it was fun while it lasted

..."democracy" and "civilization" that is.

At least according to the stunningly ill-equipped "Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military."

This set of secret analysts using ultra-secret matrices has detected that there might be concerns about the world oil supply.

Der Spiegel has an article about how the new German government secret report on how peak oil is going to end it all.

Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis

"The term "peak oil" is used by energy experts to refer to a point in time when global oil reserves pass their zenith and production gradually begins to decline. This would result in a permanent supply crisis -- and fear of it can trigger turbulence in commodity markets and on stock exchanges.

The issue is so politically explosive that it's remarkable when an institution like the Bundeswehr, the German military, uses the term "peak oil" at all. But a military study currently circulating on the German blogosphere goes even further."

Actually, this der Speigel piece reads pretty close to an Onion spoof.

The report makes some really stunning predictions, such as that oil producing nations are going to be rich and that the free markets might be manipulated by states interested in energy supplies. Stunning, no?

And then there is this breathlessly delivered hooey:

"the scenarios outlined by the Bundeswehr Transformation Center are drastic. Even more explosive politically are recommendations to the government that the energy experts have put forward based on these scenarios. They argue that "states dependent on oil imports" will be forced to "show more pragmatism toward oil-producing states in their foreign policy." Political priorities will have to be somewhat subordinated, they claim, to the overriding concern of securing energy supplies."

Yup, a secret government report has determined that oil dependent nations are going to think about cheap oil and start kowtowing to oil producing states without even thinking about democracy.

And this right when Iraq has become free, independent, and democratic because of the actions of the USA, which the same cabal of secret government analysts has shown has never even considered the politics of oil. Or something like that.