Oil Politics: Wars, More Floods, More Heat and Suffering — Everywhere
World War II America conserved petroleum / gasoline by urging Americans to share car driving. Poster printed by the Government Printing Office for the Office of Price Administration. Source: NARA. 1943. Public Domain
Petroleum is the fossil remnant of extremely ancient forests. Its discovery in mid-19th century sparked the rapid industrialization of Western Europe, Russia, Japan, America; the fueling of 2 World Wars, and the industrialization of India, China and the rest of the world.
More than any other factor, oil continues to fuel wars and, above all, triggers the cosmic warming emergency threatening civilization and the planet.
America’s oil wars
The latest example of America’s thirst for oil is Venezuela. Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Columbia University and advisor of world leaders, reports this month that in the last 20 years the US has been trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela in order to grab the huge oil deposits of the country. “The calls by the US government,” says Sachs, “for escalation [against Venezuela] reflect a reckless disregard for Venezuela’s sovereignty, international law, and human life. A war against Venezuela would be a war that Americans do not want, against a country that has not threatened or attacked the US, and on legal grounds that would fail a first-year law student. Bombing vessels, ports, refineries, or soldiers is not a show of strength. It is the epitome of gangsterism.”
I would argue the same conditions of gangsterism prevail in the wars in Ukraine and Israel. The NATO allies keep arming Ukraine to keep killing its soldiers and Russian troops in a war Ukraine has already lost, but which could at any moment become nuclear war. The US has been the pillar of this hopeless slaughter. And incredibly enough, the European powers willfully ignore the slaughterhouse of the 2 World Wars fought primarily on their countries.
In Israel, biblical strategies guide the policies of Israel and its arms-supplier, America. Possessing nukes and relying on the inexhaustible armaments of America, Israel has been killing and starving mostly Palestinian civilians. Even the Islamic Arab neighbors of Israel remain silent and frozen by the war fighting of Israel in Lebanon, Iran and Syria. Jihadist Turkey has been barking at Israel, pretending to be the protector of Palestinians. Like the war in Ukraine, the war of Israel is endless and self-defeating. Instead, Israel could join Greece and together free Northern Cyprus from Turkish occupation. The result would be a union of Cyprus with Greece and a restauration of Greek........





















Toi Staff
Penny S. Tee
Gideon Levy
Sabine Sterk
Mark Travers Ph.d
Gilles Touboul
John Nosta
Daniel Orenstein