One thought on “Bush’s Strategy Speech”

  1. Crank, you might want to consider becoming Bush’s speechwriter. You mentioned he should start bringing specifics into issues, as FDR and Reagan did. However, FDR was a brilliant man, who understood both the broad view and the finer points. Reagan cared less of the specifics, but understood how the small details mattered when they disrupted his larger view. To me, Bush is far more like James Buchanan–a man who never quite grasped this his fixing the Kansas slave state election might lead down the road to something far more damaging (or just didn’t care).
    The War on Terror has its roots not on Muslim/Christian (and Jewish) relations, it’s not about the Palestinians, who never really existed in anyone’s minds (including the Ottomans) until 1967, it’s not refighting the Crusades. It’s about oil. A commodity desperately needed in the modern world. It’s reasonably priced, even now, portable, and packs lots of BTUs (or calories, depends on where you are from). They have it, we need it, and the real question is, who Over There is going to control it. Muslim Fundamentalism is about who will hold the Power over one of the planets most important resources. So Bush, just as every president since that fool Carter has done, has fought battles in this war on their terms.
    The first salvo was the Oil Embargo in the 70’s/ Sept. 11th, and the spike in oil prices, and who controls the Persian Gulf was the second salvo. We still dithered. I think we’ve seen the third salvo, and it’s not from the middle east. Russia cannot be permitted to cut off so many energy supplies without consequence. The global economy game is now being played by the US, Canada, Japan, China, India, Australia, Israel, much of Western Europe, most of Central Europe, and as usual, Africa and South America lag behind. Russia never wanted in, they wanted, as their culture has dictated for centuries, the ability to project its power on its terms. The right answer back is not to consider attacks on the War on Terror as the answer. It’s to develop a coherent, unified energy policy for the nations and cultures that have decided to band together in economic force (political ones come later); this is a long term strategy, and the solution is to let those nations producing what must become a 20th century version of whale oil and coal eat their oil.
    We won’t get it, but the real call for this nation is a full, coherent energy policy, based on any non-petroleum sources. Wind, nuclear, fusion, solar, a beanstalk, whatever. Wow, Crank, your speech got me going. Maybe you should run.

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