oil a factor

Submitted by Sidda (United States), Aug 9, 2006 at 15:31

I have to disagree somewhat. Don't misunderstand: I don't believe that we invaded Iraq to "steal their oil." If that were the case, we could have accomplished that during Gulf War 1. Or we could invade Mexico and "steal" their oil ;D. From what I can tell, we pay a handsome price for the oil we use. However, I do think that oil is a complicating factor.

First, the world's economy runs on oil--not just the United States. China is second now in its oil consumption to the United States and their developing economy requires more and more oil to meet that demand. This prevents China from supporting any sanction against Iran for their nuclear program.

Much of the world's oil lies in Middle Eastern countries. The revenues from this oil helps to fund the jihad. So-called "moderate" Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia use their oil revenues to fund mosques and madrassas all over the world which teach the hard-line Wahabbi interpretation of Islam. It also enriches these societies and allows more money to flow to the Islamists.

They have us over the proverbial barrel. Until we find a way to become energy independent from oil, we will be held hostage by these people. I don't believe for one minute that we would consider Saudi Arabia "our good friends and allies" if we did not need their oil. Europe is also dependent on Middle Eastern oil. I don't think that when we went into the Middle East all those years ago to develop the oil fields that we had any real idea of what their belief system (Islam) was all about. We probably thought we could just do business with them like any other country in the world without any negative repercussions. Our ignorance has come with a heavy price.

Both Repubican and Democratic administrations had years to arrive at a solution to our dependence on foreign oil and did nothing.

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