A recent editorial in the Washington Post is yet another example of just how serious the blindness is in America with regards to the effects of their foreign policies.

The article concerns Kerry's statement during his acceptance speech about making America energy independent in general and specifically independent of middle eastern oil.

"We value an America that controls its own destiny because it's finally and forever independent of Mideast oil . . . our energy plan will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future, so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East."

While the article in general points to some steps that Kerry could take to improve America's energy footprint it also makes this incredible statement (emphasis mine):

But however appealing it may be to voters, even the candidate is by some accounts well aware that "energy independence" is a fiction. To put it bluntly, the United States consumes far more energy than it produces. For the near future, and certainly well beyond the eight years Mr. Kerry could be president, there is no possibility of genuine energy independence, nor is it clear that that is a worthwhile goal. Oil is an internationally traded commodity; there is no intrinsic value to oil drilled here, as opposed to Qatar or the North Sea; we do not speak of "plastic independence" or "textile independence," so why energy?

Yes the US consumes far more energy than it produces but that statement is based on a petroleum balance sheet and so long as it remains a petroleum economy then energy independence is indeed unattainable, but who says it has to remain a petroleum economy. Even in the short term while we bring on new technologies to move us away from petroleum there are other technologies that could keep us using petroleum longer while reducing a dependency on foreign sources. Lets not forget the recent advances that have been made in thermal de-polymerization that could substantially decrease every country's dependence on external petroleum sources while simultaneously solving their organic waste disposal problems, a trade off in the short term that should have environmentalists eager to pursue this technology but sadly they seem to be ignoring it.

Next the author goes on to question whether reducing America'[s dependency on foreign oil is even a worthwhile goal and to support that bit of nonsense tries to make the point that it's all just a business, a market, let the market decide the pricing and availability of oil. This of course conveniently ignores the fact that the countries that control the majority of the world's oil supplies are also home to increasingly large numbers of islamacists who want to export their fundamentalist misinterpretation of Islam to the rest of the world and will use any tactic to do so. These groups exert a steadily growing influence on general populations and governments throughout the Middle East and in some cases are the governments, whether de facto or de jure. This process can not be halted from without but only from within. Foreign intervention only increases their hold on their various populations.

Failure to achieve independence, by whatever means, from those supplies ultimately puts much of America's foreign energy supplies under the control of people who hate America, not under control of a freely operating pure market. Logic, self preservation and good market sense will play very little importance in their petroleum policies. How to damage or destroy the enemies of their religious fundamentalism will play an ever larger role in the petroleum policies of those countries in direct correlation to the degree their influence in their countries grows.

The author also shows a lack of understanding on how deep into the economy petroleum penetrates when he says "we do not speak of "plastic independence" or "textile independence," so why energy?" For one thing you couldn't have independence of either of those industries without petroleum independence because the majority of plastics and fabrics today are directly derived from petroleum. Petroleum, unlike plastics or textiles, is the economy. Without it the entire economy will suffer a catastrophic failure and a quite rapid one at that.

Whoever wrote that article should sue the schools they attended for failing to do their duty of educating him. He has completely ignored geopolitics in his editorial. Petroleum independence not a worthwhile goal? Hell it's the only rational goal unless of course you intend to invade and "conquer" all those oil producing states (not that you would have a hope in hell of actually accomplishing that). This of course is the real problem and the one Kerry should have addressed in his speech but didn't. What he should have addressed is the utter failure of US foreign relations and how that has produced the hatred of the US (despite what Rove et. al. want you to believe the islamacist terrorists do not envy American democracy and freedoms. Those things are an anathema to their perverted interpretation of Islam) so prevalent in the Middle East.

As Jonathon so nicely pointed out the other day

On January 28, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, testified at a House Armed Services Committee hearing that 322,000 US soldiers are deployed or forward stationed in over 120 countries. As Hartcher notes, the United States:

…accounts for 5 per cent of the world’s population, 20 per cent of the world economy, and fully 50 per cent of global defence spending. It is structured for war.

In the 228 years since it declared independence, the US has made 200 military interventions abroad, says the Congressional Research Service, an average of one every 14 months.

It has much less experience in introducing democracy than it does in waging war, incidentally. It has made 16 attempts, of which four have succeeded, says the Washington-based journal Foreign Policy.

The journal defines success as the survival of a functioning democratic system 10 years after the first US intervention. The success stories? Japan, Germany, Panama and Grenada.

Of the 43 presidents in the history of the US, about a quarter, 11 of them, have been former generals or military leaders. This is not a judgment but an observation: with this structure, this history, and this tradition of leadership, the US is a martial nation. And whoever is elected president on November 2, this is not going to change.

In this light, it’s difficult to take seriously John Kerry’s promise to “bring back this nation’s time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to.”

In other words, the US has gone to war—not because it wanted to, but because it had to—once every 14 months for the last 228 years.

Indeed. By the way, before I continue this rant you really should go and read Jonathon's wonderful article Patriotism and the Martial State because the next point he makes is critical

That the US has to go to war, not in the sense that Kerry uses—of being forced by external circumstances—but rather because, as one of Maruya’s characters in Grass for My Pillow, suggests: “The state has no other objective other than that of making war.”

America exemplifies that behavior more than any other western nation state in history, except the Roman empire and it is this behavior that is the primary cause of all of America's woes. You can not expect the world to respect you if you go to war every 14 months throughout your history, largely in order to push the economic agendas of your corporations. Fear you yes, respect you no. What Kerry should have said while standing on that stage last week is:

Those are real democratic values. Coming on stage, saluting and stating you're reporting for duty belongs in the camp of those who want to make war not peace. I didn't know Kerry was really a Republican.