Do you remember the almost total failure last month of our media to tell us what Osama bin Laden actually said in his most recent video? All we needed to know, apparently, was what we said about what he was supposed to have said.

Thank God, as usual, for the internet. FMArouet has actually read the transcript and written about it on Daily Kos with calm, intelligent objectivity. That sort of approach to our present struggle, although the author writes in English, is so unusual as almost to give the impression of being in a foreign language.

Below are just a few paragraphs from a much longer piece. I urge you to read it all.

One could reasonably argue that cheap oil (i.e., No. 5 above) is important to the U.S. economy. However, if we accept the increasingly convincing data supporting the concept of Peak Oil, the prospect of ensuring cheap oil supplies for very much longer seems to be beyond reach. The sooner we accommodate ourselves to this emerging reality of oil scarcity, the better.

So why not reframe the whole debate with an obvious question: is the current U.S. policy of interventionism to secure access to cheap oil (by invading countries to secure drilling rights for ExxonMobil, Chevron, British Petroleum, and Royal Dutch Shell) really less costly — in terms of treasure and of blood — than to refrain from military intervention (except as a very last resort to ensure freedom of transit) and to let the petroleum exporting countries and the petroleum importers arrive at mutually agreed prices for crude?

And could we take a portion of the literally trillions of dollars devoted to seizing and occupying countries possessing oilfields, natural gas deposits, and pipeline rights-of-way and instead invest it in more efficient petroleum technologies (encouraging a hybrid in every driveway) and better yet, in alternative and renewable sources of energy?

The U.S. would still need a robust Navy to discourage potential threats to vital shipping lanes and to prevent piracy (No. 2 above). Hence a naval (and likely air) presence in the Middle East would continue to serve U.S. interests. But are imperial police actions, air-launched devastations, and festering occupations really solving any of our problems?

The U.S. really is not very good at conducting such occupations successfully when faced with stiff indigenous opposition, as we have found out in Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and in a rapidly deteriorating Afghanistan. The U.S. position in Iraq is deteriorating as well, with any conceivable satisfactory resolution no nearer now than in 2003 — no matter how creatively Gen. David Petraeus, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner have sought to cook and obfuscate the numbers since the “surge” began…