Claiming that a government supports terrists sounds an awful lot like the old "but they're commies!" line. It looks like a cover story for bad, old imperialism. It walks like a cover story for bad, old imperialism. And it smells like a cover story for bad, old imperialism.
Now, perhaps I could take the cry of "terrists!" a little more seriously if The West(TM) were all gung-ho for taking out the Saudi royal family (who certainly do support terrorists), gave even the slightest hint that they might stop supporting the various and sundry terrorist militias murdering labour union members in Columbia or perhaps showed a little regard for combating terrorism in countries that don't have oil, gas or a strategically important geography. As it is, though... not so much.
Quite apart from that, there's the fact that Al Qaeda is not, never was and isn't going to be a credible threat to The West(TM) until and unless they get their grubby hands on a tactical nuke (which they won't do in Somalia). And arguably not even then.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Oh. Right...
The oil stuff seems very unclear, small scale and uninteresting. And it seems to be generally offshore. If it's offshore it doesn't matter if they are fighting a civil war or not as they can't get to the platforms anyway. Compare with the oil offshore Angola (IIRC) during the war. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Of course, in this case the place is so fucked up that it's not safe to operate, which probably wasn't part of the plan.
And of course, the closer to shore the cheaper to drill. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
And there is fish.
But by your standards of imperialism, what do you call it when the empires divided inner Sahara into different colonies? Or for that matter the division of Antarctic into territorial claims? Is it only imperialism when it is clear what the emperor wants from the conquered territories? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
