US military forces, having been stretched thin protecting global oil resources, are also one of the largest oil consumers effectively fighting wars for oil to fuel wars. This disastrous course has led to a foreign policy that has so weakened our energy thirsty country that despite our military might has been unable to maintain control of strategic energy resources through non military means.

Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan signed an agreement Thursday to build a natural gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast that would strengthen Moscow’s monopoly on energy exports from the resource-rich region.

But the plan also delivers a strong blow to Western hopes of securing alternate energy export routes.

The policy of spreading democracy by might and playing policeman to oil pipelines seems little more than a strategy to expatriate American dollars while they are still worth something in the form of payments to war contractors who then convert them to Euros and Yen. Contrast that with the EU

The European Union leads the world in spending on development assistance and aid; the United States leads the world in military spending. The European Union has expanded its diplomatic reach to geographically strategic regions, such as the Middle East and Africa, through its Neighborhood Policy (ENP); the United States funds a war, waged for inauspicious reasons in order to secure resource materials and promote democracy in an historically undemocratic region. The European Union spends €7.1 billion [US $10.4 billion] a year on renewable energy and is an active participant in the Kyoto Protocol; the United States is not a ratified member of Kyoto for a bundle of political reasons, yet claims to be promoting “clean energy alternatives” nonetheless.

The US Congress just committed another $70b so our troops can be killed and maimed guarding corporate interests. When is America going to stand up and fight for them and stop our dependence upon foreign oil? Meanwhile, China is on the march diplomatically as the last vestiges of the American empire sputter and die.

UPDATE: