I have a theory about Bush’s now-famous utterance — “‘America is addicted to oil’ and must break its dependence on foreign suppliers in unstable parts of the world” — which I wrote about here four hours before his Tuesday SOTU.
As you all know, parts of Bush’s speeches are “subtext” that mean something to his ‘winger Christian friends, not to us.
What if Bush’s famous phrase about our oil addiction had NOTHING to do with making Americans change their energy consumption — because, as we really know, he’s as interested in oil conservation as we are in tax breaks for the rich — and it instead had EVERYTHING to do with sending a “subtext message” to the Middle East? That he was trying to freak out the Saudis, the Iranians, etc., hinting that we in the U.S. will find a way to fuck them over, and leave their source of wealth in the dust? After all, they’re as dependent on us as we are on them. If they THINK we’re not going to need them, they may panic and act differently. This theory is obliquely alluded to in this news headline from today’s Democracy Now!:
Bush Administration Says Mideast Oil Pledge “Purely an Example”
Just one day after President Bush drew headlines for pledging to reduce the country’s reliance on Middle Eastern oil by 75 percent by the year 2025, two top administration officials said Bush’s promise was not meant literally. In a conference call with reporters, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told reporters the President was giving “purely an example” when he spoke about making dependency on Middle Eastern oil “a thing of the past.” Bodman, speaking alongside Presidential adviser Dan Bartlett, said President Bush really meant that alternative energy could take the place of the amount oil the US is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025. An administration official told Knight Ridder the President used the words “the Middle East” only so he could illustrate the issue in way that “every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands.”
I can’t wait for all the blogger “oil experts” to tell me I’m just “silly.” But what better way to put the Saudis, Iranians, Iraqis, etc. — especially those Iranians with a penchant for fabulously insane rhetoric but who depend for gas imports (at 50% per annum) — ON NOTICE that they’d BETTER PLAY NICE. Or else. Hit ’em where it hurts: In a drying up of revenue streams to their Swiss bank accounts. And today’s clarification reported by DN!? Merely a further clarification — intended for the MidEast powers-that-be — of how Bush is (at least theoreticallly) threatening their strongholds and their money sources.
Look back at the first paragraph quote. “…in unstable parts of the world …” That’s a WARNING to the MidEast to crack down and get its renegade extremists UNDER CONTROL. Now. Otherwise, we have all the technology we need to leave you in the sand.
Their funds won’t dry up. They’ll just sell their oil to China and other developing nations.
Yes, but … I think it’s a lot more complicated than that … they can’t just drop us as a market and thrive.
For one thing, they need us to remain a superpower to balance out China … otherwise a new superpower CHINA will simply seize their oil fields and they’ll be less nice about it than the U.S. has been.
Yeah, their f’d either way. Sorry, feeling a bit grumpy today. Woke up at 2am and could not get back to sleep. I don’t think BushCo is that smart. Hope we didn’t give them a new spin…lol! just kidding Susan. Nothing surprises me anymore. Calling Jerome…
Jerome’ll almost surely call me “silly.” That’s what he does when he dismisses others’ theories.
But — for one thing — I know I’m right because Bush is SICK of the nutjobs in the MiddleEast and he wants those governments to get HARD on them. If he has to threaten them with non-oil reliance, so be it….
now, if they believe him, that’s another thing. But it is an otherwise rather astonishing statement for a playboy Texas oilman, with all his BIG OIL buddies, to make.
And maybe the corporations put him up to it. “Threaten those assholes,” the corps. told him. “We’re sick of their extremists blowing up our contractors and kidnapping and beheading our workers. We want nice, safe digs in the MidEast for our oil people. And we NEED stable governments … not nutjobs threatening to build nuclear bombs!”
Well Bush’s “addiction to oil” is now a ‘never mind, he didn’t mean it.’ link here (via warandpeace).
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13767738.htm
Now was that before or after OPEC called?
“OPEC issues Warning on Bush oil pledge”
link here
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/8d5c9580-9368-11da-a978-0000779e2340.html
Just wonderin’
and it’s not like our energy independence is any closer than 10 years anyway. it’s an empty threat if ever there was one.
I think we need their oil more than they need our dollars. Wasn’t most of Iraq’s oil reserves sold off and privatized by the Bremer Foundation right after the invasion? BushCo & friends pretty much own the Iraqi oil so he wouldn’t be threatening them.
But if they can’t operate in Iraq because of all the insurgent nutjobs that the Saudis, Syrians, etc., etc. are sending INTO Iraq to blow up oil pipelines, oil trucks, oil contractors?
They need things UNDER control.
… And if those despots don’t get things under control, and stop the oozing at their borders, they’re either going to end up dead, or wasting away in a hell hole at Diego Garcia, or their countries occupied by the U.S.
What if the insurgents blowing up the oil infrastructure are PMCs or mercenaries of global interests? Would he have the same message? It’s been effective to keep oil prices high and the corporations that own Iraq’s oil own oil elsewhere.
The PMCs are guarranteeing that nothing is under control.
Back to the intent of your diary that goes beyond a minor disagreement.
I think you’re exactly right about a subtle message intended for others and not the domestic audience.
Because all of us who keep diligently promoting green and so desiring some real national policy to encourage green growth all sat up straighter in our chairs……then he said shit about switch grass and building better batteries and we all knew he was talking shit to people who don’t have Cable or magazine subscriptions or Universities to go to!
Or reservations .
(sorry, just trying to keep it in people’s heads about who the original “environmentalists” are and that we’re still out there, and active, esp on this issue)
BushCo policy and propaganda and diplomatic negligence vis a vis the Middle East is organized around one single principle, the principle of “provoking unrest, instability, suspicion, and conflict both internal and external throughout the entire region”.
That’s why their messages are so cognitively dissonant to those at whom they’re directed.
BushCo doesn’t care whether the Saudi’s like cooperating with them or not. They’re counting on the fact that the money involved remains the most important factor in the whole thing, even while Cheney and his pet neocons are simultaneously attacking the integrity of the Saudis with reckless and relentless abandon.
There’s no subtlety about Bushco strategy here. They are the the lowest and most brutal sort of extortionists; extorting, ridiculing and humiliating their victis even as they exploit them.
One otherlittle point to keep the Bush rhetoric in perspective. In his stupid speech he talked about reducing oil impotrs from the MidEast by 75% over the next 20 years.
Doing the math;
Only 20% of our oil imports come from the Midle East, So a 75% reductiuon in that 20% comes out to be about a 15% reduction overall. And that 15%, spread out over 20 years, winds up being less than 1% per year.
Now, if the region is already receiving so many billions of dollars now, does anyone really think that a 1% annual reduction is going to have any measurable effect on internal policy within the affected supplier countries? I think not.
I realize I engaged in some “fractured logic” above with this statement;
Certainly a 75% reduction in imports would represent a significant amount of money, but since oil is a fungible commodity such a decline in US imports wouldn’t affect the source countries anyway since they would be selling out at the top of their production capacity to the rest of the world anyway.
And the US, with this “monumental less than 1%drop per year” from the Mideast is still going to be buying more and more energy from somewhere to satisfy it’s insatiable, irresponsible and reckless, unrestrained appetite.
Bush wants the dupes in his base and the rubes across the countryside to think he’s beong tough and authorative with those pesky heathen Arabs. But it’s all a bunch of pure bullshit.
They have to also worry about the exchange to be the upcoming of petro-euros, rather than perto-dollars. If t his is infact becomeing a reality else where, then we are shit out of luck!!!!!! We will hit rock bottom in the market of all things and you know what that means!!!;o( We would be in world of hurt for sure!
Just got KeithO’s newsletter for tonight’s Countdown:
it’s expensive to conquer an oil-rich nation that is FULL OF BELLIGERENTS! and getting INFLUXES of BELLIGERENTS and FANATICS! … if the Saudis, Syrians, Jordanians would just crack down more, it’d cost less … and be a LOT CHEAPER for the oil corporations to grow their industries in Iraq.
I forgot to mention in my story that Amy Goodman is broadcasting from Doha, Qatar!
Here’s today’s show — which will be the most fun to watch (video version) — but you can also listen or read the transcripts.
I hate to even suggest this but I rather suspect it was just a goof. As in, it sounded good to the speechwriters and nobody ever bothered to kick it down the hall to see how it would go over from international allies.
Think about it.. since 1973, with those awful “Honk if you Hate Arabs” bumpsterstickers, Americans think the Middle East supplies all their oil. It doesn’t. It supplies more to Japan than it does to the US.
We get half our oil from ourselves and the rest from countries like Mexico, Venezuela, Norway and Nigeria. Oh yeah AND some from the Middle East.
That line about ME oil was simply for domestic consumption since it “sounds good”.
Pax