Michael Hirsh of Newsweek has written a rather convoluted online
column where he starts out by saying that globalization will not necessarily trump the state where it comes to oil resources.
He even brings up the issue of Peak Oil. But for this diary, I just want to lament, once more, the total incompetence of the current administration:
Quietly an understanding of this power shift in the world is growing in Washington, as well. The price shock after Hurricane Katrina, especially--not to mention the plummeting poll numbers that followed for Bush--led administration officials to understand just how fragile U.S. economic security has become because of energy.
-more below-
Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale knew this. Al Gore wrote a book about it. Hey, I knew this fifteen years ago. But the current guy remains clueless and helpless. When I consider that he and Cheney are oilmen, it's enough to make me go to conspiracy theories. Hirsh never brings up this remarkable failing, though, and he is equally silent on the current Secretary of State's complete failure to pick up the role of Russia:
At the same time, U.S. officials have come to realize that there is deep anger and enmity in the Kremlin against the United States (particularly over U.S. efforts to win Ukraine and Georgia to the West), and that Putin has his own agenda.
Hey, wasn't Rice supposed to be the specialist on Russia?
Hirsh considers, and rejects, the possibility that Iraq will save us:
But after three years of explosive anger against the U.S. occupation, it would be foolish to think that the Iraqi government, too, won't catch the nationalist bug that's spreading worldwide, in what appears to be an outgrowth of both antiglobalization sentiments and anti-Americanism.
The conclusion of the article is pretty much: we're screwed.
Washington appears as helpless in preparing for this crisis as it did in anticipating Hurricane Katrina.
I want to amend that to say the Bush Administration rather than Washington!
I know I should be looking ahead and thinking about what can be done both politically and financially. But, for one last time I want to lament: the wrong person is in the White House. Al Gore understood this issue and had ideas on how to meet the problem. And the media that ridiculed him still cannot connect the dots of the Bush administration's incompetence and the ongoing decline of the United States.