So much for the Neo con energy policy!

http://zfacts.com/p/35.html

 

I guess that disproves the "war for oil" theory once and for all. If this was about the oil, we could all be driving around for 75 cents a gallon gas right now.

 

We went into Iraq because they have the second largest crude oil reserves, and securing our economic interests in those reserves is the best way to keep our corporations fat and happy. We don't necessarily want to provide cheap oil to US drivers, we just want to be able to make a mad profit off of the oil they consume.

Consider the following:

Quote:

Originally Posted by http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm

The four giant firms located in the US and the UK have been keen to get back into Iraq, from which they were excluded with the nationalization of 1972. During the final years of the Saddam era, they envied companies from France, Russia, China, and elsewhere, who had obtained major contracts. But UN sanctions (kept in place by the US and the UK) kept those contracts inoperable. Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, everything has changed. In the new setting, with Washington running the show, "friendly" companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades.

 

I don't deny Iraq was mishandled, but I content gas prices would be high even without miltary action on Saddam. Lack of a serious US energy policy is the real culprit.

 

So much for the Democrats' control of Congress!

Harry

 

I'm not blaming the Iraq War as the only reason for the prices, obviously China's growing demand and the finite supply of retrievable oil is the main reason.

However, making the Middle East full of 'stable, easy to work with regimes' was a big part of the rational for going to war

 

Well, let's face the facts fellas and gals: Until we replace it with something that works just as well, we in the USA are an OIL ECONOMY. If we have to go to war to help protect our way of life (by preserving the oil flow) then that's just a fact of the 2007 world we live in.

If we kill some terrorists along the way, then all the better.

I certainly feel sorry that along the way innocent soldiers have to die. I lost an uncle in Vietnam and my grandmother and her daughters have never stopped missing him and have never stopped feeling cheated by losing him; so I do know firsthand how the families feel.

But until we are all ready to stop using imported petroleum products, then we have no rational basis for complaining.

Facts are sometimes hurtful.

 

Our government lied to us over and over, and that's a rational basis for complaining. We can argue about whether or not the half a trillion dollars we've spent on the war could have been better spent researching alternative fuels, but nobody can tell me the loss of life is worth it.

 

OK, complain about government lies. (did not start with GWB though.)

Complain about loss of life (anything worth having is worth dying for).

Throw the bums out (Democratic congress in place now, Democratic president not far behind.)

But until we are all ready to stop using imported petroleum products, don't complain about the government and the military trying it's darndest to secure the world's #1 oil region.

 

what an incredibly naiive & simplistic view of things.

before you subscribe to the 'with us or against us' train of thought, why not cut out waste, raise CAFE standards, subsidize alternative energy instead of fossile fuel corporations, build green homes / buildings, more efficient mass transit, changes in foreign policy, elimination of corporate lobbyists - those are the ways to protect our way of life WITHOUT going to war. we are fast approaching $500 billion spent on the quagmire that is iraq without any visible improvement to our way of life. on the contrary, it has done WAY more harm than good and looks like that won't change for a very, very long time. you've got to think out of the box my friend. 4.8% of the worlds population need not suck 25% of the worlds fossile fuel energy, and war is not to be taken lightly. who know how many thousands of families know that all too well.

if that's what you consider a 'way of life' then maybe that way of life is long overdue for a reevaluation. imho.