The Worry After Next

America faces two huge problems looming on our horizon. It’s just the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night. The first problem is one which we can do little about, but will most certainly alter the global balance as we know it. It is the problem this first problem creates, “The problem after next” that disturbs my sleep. How will we as a nation handle the changes coming to the world scene?

The first problem is the recently developed Sino-Persian Axis, set to carve Asia and Africa between China and Iran. They have signed agreements that will send oil to China in exchange for military weapons and nuclear technology.

China has just started building its latest, perhaps the world’s largest, hydro-electric power plant at the Three Rivers Gorge on the Yangtze River. It is not slated to go online for another twenty or thirty years, but this is the power that will fuel China’s coming industrial revolution. In a country approaching two billion people it will not be enough energy for both industrial demand and the general population as it rises into consumerism.
By setting out to rebuild the old “Silk Road”, they will establish road and rail transport to move and maintain the flow of commerce in all directions, and pipelines to move Central Asia and Middle Eastern oil into China. Ironically, American corporations are building the pipeline.

China’s major industries currently lie along its Eastern coast. In a move that will also stem the flow of people into its major cities, they have committed themselves to a program of industrial growth in Central China. This region is the county’s poorest and in most need of development. Part of this commitment has come in the form of transportation corridor that will link the central part of the country to the Indian Ocean. A recently signed treaty with Myanmar (Burma) will provide access to the Irawaddy River and thus on to Southern Asia and African Markets. (India alone has a population three times the size of the United States.) The potential for commercial growth in Asia is unprecedented.

Should there ever be a reunification between the monetary engine of Taiwan and the mainland, the China picture will be complete. Taiwan has the shipping infrastructure to flood the world’s markets with Chinese products. These are formidable possibilities for anyone concerned with balance of trade.

China has been quietly going about its business without anyone here noticing. Algeria has received a plutonium-capable nuclear reactor, chemical and nuclear technology have been shipped to Libya, and Iraq has gotten its share of conventional weapons. Iran now has the Silkworm missile capable of closing the Straights of Harmuz, ballistics missiles, and in the near future, nuclear reactors capable of producing fissionable material to put on top.

China has not been idle in North America. Their diplomatic Corp in the U.S. is ten times larger than the USSR’s
of a few years ago — and they had to support the KGB. With few laws on the books to curb industrial espionage, raiding U.S. companies for proprietary information means they spend little money on research and development.
They are masters of reverse-engineering, with the Silkworm anti-shipping missile a good example. Not
to sound too xenophobic, the U.S. educates many more Chinese students in our colleges and universities than any other group of foreigners.

Other Chinese have joined the flood of illegal immigrants attacking our borders. Last year cargo ships were turned away at sea by the Coast Guard, but others were able to reach Mexico and unload hundreds of people to join the stream North. How many were real immigrants fleeing tyranny and how many were on missions for the government will probably never be answered.

Other Chinese officials have mentioned the targeting of Los Angeles with their nuclear weapons. People
have also forgotten the shipment of two thousand AK-47 fully automatic weapons that were being smuggled to L.A. street gangs. Add to this Mr. Thompson’s committee in Washington that is trying to lynch the Democrats (or at least allow them to hang themselves) is about China trying to influence our government.

Let me add to this the Spratly Islands in the South China Seas, over which several countries will be willing to go to war. This small group of islands and shoals are considered to be the Asian version of the Alaskan oil fields, and perhaps ground zero of WWIII.

We are still not done. We should not forget that America businessmen are setting up manufacturing plants in China, drooling at the thought of such a large market. In this case we are doing the work for them by selling licensing agreements to Chinese industries. Of course, the Chinese industrial sector is run by the same men – read that as generals- who run the military. The world’s largest military. This is no conspiracy,
it’s the truth, and as we all know, conspiracy theory gets more attention from Americans than the truth.

The Persian side of this New World order of course, is Iran. Iran is not an Arab country but Persian and Aryan. Unlike China’s economic motivation, Iran is inspired by religious fervor. Islamic influence ranges across northern Africa, throughout the Middle East, up to Central Asia, down and across Southern Asia skipping India but
extending halfway across the Pacific Ocean.

As with any religion, it often inspires fanatics, and any group so inspired and is willing to die for a righteous cause becomes a mighty force. They brought their battle to American soil in the form of the World Trade Center bombing.

Unlike what you generally find in America, these people are really motivated. Their war is being fought in our country as well as others worldwide with the single objective of destroying the infidel West. You and me. No more “Seinfeld” lawsuits, no more opportunity not to vote, no more chances to bitch about how an increased minimum wage will destroy our economy. These people are willing to help us solve all our problems.
I bet they are anti-abortionist too.

The Koran is the holy book of the Muslims. A noble and egalitarian piece of inspired writing. Not all Muslims are anti-American. This is not a Christian vs. Muslim situation. That would be too easy.

As with the Bible, there is a small but extreme group selectively using passages in the Koran to back its position. Continued pressure by Iran in all Muslim oil- producing countries, using terrorism and murder, could alter the flow of petroleum from a westerly to an eastern direction. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran all produce a major portion of the world’s oil and a shift of a few percentage points in production will bring many western countries to a standstill Oil is the key to bringing the west to its knees and providing a victory for radical Islam.

It remains to be seen if the recent moderate vote in Iran has any effect on their foreign policy. Probably not. Just in case oil is not enough, these people want nuclear weapons to enforce their distorted vision of the Koran. It is a very elegant solution, this Sino-Persian Axis. One common goal, reduction of all Western influence, by giving what the other country wants…nukes for oil. One gets economic success, the other religious domination.

As sinister as this all sounds, it is not what worries me the most. It’s the worry-after-next that will show the world what we in America are made of. I’m not sure we have fortitude to overcome the difficulties ahead.

We in America are strongest when united and we are seldom that. We are divided on race, how we should educate our children, gun control, Area 51 and the alien issue — both earthly and galactic — TV ratings, etc. We tend to so divide ourselves that everyone here feels alienated form any core value.

Our industrial base will unify this country, or help scatter our ashes across a truly vast waste land. American corporations purport to be helpless in doing anything except relentlessly pursuing profits for their shareholders. As good as we are at inventing new technologies, we do nothing here until forced to. It takes forty to sixty years to bring new technologies on line.

If we started today, we would be behind the curve. If we wait ten, twenty years, we might not ever recover. If we can’t convince American industry that a hole in the ozone layer is something that we should worry about, we don’t have a chance of reducing our oil dependency.

The United States has started buying more Mexican and Venezuelan oil, and production will soon start in the Coleville River oil fields. If this field is as large as its next door neighbor at Prudhoe Bay, we will empty it about the time the Trans-China pipeline goes online.

There will still be the same number of people vying for less oil. Japan produces no oil and any reduction in imports will force them to sell off their American holdings. This will send the world’s stock markets tumbling.

Now is not the time for America to bury its head in the sand. We must begin to address problems further down the road than the next election.

Our industrial base has got to lead the way and stop being reactionary and as citizens we must stop being so divided on every issue. We cannot control who sells oil to whom, but we can control how we use it. Now is the time to unite. We are captives of oil only as long as we use oil.

First published in VOICES magazine, Los Angeles. Jan 29, 1997

Additional Research:

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, South Korea has Internet speeds up to 200 times faster than the average speed in the U.S., at about half the cost.

The Millennium Project – Clean Water http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/Global_Challenges/chall-02.html

Mythic Challenges – “It’s Not a Game” video from Grover Cleveland High School Media Arts students.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW0WbMlRvrs&feature=youtu.be