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Obrigado

Obrigado (thanks) to the folks who have responded on Sao Tome.

Randy Paul makes a pointed but realistic assessment here. Yes - I have to agree that oil is a big part of the story here. But without apology.

I do not agree that US motivation to assist amounts to a resource grab. Why? Because it is harder to steal and work crooked deals from a transparent democracy than from a dictatorship.

That isn't to say that Chevron and others probably aren't trying to establish "contacts" within the new "government." You can bet they are, if only to maintain their position in line.

What is at issue from the standpoint of democratic security is something rather simple - concentrated wealth is a difficult challenge to any democracy. Diverse sources of wealth create different places where the greedy guys in any society can go make conquests. When the wealth of a society stems from holes in the ground, conquest takes the form of owning those holes.

Venezuela is a fine example of an oil democracy at risk. She is a country that had a relatively stable democracy in the 80's, only to have its banking system and middle class collapse when oil prices fell. They never diversified their economy from oil (though they have a magnificent interior with rich agricultural land and awesome natural sights for tourists). Now they have very difficult challenges, to put things as mildly as I can.

Contrast that with Norway, who saw big windfalls in oil, but managed to maintain diversity. Yes - very different regions and countries, but economic diversity needs to be understood as an important part of democratization.

That Saudi Arabia was formed/conquered by the Wahhabist Saud family only a few years before oil was discovered there gives insight into how oil wealth can be leveraged when in the hands of a band of thugs. The Wahhabists conquered Mecca and Medina by siege from 1924 to 1926 so as to (in their opinion) purify Islam. Thanks to their spending of much of their oil wealth on spreading their vision of Islam around the world, their orthodoxy is now mainstream. Interesting we now hear the call from bin Laden for a new round of "purification" - not that the Sauds have been any less "pure" in the past 80 years. Concentrated wealth in the hands of a theocracy bears little hope for democratization, and has fostered export of a dangerous religious orthodoxy.

That Sao Tome is home to about 120,000 Roman Catholics with an army smaller than Andrew Sullivan's hourly visitor count does not pose such a threat (though Pat Robertson may disagree). But the region has other democracies at risk, like Nigeria, Cote Ivoire, and others with Islamo-Fascist sponsored insurgencies on their northern borders.



Odd how oil attracts the Islamo-Fascists, creating the need for insurgent demands for justice when oil is discovered, isn't it? It as if they were trying to repeat a prior success.

That the US (warts and all) endeavors to keep the world's oil supply in a diverse set of hands is a good thing for democracies around the world, IMO. Only 1 of the 6 companies trading Iraqi oil is US. Hardly a US grab.

Just the same, the US should "take the sticks away" of her critics by simply insisting that public oil trusts be established for protectorates in cases where new oil wealth is found (Sao Tome) or where it had been nationalized prior (like in Iraq).

Adam Sullivan, 01:15 | 0 comments