Bush administration, Russia, oil and democracy

[RightIsWrong]

I find it appalling how this administration will say and do anything to continue to "get a fix" for it's oil addiction.

First, we dont' do a damned thing to Saudi Arabia after 9/11 even though 13 of the 19 hijackers were from there or entered the US from there. Then, there were bank and phone records that showed contact between a hijacker and members of the Saudi royal family.

Next, we conjur up an imminent attack that will surely destroy the world as we know it if we don't overthrow Saddam and his stockpiles of WMD. I think we all know how that turned out even though some of us are still in denial.

NOW, we have Cheney's remarks about Russia and how they are monopolizing oil trade and blackmailing others with the threat of not getting enough supply.

Russia's response:

"We have heard comments like this from the mouths of politicians of a lower rank, but the vice president of the United States probably should have information that in the last 40 years our country has not once ? neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ? violated a single contract for the supply of oil and gas abroad," Lavrov said in an acerbic statement on the ministry's Web site.

"Obviously this information somehow hasn't been brought to the vice president's attention."

But wait kiddies, there's more. He then goes to Kazakhstan to propose building a pipeline that will bypass Russia. Sounds like a decent idea until you read about some of the things Kazakhstan has done recently and what Cheney and others in the administration have had to say about the country's leadership show what whores for oil that they truly are.

Quoting Ol' Dead Eye and another admin official:

Asked afterward his opinion of democracy in Kazakhstan, the vice president endorsed the Nazarbayev government without qualification. "I have previously expressed my admiration for what has transpired here in Kazakhstan over the past 15 years," he said, "both in terms of economic development as well as political development."

..............

"Kazakhstan, an economic success story, is rapidly becoming one of the top energy producing nations in the world," Boucher told a House committee on April 26.

Along with its economic reforms, Boucher said, the nation "has an opportunity to achieve stability by upholding standards of democracy and human rights."

Some interesting tidbits about Kazakhstan:

President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan was elected in December 2005 for a third six-year term with 91 percent of the vote in an election that international observers said was flawed. Two opposition politicians have been murdered in the last six months.

Kazakhstan produced 1.2 million barrels of oil a day last year but is expected to increase output to 3 million barrels a day by 2015.

...........

The government's human rights record remained poor. Legislation enacted during the year seriously eroded legal protections for human rights and expanded the powers of the executive branch to regulate and control civil society. In particular the extremism law passed in February, election law amendments added in April, and national security amendments enacted in July encroached on political rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and other human rights

..........

American energy companies are heavily invested in that nation's oil industry, and Halliburton, the company Cheney ran before becoming vice president, has an oil-field services presence there.

 

[runzwithsizorz]

Our country has known the problems on depending on foreign oil for over 20 years. Not one administration did anything about it except lip service. Brazil now uses alternative fuel sources. We could have done the same, but not one administration put any effort into the technology to make it happen. Not one administration waged a public campaign to make it happen. Look to history before blaming the present administration for all the "ills of the world" when in reality our energy policy reflects the failures of all our politicians over the past 20 plus years. ditto on the illegal immigration issue.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: runzwithsizorz
Our country has known the problems on depending on foreign oil for over 20 years. Not one administration did anything about it except lip service. Brazil now uses alternative fuel sources. We could have done the same, but not one administration put any effort into the technology to make it happen. Not one administration waged a public campaign to make it happen. Look to history before blaming the present administration for all the "ills of the world" when in reality our energy policy reflects the failures of all our politicians over the past 20 plus years. ditto on the illegal immigration issue.

Our country has known the problems on depending on foreign oil for over 20 years. Not one administration did anything about it except lip service
Jimmy Carter tried to do something about it.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Unfortunately, we don't have a "Wayback Machine" to reverse the wrongs of past administrations. We live in the present and, although others are to blame for the current state of affairs, the only group that can do a damned thing about it are the ones that are in office now. And the only thing that they want to do is line their pockets and those of their friends and families.

I'm guessing that they are banking on "earning" (and I use that term in the loosest of manners) enough money that when we do finally break free from oil (out of necessity not by choice) they will be able to buy major roles in those industries also.

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: runzwithsizorz
Our country has known the problems on depending on foreign oil for over 20 years.

Our problems have nothing to do with a supposed dependency on foreign oil. The consumer goods that we depend on are mostly manufactured elsewhere but no one I've seen screams "addiction" about that. It's all the strings that we self-righteously attach to just about every act of commerce, including oil that makes things far more difficult than they need to be. By all means, develop clean, cheap alternatives to oil, but in the mean time stop lecturing other nations about what they need to do.

 

[CaptnKirk]

China Syndrome

The US side of the Florida Straits divide is off limits to drilling, too much of an enviromental risk.
But that doesn't stop China from striking up deals with Cuba.
Too bad we've wasted allthe time since the 60's giving Cuba the cold shoulder, the world cold have benefitted in so many ways . . .
and Castro would have never lasted this long if the US had not been hostile to diplomacy.