All those battles and arguments about how vital ANWR's oil was to America's liberty, all that vicious froth about how the anarchic eco-terroristic hordes of caribou-loving luddites were unpatriotic, delusional fools, all those visions of an oil-less apocalypse, with abandoned SUV's on the sides of highways, and a War Machine that was out of gas, were a completely cynical ploy, a puppet-show for the masses. We got played.
I suspected it at the time, but it's a hard thing to prove. It's an effective political tactic - pick a high-visibility battle over a specific topic/arena (eg ANWR) and make it a dramatic focal point, pretending that it's essential, when actually it has no tactical significance. That lets you score points with your allies, define the Overton Window, and encourage your opponents to focus all their energy on an uninimportant issue. While they're distracted, you have the freedom to pursue your real interests, uninterrupted.
So what got me thinking about ANWR today? A Washington Post article that Cuba has up to 20 billion barrels of off-shore oil (twice ANWR's estimated reserves), and negotiations to start extraction are beginning.
And why are we hearing about this now? The Obama Administration's detente with Cuba is playing a significant factor, of course. But US oil companies have been interested in getting access to Cuba's oil for awhile. They just were fettered by the Bush Administration. You'd think that during those long dark years under Bush, when an oil crash was imminent, and unless we drilled in ANWR, world freedom and democracy would founder, there would have been some reassessment of trade relations between Cuba and the States.
But no. Miami's anti-Castro Cuban-americans were too essential to the Republican hold on Florida to displease. So when the possibility of actual discussion between Cuba and US oil companies arose, Bush reacted swiftly.
Cuba has said it welcomes U.S. investment, but American companies remain largely silent on the issue, at least in public, bound by trade sanctions that were established under the Kennedy administration. When Cuban oil officials and U.S. companies attended a joint energy conference at an American-owned hotel in Mexico in 2006, the Bush administration forced the facility to expel the Cuban delegation, attempting to thwart any potential for partnership.
An impressive display of party discipline, by the right, especially the oil barons of Texas, who were forced to sit back and watch while other countries with more enlightened attitudes about the free market and the War on Communism negotiated deals with Cuba -
Several global firms, including Repsol (Spain), Petrobras (Brazil) and StatoilHydro (Norway) are exploring in the Gulf of Mexico through agreements with the Castro government, and state companies from Malaysia, India, Vietnam and Venezuela have also signed deals.
But the Texas oil barons, and the US petro-industrial complex knew better then to go against Bush on this. They knew the fight over ANWR was a puppet show. They knew that all the Bush Administration's rants about their fierce commitment to the War on Terror was just a political ploy
ANWR was never about the oil. It was an attack on environmentalism. We fought and won, but to what extent were we distracted by ANWR, while the Bush Administration acheived various other nefarious schemes?
PS, I don't support drilling offshore of Cuba. This diary was about Bushian Hypocrisy. There are significant reasons to be concerned about the risks:
"They'd be drilling right in the Gulf Stream," Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said in a telephone interview, describing a nightmare scenario in which ocean currents could carry spilled crude into Florida's marine sanctuaries and blacken beaches along the Eastern Seaboard.
"There would be a monumental disaster," he said. "There simply should not be drilling out there."