Alternative fuels, Liberal nostrums and the law of unintended consequences

As of Yet, Nowhere Near the Answer

Let us take as a wistful notion that the miraculous were to occur, and that tomorrow we were to awaken in possession of a new energy source, one that with little to no transitional pang could immediately replace the petroleum upon which we now so stringently rely.

A great new day surely will have dawned; but, so too a brave new world with which we would have to deal. What to become of the Middle East states whose sole or primary source of income stems from that which lies beneath their feet?

As always, to best attempt to prophesize that which is to come one must more fully grasp that which has passed. The parts of Asia that sat upon the number one commodity of the 20th Century have become the singular focal point and launching pad of global evil at the dawn of the 21st. As a result, our attentions have only now been brought there, after having spent the better part of the last one hundred years staring at and down the Russian Bear to their north.

Aplenty, But Hoarded Amidst the Taps

The riches that attend to the bringing of such petroleum abundancies to market should long ago have had the entire region awash in cash, with a living standard that would find ours Spartan by comparison. But as we know, this is hardly the case.

There is opulence to be found, but it is concentrated in a select, often corrupt few, while the vast majority of the Middle East citizenry continue to struggle hopelessly in near or abject poverty. Such are the conditions on the ground that fester, and foster the willingness to end one’s current, miserable existence in exchange for a promised virgin-rich sumptuousness to come.

These lucky few, this band of affluent brothers, have for decades on end, in order to pacify or distract their respective populaces, sewn the racist and sectarian seeds of internal discord and external strife.

'Tis Natural

It is inherently human to look outward for excuses for one’s own failings, as it is to endeavor to deflect one’s culpabilities for one’s misdeeds. There are always bogeymen aplenty to whom to improperly ascribe one’s atrocious situation or actions.

It is no different in Arab culture or within the Islamic faith.

These peoples’ nations were producing mass quantities of petroleum in dismal dearth long before Israel alighted the map in 1947, yet it is the Jews and their state that are always cited as Reason One for their plight. So, too, is it the fault of America, who had the temerity to help build for these states the infrastructure necessary for their oil extraction, and then pay oft-manipulated prices for the product that without them would remain beyond its possessors’ reach.

The thugocracies that rule these roosts are of all permutative stripes; secular as in Egypt or Syria, fundamentalist as in Iran. (That some of these do not possess but scant petroleum reserves does not prevent them from playing these heinous games of self-perpetuation.) But they uniformly share two distinguishing and defining characteristics; they are all authoritarian, and they are all of one or another Muslim extraction.

But Another Font of Arabian State Sponsored Truth

This is not an exercise in Islam vilification. I am merely pointing out that one of the totalitarian tools at these dictators’ disposal is the exploitation of their subjects’ devotion. They also proffer virulent anti-Jewism and anti-Americanism in government sponsored schools and “news” media, along with ample editorial analysis of why these vilified peoples and nations are responsible for the sorry state of these sorry states.

All to better obfuscate the fact that the one Jewish nation and the Great Satan have not prohibited those delivering this message from triumphing magnificently as a result of their co-engaging in petroleum commerce.

(Please stay tuned for Part II.)