Complexity Digest 2008.02 - 19.02

10-Jan-2008

PDF files of our annual editions are available at www.comdig.de/AnnualEditions.html

Aletter from Gottfried Mayer to our readers and friends is at http://www.comdig.de/GMLetter.html

Oil At $100 Vs The 'War On Terror', Asia Times Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: The choice - as deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage would reportedly inform Pakistan's intelligence director after the September 11 attacks - was simple: Join the fight against al-Qaeda or "be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age". The price of a barrel of crude oil was, then, still under $20.

From that day to this, from the edge of the $20-barrel of oil to the edge of the $100 barrel, the "war on terror" would be the organizing principle for the Bush administration as it shook off "the constraints", "took off the gloves", loosed the Central Intelligence Agency, and sent the US military into action; as it went, in short, for the Stone Age jugular.