Oil makes for a messy alliance
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Oil makes for a messy alliance
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Posted: July 24, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Our Founding Fathers had concerns about certain types of "alliances." In his farewell address, President George Washington declared, "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world ... "
During his second term, Washington believed our country was so vulnerable, our very existence required a treaty with either Great Britain or France. Washington was fiercely independent in every sense of the word, so this was a reflection of how seriously he took our precarious situation. Lest we forget, George Washington was a cold, hard realist and not even his ingrained biases could stand in the way of seeing the world for what it was. We had just come out of a war with Great Britain and there was much animosity and distrust. On the other hand, the French supported us during the War for Independence.
Seems like a no-brainer.
Our country was young, relatively weak militarily and was experiencing considerable problems here in our new home with the Native American Indians, Spanish, French and English – all hopeful of monetizing and controlling the enormous trade opportunities in our western frontiers offered thanks to our plentiful natural resources.
To the surprise of many, Washington signed the Jay Treaty with the British. A highly controversial move to be sure, President Washington thought our commercial and military interests were best served with that alignment. The Jay Treaty repudiated the Franco-American alliance and aligned America's commercial interests with British markets and received the protection of the British fleet. Our hearts may have been with the French, but this could not trump the survival instinct of the father of our country.
We need to heed that lesson today. Objective, non-PC realism, combined with a primal survival instinct, may save us from entangling alliances with the United Nations and oil-producing countries.
Washington abhorred permanent foreign entanglements and warned us of that fact in his farewell address. Thomas Jefferson, a man with polar opposite views on the role of the federal government, felt no different than Washington: "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."
It was a maxim, even back at our nation's founding, that countries act in their self-interests and no one should ever expect anything more. The world has never been a feel-good, let's hold hands, share our feelings and good-will kind of place. Nations are out for themselves and that's fine, as long as you never forget that fact. Treaties are distractions. The United Nations is a head-fake. Countries have and always will look out for what they perceive to be their own interests. Not "well meaning" interests. Not "agreed upon" interests. Their interests.
When we look at the world today, we see there are alliances based upon shared philosophies (The U.S., Israel, Great Britain, Japan, Australia; Islamo-fascists are binding together in Iran and Syria; Communists such as Cuba, China, Russia and Venezuela; and so on) but countries also come together as a result of commerce.
The successful economies of the world today run on oil. Oil has become so crucial to everyday life that deprivation of that source of energy is as serious as a nuclear war. And oil producing countries know it.
Oil has become an entangling alliance for our country in the 21st century. Without fully developing our own domestic sources of oil, we are as vulnerable today as we were when Washington was president. Military threats were our primary concern back then. With the ingrained hesitancy of the West to act outside their own borders even when defending themselves, commerce has taken a more significant role in a country's national defense.
The oil producers sell oil – which has an inflated selling price when tensions run high, and don't think they don't know that – to oil dependent nations. Oil producers have figured out that war in the Middle East is a good thing. It has become their dream come true. Countries like Iran can actively try to spread their special brand of fascism, threaten Israel's existence and get filthy rich in the process. And because oil is a commodity, the instability in the Middle East is a windfall to far off countries like Venezuela and Russia.
China, which has both commercial and military treaties/alliances with Iran, has also been enjoying the show. China wants to rule the world, but they prefer to do it without firing a shot – see Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" for further reference.
Our "addiction to oil" as President Bush has called it, has caused us to enter into permanent entanglements. How smart those Founding Fathers were.
We can't and shouldn't end alliances with our friends and business partners. But, if they become permanent entanglements, don't be surprised when things get messy. Things have gotten messy.
Oil is not causing global warming, but it is causing permanent alliances and entanglements with countries hostile to our interests. Hostile to our way of life. We are at the mercy of a wildly over-priced life-sustaining commodity and many of our enemies are getting filthy rich thanks to our failure to develop our own oil reserves. We must never pursue isolationist politics, but it is in our nation's self-interest to pursue isolationist commercial policies when it comes to oil. We cannot continue to fund terrorist regimes.
That entangling alliance will be our downfall. Don't say we weren't warned.
Oil makes for a messy alliance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: July 24, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Our Founding Fathers had concerns about certain types of "alliances." In his farewell address, President George Washington declared, "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world ... "
During his second term, Washington believed our country was so vulnerable, our very existence required a treaty with either Great Britain or France. Washington was fiercely independent in every sense of the word, so this was a reflection of how seriously he took our precarious situation. Lest we forget, George Washington was a cold, hard realist and not even his ingrained biases could stand in the way of seeing the world for what it was. We had just come out of a war with Great Britain and there was much animosity and distrust. On the other hand, the French supported us during the War for Independence.
Seems like a no-brainer.
Our country was young, relatively weak militarily and was experiencing considerable problems here in our new home with the Native American Indians, Spanish, French and English – all hopeful of monetizing and controlling the enormous trade opportunities in our western frontiers offered thanks to our plentiful natural resources.
To the surprise of many, Washington signed the Jay Treaty with the British. A highly controversial move to be sure, President Washington thought our commercial and military interests were best served with that alignment. The Jay Treaty repudiated the Franco-American alliance and aligned America's commercial interests with British markets and received the protection of the British fleet. Our hearts may have been with the French, but this could not trump the survival instinct of the father of our country.
We need to heed that lesson today. Objective, non-PC realism, combined with a primal survival instinct, may save us from entangling alliances with the United Nations and oil-producing countries.
Washington abhorred permanent foreign entanglements and warned us of that fact in his farewell address. Thomas Jefferson, a man with polar opposite views on the role of the federal government, felt no different than Washington: "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."
It was a maxim, even back at our nation's founding, that countries act in their self-interests and no one should ever expect anything more. The world has never been a feel-good, let's hold hands, share our feelings and good-will kind of place. Nations are out for themselves and that's fine, as long as you never forget that fact. Treaties are distractions. The United Nations is a head-fake. Countries have and always will look out for what they perceive to be their own interests. Not "well meaning" interests. Not "agreed upon" interests. Their interests.
When we look at the world today, we see there are alliances based upon shared philosophies (The U.S., Israel, Great Britain, Japan, Australia; Islamo-fascists are binding together in Iran and Syria; Communists such as Cuba, China, Russia and Venezuela; and so on) but countries also come together as a result of commerce.
The successful economies of the world today run on oil. Oil has become so crucial to everyday life that deprivation of that source of energy is as serious as a nuclear war. And oil producing countries know it.
Oil has become an entangling alliance for our country in the 21st century. Without fully developing our own domestic sources of oil, we are as vulnerable today as we were when Washington was president. Military threats were our primary concern back then. With the ingrained hesitancy of the West to act outside their own borders even when defending themselves, commerce has taken a more significant role in a country's national defense.
The oil producers sell oil – which has an inflated selling price when tensions run high, and don't think they don't know that – to oil dependent nations. Oil producers have figured out that war in the Middle East is a good thing. It has become their dream come true. Countries like Iran can actively try to spread their special brand of fascism, threaten Israel's existence and get filthy rich in the process. And because oil is a commodity, the instability in the Middle East is a windfall to far off countries like Venezuela and Russia.
China, which has both commercial and military treaties/alliances with Iran, has also been enjoying the show. China wants to rule the world, but they prefer to do it without firing a shot – see Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" for further reference.
Our "addiction to oil" as President Bush has called it, has caused us to enter into permanent entanglements. How smart those Founding Fathers were.
We can't and shouldn't end alliances with our friends and business partners. But, if they become permanent entanglements, don't be surprised when things get messy. Things have gotten messy.
Oil is not causing global warming, but it is causing permanent alliances and entanglements with countries hostile to our interests. Hostile to our way of life. We are at the mercy of a wildly over-priced life-sustaining commodity and many of our enemies are getting filthy rich thanks to our failure to develop our own oil reserves. We must never pursue isolationist politics, but it is in our nation's self-interest to pursue isolationist commercial policies when it comes to oil. We cannot continue to fund terrorist regimes.
That entangling alliance will be our downfall. Don't say we weren't warned.
posted by shummer60 at Monday, July 24, 2006
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