that began in China in the 1990's, which was formally banned by the government in 1999.  That banning has lead to mass arrests of people who were just peacefully following their religious beliefs.  Every time I think about how much damage Trump has done to the country and the world, I try to remind myself that at least this country doesn't lock people up just for meditating.  And I also think about how around half of the people in the world today live in undemocratic countries with authoritarian rule.  And I realize that the US, even with all the terrible things Trump has done,  could be much worse than it is today.  That may not be much comfort, but it's something!