Someone told me(I have reason to believe very well that this is true) that the U.S. gets less than 10% of our oil from the Middle East. Can anyone provide evidence to counter/confirm this? And if true, why this war we are about to start could be about oil.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,883072,00.html This whole shebang is clearly about long term energy (oil) security for the USA. More articles: http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/0,11319,608464,00.html
10% of America's oil is alot . It costs a hefty sum and is very valuable to the economy. But this war is not about oil, or at least to a much lesser degree than you people might think. Iraq is threat to all of us. Imagine - one nuke fired into the Meditteranean would be devastating. >Hold a gun to my head and ask me not to pee on your shoe.
No, it's not about oil and it's not about oil security. It's about Saddam misusing his oil income to take over his neighbors to get MORE oil income so that he can take over more of his neighbors. And now that we've pissed him off with the first Gulf War, it's also about getting him out of power before he can misuse his oil income to get revenge on us.
It’s not about how much oil comes from the Persian Gulf now, but how much will come from there after the US takes over Iraq. From U.S. Oil Policy in the Middle East: Expect the US to significantly increase production when it has remodeled Iraq’s facilities. Also note that the war need not start for Bush to win. Just ramping up for war pays off Bush’s sponsors, like this: Price gush gives Shell record profit.
I don't think so. The US will obviously be in control of more oil, but so will Russia and other european countries who desperately want it. I personally can't see the US gaining too much (though it's clear they will have some gains) in the way of oil. OPEC is still very much in control of how much the US gets, and expect them to milk it. Besides, the smart thing to do would be to reduce dependancy on persian oil and move on to cheaper, high tech renewable energy. An initial investment could go a long ways.
How will Russia and other European countries be in control of US-owned (formerly Iraqi) oil? How will OPEC be in as much control when the US owns another 11% of the world’s proven reserves? OPEC will have to lower their prices, otherwise the US will just increase production.
Even when the US wins, it doesn't guarantee the US a great relationship with Iraq. They won't "own" it. The first interim government will probably be instated by the US, and give greater control to American oil tycoons, but I can't see it staying that way for too long. Russia and Iraq and have been secret friends since the cold war began and as long as they have something to offer eachother, it probably won't change. Plus, look how far the US is from the persian gulf. That's a long ways to go. Even with the fast oil tankers. And, you can only increase production so much before it becomes stupid. That's just my take on things.
I think that the whole situation has less to do with Iraq than it has to do with the US. When one considers the arguments made by the anti-war movement, I see simply a lack of trust for the US more than I do any real argument against Saddam as a threat. Ever since the sattilite photos and corresponding inteligence on Iraq's facilities and capabilities were made public, the "Where is the proof" argument has all but dissapeared. Bush made a good case that action against Iraq needs to be taken, and on that fron there has not been any counter-arguments in recent words. Instead, France and Germany are making the argument that the US is intent upon controling Iraq's oil reserves. It is a tactic I have seen before in politics... namely, shift your disagreement away from the arguments of your opponets to ones which are far less proveable and more subjective. No one can prove that the US is intent upon Iraq's oil supply, it is merely an opinion and speculation based on circumstantial evidence. One CAN prove that Iraq has biological and nuclear weapons facilities.
If the oil companies are making record profits from high oil prices then why would they want to take over Iraqi oil and put a lot more oil on the market? That would cause the price of oil to plummet. Xevious - you are right on. After monitoring the arguments here for several months of those opposed to the war it is evident they don't even believe half of what they put forward. They just put it forward because it might seem convincing. Most of them have a hidden agenda: They consider capitalism to be the greatest evil in the world. They consider the U.S. the leading proponent of capitalism and therefore hate it. They consider Bush to be "owned" by the evil corporations and therefore believe he lies about everything unless the truth happens to serve. After arguing for weeks that there was no proof that Iraq had WMD, some of them were at least honest enough to admit that it wouldn't matter if he had all the WMD in the world -- they would still oppose deposing Saddam. So why even bring that up as an argument?
At the moment, I'm pro-Depose Saddam and instate democracy. I also believe that many corporations are 'evil'/bad simply because they take advantage of people, governments and fragile environments for money. Does this make me one of those convinced people? By the way, I don't consider capitalism an evil. It's human nature that is 'evil' if you'd like to call it that. If we cared about eachother more (as in many countries) and had stronger families, we wouldn't need to worry about the evils of capitalism - or even the government for that matter. That's why religions or ethnicities such as Jews are so successful. One more thing I need to mention is that, although Bush isn't neccessarily a puppet, he is driven by the economy. And I say this with no intentions of connecting Iraqi oil. Most politicians are, as the people care about money, and the politicians care about votes.
Taking over Iraqi oil does not necessitate putting more oil on the market. The amount sold would be that which maximizes quarterly profit. And it’s easier to profit when you own the raw material.
Few things are provable beyond doubt. How do we know the satellite photos and corresponding intelligence were not faked? If five spouses of a person die in suspicious accidents, it may not be provable that all were killed for the insurance money. But society ignores such circumstantial evidence at its peril.
You could be right. I’d be surprised if Iraq gains true independence before the wells run dry. The “rebuilding” will require decades of occupation. Russia will get whatever it can negotiate with the US, not Iraq per se. What was the expressed purpose of Gulf War I? US interests. Notice how the story has changed; now it’s WMDs. “US interests” was the truth, and that’s oil, and that’s the purpose of Gulf War II as well. So there’s no reason to allow Iraq its independence except for show. How far away the Gulf is doesn’t matter. How much profit may be made from Gulf oil does. Some 90% of Iraqi oil is refined in the US today.
I'll hand you that few things are provable beyond doubt. It is my opinion that it is more proveable that Saddam is a threat than it is that GW is after Iraq's oil.
I’d believe that more if, for example, Powell’s proof of an Iraq-Al Quaeda link wasn’t bin Laden saying that Hussein is a weenie. And if Bush explained how Hussein, who asked the US for permission to invade Kuwait and didn’t threaten the US directly prior to Gulf War I and hasn’t done much against the US in the 12 years since and is paying billions in reparations, is now a larger menace than someone who not two years ago punched a trillion-dollar hole in the US economy by destroying two skyscrapers and four jets and killing 3,000 people. Bush has little to gain for himself by getting bin Laden, whereas he has much to gain by getting Hussein. The money trail is obvious.
Bin Laden died at Tora Bora. The Busheviks were giddy on American Jihad, and think it will carry them through their most high-stakes ambitions. It will become common knowledge that the spectre of bin Laden's ghost lives on not in Saddam, but in the post-Saddam violent resistance to American mideastern occupation, which will resonate powerfully with the American-sponsored occupation & ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories. Mideast petroleum infrastructure, US Motherland Security, the US economy, and the Bush Administration are each and all together, far too vulnerable for this gambit to have any chance.
