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Banned
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Now, there is an ominous new report that our "oil industry run" government, may be planning a "double or nothing" military move in the M.E., timed with the eve of the midtern, november election in the US:
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...535316,00.html
What War With Iran Would Look Like
A conflict is no longer quite so unthinkable. Here's how the U.S. would fight such a war - and the huge price it would have to pay to win it
By MICHAEL DUFFY
Posted Friday, Sep. 15, 2006
The first message was routine enough: A "Prepare to Deploy" order sent through naval communications channels to a submarine, an Aegis-class cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters. The orders didn't actually command the ships out of port; they just said to be ready to move by Oct. 1. But inside the Navy those messages generated more buzz than usual last week when a second request, from the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), asked for fresh eyes on long-standing U.S. plans to blockade two Iranian oil ports on the Persian Gulf. The CNO had asked for a rundown on how a blockade of those strategic targets might work. When he didn't like the analysis he received, he ordered his troops to work the lash up once again.
What's going on? The two orders offered tantalizing clues. There are only a few places in the world where minesweepers top the list of U.S. naval requirements. And every sailor, petroleum engineer and hedge-fund manager knows the name of the most important: the Strait of Hormuz, the 20-mile-wide bottleneck in the Persian Gulf through which roughly 40% of the world's oil needs to pass each day. Coupled with the CNO's request for a blockade review, a deployment of minesweepers to the west coast of Iran would seem to suggest that a much discussed—but until now largely theoretical—prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran.
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The following, 16 year old reporting, speaks volumes of the decisions that got us here, as well as the Aug. 16, Bush comments in my sig. "Free market" is a euhpemism for selling out the interests of almost all Americans for the enrichment of a corrupt, corporatist class of petroleum and defemse industry interests. 26 years ago, and again in 2004, Voters has another choice, but they voted in reaction to rhetoric of fear and on "maintaining a strong military", and in the 2004 election, Americans did not even face a rival super power to "re=arm", against.
Quote:
DANIEL S. GREENBERG
WASHINGTON
Metro; PART-B; Metro Desk
Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 13, 1990. pg. 3
Daniel S. Greenberg is editor and publisher of Science & Government Report, a Washington-based newsletter.
Count the 1980s as the squandered decade for energy research aimed at reducing America's risky dependence on foreign oil. And credit the loss to the Reagan administration, which gutted the government's energy-research programs-and redeployed much of the savings to nuclear-weapons research. A sager Bush administration has been repairing some of the damage with selective infusions of funds. But in general, energy research remains in the fiscal doldrums.
<h3>The evisceration of the government's energy-research programs was one of the proudest achievements of the Reagan administration, which took the cheery view that the marketplace is the infallible governor of energy production, use, and innovations. Upon taking office, Reagan sought to reverse the big energy-research buildup started by Richard Nixon in response to the 1973 oil crisis and accelerated by Jimmy Carter as his domestic centerpiece.</h3> They aimed to mobilize science to squeeze more power from common fuels and guide the transition to new ones. In the hierarchy of tough research problems, these rank high, and require a lot of time and money.
When Congress thwarted Reagan's pledge to abolish the Department of Energy (DOE), <b>he responded with budget cuts that severely reduced or even eliminated the Department's various civilian energy-research programs. Congress again balked and kept them alive, but for energy research, it was the beginning of a decade of drought that has only partially lifted. The science and engineering grapevine naturally reverberates with news of hot and cold professional opportunities-with the scale invariably linked to the flow of federal money. There's still relatively little money, and therefore no stampede to energy research.
In 1980, the year before Reagan took office, DOE was budgeted for $560 million for solar-energy research and development, in its own laboratories and in universities and industry. When Reagan left office, the solar program was down to $90 million-thanks only to Congress preventing a complete wipeout. Among the items rescued from elimination was the Solar Energy Research Institute, the main federal laboratory for research in that field. The Bush budget for next year calls for a 30 percent boost in solar research, awesome by Gramm-Rudman standards, but the sum is still far below pre-Reagan levels.
Funds for coal research dropped from $755 million to $275 million during the Reagan years; conservation research from $295 million to $190 million, and research on non-solar renewable energies from $273 million to $48 million.</b> Nuclear energy received many heartfelt endorsements from the Reagan administration, which tended toward adoration of big high-tech projects. But here, too, the money record is dismal, with federal research dropping from $1.1 billion in 1980 to $340 million last year.
After a decade of plentiful petroleum, with real prices actually lower than they were 15 years ago, the zip is long gone from America's determination to use its scientific smarts for protection against oil disruptions.
This is evident in the hardpressed, financially shortsighted auto industry, which has persistently resisted higher fuel economy standards. In fact, the current average performance has declined from 28.6 miles per gallon in 1988 to 27.8 in the current model year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
European and Japanese manufacturers, in well-financed anticipation of the next oil crisis, have demonstrated conventional-style, gasoline-powered cars that get around 100 miles per gallon.
It's a well-kept secret if any American manufacturer can match that. Japanese auto manufacturers have also concentrated on packing six cylinders worth of power into economical and smooth-running four-cylinder engines, thus positioning themselves for what may well be a new era of high-priced fuel.
The Reagan-era contention that the marketplace is best for setting research priorities fails to account for the fiscal timidity of many American industries, particularly in financing long-term research. Governments can provide that endurance. That was the purpose of the energy-research programs that the Reagan administration trampled to near-oblivion.
The Bush administration has recognized the need for a comeback. The pace could be quickened. But one can only despair over the prospects of American staying power beyond the current round of Middle East turmoil.
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