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> Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest? I’m not who you’re replying to, but yes it absolutely is. We don’t support SA because we secretly l
by tyre 8y ago
> Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest?
I’m not who you’re replying to, but yes it absolutely is. We don’t support SA because we secretly like mean people. We have a vested interest in keeping oil flowing.
Was interfering in the most recent political turmoils in Egypt in our national interest? When you look at how much oil moves through the Suez Canal, absolutely.
Stabilizing access to oil is in our own selfish national interest (we need oil) and in our global interest of stabilizing the world. When countries don’t have access to the natural resources they need, they tend to invade other countries to get them. We want to avoid that.
Considering the above, I really wish politicians in the US would frame clean energy as a national security issue. We are far less likely to be bumbling around in the Middle East if we don’t need their natural resources. Would we still sell hundreds of billions of dollars in arms to theocratic authoritarian nut jobs? Maybe. At the very least we should chip away at the reasons we have for doing so.
- resters 8y agoWhile I would characterize the word “stability” in this context as newspeak meaning “destabilize in our favor” the gist is true. Yet everything the US does must be framed as some kind of sacrifice for some group’s freedoms, its women, children, etc. I don’t know what would constitute a morally defensible national interest. That is not an easy question. But at least it is an honest question. Honesty is not the goal however when there is a need to gain consent of the masses to do violence against the innocent whose lives are deemed worthless by our national interest.