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Competition gone badly sounds about right.

http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/japan-oil.htm

Japan is extremely poor in natural resources, and the situation was not much different in the pre-World War II era. Consequently, Japan had to depend on trade heavily to function as a modern nation, and it was a serious and vital issue for Japan to keep all crucial strategic resources, particularly oil, coming in to it from the outside world. If the route for Japan to obtain these materials was cut off, and therefore, the strategic resources were stopped from coming to Japan, there would basically be only two choices left for Japan. One is to lower the level of function as a modern nation to where it could meet the level of domestic productivity for natural resources. And two is to go out actively and find a way to gain what it needed to maintain its function as a modern nation. The conflict and negotiation between the US and Japan in the pre-World War II period illustrates a good example of the case and explains why Japan went to war against the US. The US, the biggest oil supplier for Japan at the time, imposed the oil embargo on Japan in July, 1941, and it helped the Japanese to make up their minds to fight against the Americans. Thus, in a way, the attack on Pearl Harbor was not a surprise one at all; it was a necessary result of the conflict and negotiation.

snip

From 1939 to 1941, the US gradually tightened the level of economic sanction. Ironically, however, such squeeze could not deter Japan’s aggression but rather provoked it to take more aggressive actions instead [11]. The vicious circle of retaliations and eventually resulted in the collapse of the US-Japan relationship.

In 1939, the US notified Japan that it would renounce the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation that was signed by both countries in 1911. President Roosevelt, then, went on to the imposition of partial embargo of gasoline for aircraft and scrap-metal on Japan in July 1940. Japan countered the partial embargo by advancing its troops to the northern Indo-China, and the US matched the Japan’s expansion with the addition of more subjects to the list of partial embargo. This vicious circle of retaliations escalated and reached its peak when Japan moved even into the southern Indo-China in July, 1941 and the US replied to it by freezing the Japanese assets in the US and, furthermore, by the complete oil embargo on Japan [12]. As a result, the Japanese leaders found themselves in an extremely difficult situation in which they had to make their decision out of two options: to bow before the US, or to fight a desperate war against the US.

At the time there were mainly three issues between the US and Japan to be solved in the negotiations [13].

(1) Tripartite Pact of Alliance: The US urged Japan to withdraw from the alliance with Germany and Italy.
(2) Southern Indo-China: The US demanded Japan to withdraw from the southern Indo-China.
(3) China: The US demanded Japan to withdraw from China.

Among these points, there was a room for both countries to come up with compromising plans about the first two issues. However, Cordell Hull, the US Secretary of the State, was very reluctant to make any compromise on the third issue, namely about China. At this point, the Japanese leaders still had a little hope to settle the issues by negotiations so that the war would be avoided. The Japanese side proposed some plans, too. However, the US eventually refused to accept any plans presented by Japan and replied to Japan with the final proposition called the “Hull Note,” which contained only US original demands on issues on November 26th, 1941. As a result, the war became inevitable.

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[quote=Jacarandoso]I don’t agree with the “bullied” part either, in hindsight they must have been on sake.

[/quote]

They hated us for our freedoms

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[quote=KSMountain]

In Iraq, are you saying *we* have killed 100,000 *civilians* and seriously injured 500,000? Can you back that up from a credible source?[/quote]

Does it matter? They were unintentional. And if OBL was going for civilian body count he could have done a myriad of other things. Maybe he was just going after financial and military targets and all civilian killed were unintentional? After all he did hit the towers early in the morning and the side of the Pentagon that was going through renovation. Either way, he was not going for civilian body count. He could have easily hit the Indian point nuclear power plant and done much more damage. Or a sports stadium

Noam Chomsky

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

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[quote=walterwhite]When you act w reckless disregard for human life, you act intentionally.[/quote]

Actually 100,000 is on the very low end that goes up a magnitude of order more which also multiplies by a factor of 5 if you include seriously injured. Do you think all those families with lost loved ones, jobs, homes and critical infrastructure(electricity and water) are sitting around saying “Well, they didn’t intentionally do it.” Collateral damage is scholarly sounding name for oops sorry – which is supposed to make it all better and absolve guilt.

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[quote=briansd1]

The truth is that ending these misguided wars and occupations will make us safer, more prosperous and more free.

I do believe that some wars were necessary but the wars of choice we’ve have been embarking on have been disastrous. .[/quote]

What Ron Paul does not acknowledge is the amount of jobs that were created from the 9/11 economy. It’s a large industry in itself and backing out the housing bubble would probably make it the biggest growth economy of the past decade. Though, I agree in a debt sense(which does not seem to matter or at least hasn’t yet) and in a moral and spiritual sense, we would be much more prosperous without the way things were conducted both militarily and PR wise. Instead, it’s like a metastasizing tumor in our soul and balance sheet that really fuels the justifications for it’s own existence. The way the country is “remembering” 9/11 is the opposite of historical, which is how we should be dealing with it. Putting it into the context of the US’ 20th and 21st century history is what we should be doing, not making a religion of it.

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Immanuel Kant called absolute moral imperatives that are used to carry out immoral acts “a radical evil.” He wrote that this kind of evil was always a form of unadulterated self-love. It was the worst type of self-deception

Now, Robert Pape is the gold standard when it comes to modern terrorism studies. Actually, the world’s leading practitioners of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka–a secular group drawn from Hindu families. 99% of “terrorism” is for political reasons. The CIA has called this “Blow-back”for decades.

A piece written by Ron Paul. Ironically, picked up by on of the most liberal papers in the world. This is something I have been saying for quite some time. We’ve done everything in our power to increase violent reprisals.
http://hawaiinewsdaily.com/2011/09/ron-paul-foreign-occupation-leads-to-more-terror/

Though it is hard for many to believe, honest studies show that the real motivation behind the September 11 attacks and the vast majority of other instances of suicide terrorism is not that our enemies are bothered by our way of life. Neither is it our religion, or our wealth. Rather, it is primarily occupation. If you were to imagine for a moment how you would feel if another country forcibly occupied the United States, had military bases and armed soldiers present in our hometowns, you might begin to understand why foreign occupation upsets people so much. Robert Pape has extensively researched this issue and goes in depth in his book “Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It”. In fact, of 2,200 incidents of suicide attacks he has studied worldwide since 1980, 95% were in response to foreign occupation.

Pape notes that before our invasion of Iraq, only about 10% of suicide terrorism was aimed at Americans or American interests. Since, then however, not only is suicide terrorism greatly on the rise, but 91% of it is now directed at us.

Instead, we chose a course of action that led to the further loss of 8,000 American lives, left 40,000 wounded and has hundreds of thousands seeking help at the Veterans Administration. We are three to four trillion dollars poorer. Our military is spread dangerously thin around the globe, at the expense of protection here at home. Not only that, but we have allowed our freedoms to be greatly threatened and undermined from within. The Patriot Act, warrantless searches and wiretapping, abuse of habeus corpus, useless and humiliating searches at airports are just a few examples of how we’ve allowed the terrorists to “win” by making our country less free.

Suicide terrorism did not exist in Iraq before we got there. Now it does. There are no known instances of Iranians committing suicide terrorism. If we invade and occupy Iran, expect that to change, too.

Muslim terrorism, specifically, has exponentially increased since the 90s, in all it’s manifestations.

The AQ brand is a recent evolution(global Jihad), which, ironically, was funded and trained by US forces back in the 80s including children’s books, to fight the soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Surely some of you will find this post distasteful. Frankly, I don’t care. Self-examination is something rare for Americans. Just a word of advice. It might be a good time to start. The world is in the midst of a transition.

1) change and process are at the heart of our universe; 2) the change we do see is governed by an infinite net of causal conditions and relationships; and 3) everything is interdependent.

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[quote=jstoesz]
During the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration dishonestly claimed that its independent experts supported a drilling moratorium. They emphatically did not. The president who campaigned on basing his policies on “sound science” ignored his own hand picked experts. According to the GAO, he did something very similar when he shut down Yucca Mountain. His support for wind and solar energy, as you suggest, isn’t based on science but on faith. And that faith has failed him dramatically.

The idea that conservatives are anti-science is self-evident and self-pleasing liberal hogwash. I see no reason why conservatives should even argue the issue on their terms when it’s so clearly offered in bad faith in the first place.[/quote]

Rep. John Shimkus, the new head of a subcommittee on the environment who explained that global warming cannot be a problem because God promised Noah that there will not be another flood. Not quite a scientific analysis but interesting nonetheless. Would you label this a pro-science stance?

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Well, I always here a recurring theme about “lessons” from 9/11.

What I learned is the humans are inherently compassionate and that compassion transcends boarders, ideologies, ethnicities and religions. And that is a beautiful thing.

However, I also learned those higher emotions can be hijacked by less than noble forces, for less than noble reasons and perverted to a more primitive base emotion.

This semi-religious observance is irrevocably poisoned because of that. And we know that in our hearts.

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[quote=KIBU]What would have Aristotle do in this case???[/quote]

Buy short term treasuries?

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They just issued a warning of a downgrade for French banks that have exposure to greek bonds.

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[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Arraya: You make a good, but incomplete point, in that you left out the part about the rapidly evolving and developing technology, specifically for the extraction of shale. I know for a fact that BP Whiting (in Indiana) is spending $5Bn on what amounts to a brand new refinery on site.

EMRE (ExxonMobil Research & Engineering) has been instrumental in pushing new extraction engineering techniques and systems into place as well.

I’m not a rah-rah oil guy, but I do work with a lot of their engineers (on blast mitigation) and I can tell you that they’re serious about the engineering and the technology. There is huge money here, as TG pointed out, and that will drive the innovation.[/quote]

I suggest the oildrum for all things energy. They have a staff of over 20, half industry insiders and the other half academia. Also two very knowledgeable posters that will answer questions are westtexas and Rockman – both petroleum geologists with 20+ years experience.

I actually thought they were using new technology as well. More of an upgraded version of an old technology.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7499

1. Is this really a new drilling technique?

No., this is not really a new drilling technique. According to Wikipedia, hydraulic fracturing was first used in the United States for stimulating oil and gas wells in 1947. It was first used commercially in 1949. Directional drilling, including horizontal drilling is almost as old, but it was not widely used until down-hole motors and semicontinuous surveying became possible. The techniques have gradually been refined, as oil and gas companies have used them more and supporting technologies have been better developed.

A major reason we are using these techniques is because much of the easy-to-extract oil has already been extracted. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are more expensive, but can be used to get out oil that would be inaccessible otherwise. The hope is that oil prices will be high enough to make these techniques profitable.

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You really can’t count shale as oil. It’s a mining expedition that takes a lot of energy. There is a huge difference between the virgin oil fields of old that you would get back 100 barrels of oil for on barrel of energy expended to todays shale where a lot of it is at like 2 or 3 to 1 barrel. Some places it just takes to much energy and is not feasible. So that is a different world right there.

The other thing is it’s all about FLOW RATE. It doesn’t really matter how much is theoretically and tantalizingly in the ground. It’s a what rates you can produce it at. The world won’t ever produce more oil than it is producing now. The declines in old giant fields are too big. Some of the new shale plays will slow the overall decline but does not change the big picture that much.

Regarding the natural gas plays

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-8-2011-get-ready-for-north.html

We have been witnessing just such a dynamic playing out in the North American natural gas market in recent years, with a particular focus on the shale gas that is touted as being the key to energy independence. The hype over a supposed 100 year supply of cheap, clean energy has been pervasive. Vast sums of money have been committed as a result, despite very little critical evaluation of the real world prospects, at least in the public domain.

Thankfully there have been a few sober voices in the wilderness who were prepared to challenge the received wisdom, most notably Arthur Berman (whose superb work can be found at The Oil Drum) and Canadian gas expert David Hughes.

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[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]Allan, I would submit that Democrats voted for the Iraq war because they feared being maligned as “providing comfort” to the enemy.

They voted very reluctantly for the war.

Democrats were lazy and they didn’t want to go to the public and make the case against war and against the Republican idea of the war on terrorism.

[/quote]

Brian: If one Googles “democratic support for Iraq war”, one is directed to this link to Snopes.com: http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp

Since it is Snopes, it deals very fairly with both the quotes and their supporting context/additional text (some of the quotes were truncated). Read them through, its very interesting stuff. It also utterly demolishes your “reluctance” and “lazy” arguments simultaneously.

Enjoy.[/quote]

The democrats and Iraq is similar to the republicans and the bailouts. They have to do a little dog and pony show for their constituents but the key power players made sure each one happened.

The system runs the politicians, not the other way around. And this is not in a conspiratorial sense.

From, Immanuel Wallerstein, a Yale professor, American sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst. And one of my favorite thinkers of modern times.

http://www.iwallerstein.com/world-consequences-decline/

The newspapers are full of analyses of the political errors of Barack Obama. Who can argue with this? I could easily list dozens of decisions Obama has made which, in my view, were wrong, cowardly, and sometimes downright immoral. But I do wonder whether, if he had made all the much better decisions his base thinks he ought to have made, it would have made much difference in the outcome. The decline of the United States is not the result of poor decisions by its president, but of structural realities in the world-system. Obama may be the most powerful individual in the world still, but no president of the United States is or could be today as powerful as the presidents of yesteryear.

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[quote=pri_dk][
That’s a trite oversimplification.

And if you really believed it, why are your responses to Dem vs. GOP positions on this forum so dramatically different?[/quote]

Simplification, a little. Though, once you wash away the demographically tested rhetoric and political POSTURING, not too far off.

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