Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed has written the most down to earth, comprehensive description of the situation in the Middle East that I have read. I hope Daily Kos readers will take time to read this article at truthout. It connects the food and fuel crises to energy policy and climate change and makes the case that we have to address these issues along with the imperative of democracy because dictatorship is what keeps oil empire going.
http://www.truth-out.org/...
The Great Unravelling: Tunisia, Egypt, and the Protracted Collapse of the American Empire
Tuesday 01 February 2011
by: Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
... So much of the current supply shortages have been inflicted by increasingly erratic weather events and natural disasters, which climate scientists have long warned are symptomatic of anthropogenic global warming.
... The global food situation has been compounded by the over-dependence of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels, consuming ten calories of fossil fuel energy for every one calorie of food energy produced.
...The fuel price hikes, combining with the predatory activities of financial speculators trying to rake-in profits by investing in the commodity markets, have underpinned worldwide inflation. Just as in 2008, the worst effected have been the poorer populations of the South. Thus, the eruption of political unrest in Egypt and elsewhere cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the context of accelerating ecological, energy and economic crises – inherently interconnected problems which are symptomatic of an Empire in overstretch, a global political economy in breach of the natural limits of its environment.