Scott Horton Interviews Michael Klare
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Michael Klare, professor and author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, discusses his article “Is Barack Obama Morphing Into Dick Cheney;” the Bush and Obama administrations’ striking policy similarities on oil geopolitics; peak oil theory and the disappearance of “easy” oil; Cheney’s National Energy Policy of 2001, which adivsed more oil imports from Africa; and Obama’s expansion of AFRICOM to pursue terrorist threats on the continent (of course limited to the oil-producing regions).
MP3 here. (19:22)
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, a TomDispatch regular, and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. A documentary movie version of his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation. His newest book, The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources, is due out in March.
eCAHNomics
June 25th, 2012 at 6:19 am
What's the beef between Turkey & Assad.
George W. Bush
June 25th, 2012 at 9:09 am
The US has 2 trillion barrels of shale oil under her ground. There is no need to go to war over oil the US just needs to develop those resources.
Bruce Richardson
June 26th, 2012 at 4:37 am
Bravo Professor Klare! Here is a man who really get's it. A shame he does not work for the administration. Although if he had, he would probably end up on the business-end of a Drone missile.
Ando Arike
June 26th, 2012 at 4:41 am
Dear Scott — I'm a big fan of your show and was pleased that you had Michael Klare on to present his expertise on oil geopolitics. Since early in the last decade, Klare has given us invaluable analysis of how the U.S. military is responding to prospect of "peak oil" — which, according to Pentagon documents, it considers a genuine threat. What I don't understand is how you can so easily dismiss Peak Oil, and all the evidence that attests to its reality. Are we part of the "reality-based community" or what? The simple, incontrovertible fact that U.S. oil production peaked and began to decline around 1970 — setting off a cascade of repercussions that continue to shape global politics — this fact seems to indicate that the prospect of Peak Oil must be taken seriously. All of the data show steep declines in the production rates of some of our major sources of petroleum — Mexico, the North Sea, Alaska — and even Saudi Arabia cannot increase its production as it once could. Why would Big Oil want to drill in the Arctic or in two miles of ocean if more easily accessible sources weren't running dry? As Peak Oil journalists often put it: "All the low hanging fruit has been plucked." The long-term trend is that oil will get dearer and dearer — and that the U.S., which uses 25% of global production (with 4% of global population), will go to greater and greater lengths to secure supplies, bankrupting itself in the process. As Klare's work since his book Blood and Oil has shown, Peak Oil is what has been driving the Empire's geopolitical strategy for the past quarter century, if not longer… What I don't understand is the general tendency of libertarians to dismiss the idea that Earth is a finite planet and oil is a finite resource, like so many of the other resources that we're squandering so profigately… Peace, AA
ps — Regarding U.S. "shale oil" and gas deposits, recent news stories indicate that many of the claims about "U.S. energy independence" are merely industry hype, P.R. to lure investors into the Ponzi scheme…. see http://www.energybulletin.net/
Wolfgang
July 8th, 2012 at 9:08 am
Did y'all catch where Scott pointed out to Michael Klare that the think tank intellectuals are just sock puppets for the oil companies and the military industrial complex? It seemed as though Michael Klare had overlooked that.
Troy Polamalu
October 17th, 2012 at 10:16 pm
Imbeciles like Abdulhamid are the useful idiots that are needed to make the murder more palatable. "Hey, look how this guy from the ME supports our point of view despite his being Muslim". Hidden in his verbal diarrhea is the total lack of concern for the suffering of millions. I suppose this Uncle Tom is so grateful of being part of the intellectual elite that he has to "be more Catholic than the Pope".
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