It's Always About Oil

With the excitement of the Olympics and the impending election, it seems that no one has been paying attention to the recent Russian/Georgian conflict, myself included. A recent post on Dealbreaker.com, clears up any questions and provides a great run down on what's happening. Unfortunately, in addition to the leftover ethnic and political issues from the Cold War, another major factor in this conflict is oil. As it turns out, Georgia is a major pipeline, the only one, that connects the West to the East's store's of both natural gas and crude. Although all the commentators admit that Russia will by no means take drastic action to isolate the West, it's still interesting and frightening that oil has played yet another crucial rule in war, just as it has in Iraq. As one of my favorite science fiction characters would say, "The world has moved on." Sadly though, none of our leaders have. We can only hope that they will start to lead us in the right direction before it's too late. Photo taken from http://express.howstuffworks.com/