Re: some musings on oil, war, and empire

Alan and others, in our attempt to analyze the present
situation we may want to keep in mind the following:

1) the capitalist world-system is a political and
economic system.  Oil is a commodity, but it is also a
geopolitical assett as well.  Flooding troops into a
region that contains the largest known reserves of
crude oil is a good source of leverage over other
future hegemons (Europe and East Asia).  Check out
Robert Gilpin's "The Political Economy of
International Relations" on this issue.

2) capitalists have learned over time to accumulate
money not only from land and labor, but from fear as
well.  The military-industrial-complex is a major
capitalist player with an appetite that has surpassed
even the most varocious capitalist carnivores.  Fear
is this monster's most important nutrient.  The
incredible amount of waste and destructive power of
this beast is also capitalism's gloomy side that few
of us have incorporated into our analysis.  It is also
why so many of us critics believe that capitalism is
an irrational and insane social system.  It produces
poison and toxins under the false pretense of
nutrition.  The pending war with Iraq is part of this
irrational and destructive drive to accumulate for the
sake of accumulation.

3) for the reasons of why people may support this war,
one useful explanation is that capitalism emasculates
humanity by turning us into an ineffective,
spiritualess mass.  War gives a false sense of
empowerment and masculinization in a world lacking
healthy social empowerment.

There are other reasons, some of which we here in the
US and Europe are too afraid to discuss because we
have either accepted it or fear to discuss because of
the fear of reprisal of being labeled in some negative
terms.  Please do not ask me what that may be.

Khaldoun


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