[A-List] Both Ways

[Bill Totten]

Clusterfuck Nation

by Jim Kunstler

www.kunstler.com (June 18 2007)



It seems to me you can call the situation in Iraq a lot of things, but
it's not a war. Not at this point, anyway. Call it an unsuccessful
nation-building project, a failed occupation, a botched policing job, a
monkey-in-the-middle clusterfuck. All the US political factions, from
left to right, do the public a disservice by calling it a war, because
it misrepresents what we're doing there.

We're involved in Iraq because we don't want to begin thinking about
modifying our behavior at home. We are desperate to preserve our access
to Middle East oil because that is the only way we can keep running our
society the way we're used to running it. Mostly, we don't want to face
the tragic misinvestments we've made in the infrastructure of happy
motoring, and we don't want to face the inconvenient truth that there
really isn't any combination of alt.fuels that will permit us to keep
running all the cars the way we like to run them. Either we keep getting
the oil or say goodbye to the American Dream Version 2.K.

The public has now decided that this nation's primary mission is to find
some magic way to keep the cars running on a fuel other than gasoline.
Everyone from the greenest greenies to the most medieval-minded Kansas
Republican senator has joined in this collective wish. They are certain
to be disappointed. All the Priuses in the world will not avail to save
the Drive-In Utopia. The public will learn painfully what Iraq is all about.

Every time somebody blames the politicians for this predicament, I'm
reminded that the politicians are actually doing a fine job of
representing what their constituents want. What they want is to not
change their behavior. Not even the science and technology folks want to
think about changing our behavior. They just want to find new ways to
continue the old behavior. They're invested in the triumphal effort to
come up with a happy motoring rescue remedy. Their techno-cred is on the
line. They all want to be the first kid in their housing subdivision to
run a car on dark matter.

So, we've gone to Iraq on the quixotic mission to stabilize-and-pacify
this key territory in the greater region of the Middle East, so we can
keep getting oil imports out of there in a reliable and orderly way, so
we can keep on driving all our cars. And the whole thing has turned out
rather badly.

Now there is another consensus forming. Across the political spectrum,
from the far left to the far right, elected officials are now clamoring
to "stop the war in Iraq". By this they mean get US troops out. What
cracks me up is their juvenile belief that being there is somehow
optional for us, that we can keep on running Wal Mart and Walt Disney
World without paying any price for it in the costs of policing the
Middle East.

If we don't maintain a military presence in Iraq, it is perfectly plain
what will happen: Iran will instantly gain control of the southern Iraq
oil fields. Iraq doesn't have an army anymore. It is incapable of
preventing Iran from acquiring control of its territory. From that
vantage, Iran would also effectively threaten the sovereign existence of
Kuwait - or they could do the same thing that Saddam Hussein set out to
do back in 1990: extract Kuwait's remaining oil by horizontal drilling
across the borderline. Then there is the question of how much
instability Iran could generate next door in the Shia-dominated Persian
Gulf shoreline region of Saudi Arabia, where most of that nation's oil
lies. (Meanwhile, there will be plenty more Iran-inspired mayhem in
Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.)

It seems to me the answer to all this is clear: the first thing the US
has to do is reach a different consensus about our behavior here at
home, starting with the proposition that the happy motoring era must
end. If we're not willing to do that, we're eventually going to lose
both at home and in our struggles abroad. You can be sure that coming
disturbances in the oil markets will make suburban life untenable while
exhaustion and bankruptcy breaks our military.

The air waves and internet sites are full of blather now about ending
the "war" and bringing the troops home. The presidential candidates are
agonizing over their various positions on the Iraq adventure. I'd like
to hear one of them tell me how Atlanta is going to function without
Middle Eastern oil, or how Wal Mart will move its merchandise from San
Pedro to Lansing without a "warehouse on wheels", or how the thousands
of yellow school bus fleets will carry on next September.

Actually, instead, I'd like to hear talk about drastically reforming our
zoning laws to discourage any more suburban development or a pitch to
allow some of our tax money to fund a US passenger rail revival. I'd
like to see a candidate refuse to attend a Nascar race on the grounds
that it's an unconscionably stupid fucking waste of energy resources.
I'm waiting for one of these birds to tell the American people the
truth: you can't have it both ways. you can't get our military out of
the Middle East without changing the way we live.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/


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