WMD Found in Iraq
There was a very important weapon of mass destruction found in Iraq, and we knew about it all along. Other countries that have this weapon are Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Mexico, among others. It's a weapon that the U.S. State Department has been trying to neutralize for the last 50 years. It doesn't kill anyone, it doesn't destroy any buildings. It's called "The Oil Weapon."
Anyone who thinks that oil had nothing to do with our invasion into Iraq should ask themselves why we don't have troops occupying North Korea. Sure, Iraqi oil is for the Iraqi people--just like coffee beans are for coffee growers. As American capitalists, we're compelled to pay you for your oil...we just don't want to pay too much. We can't.
But the oil weapon works like this: Demand for oil grows exponentially as developing nations become industrialized and Western consumption grows. Meanwhile, finding oil becomes harder and harder. We know there's a finite amount of oil available to us--it could be 60 years worth, it could be 6 years worth. Since we don't know exactly how much is there and we don't know what demand will be tomorrow, we find ourselves in the precarious position of being cut off or falling victim to the same market forces we love so much.
In fact, you can think of our armed forces in the middle east as a brute form of price controls.
It's been said that Al Qaida does not want to destroy us militarily. No one on the planet could. But, they might be able to destroy us economically. If the fundamentalist Islamic ideology took control of Iraq and Saudi Arabia (already it owns Iran), as well as other members of OPEC, it would have enormous power over oil prices. What would happen in this country if gasoline suddenly shot up to over $10 a gallon? It would be a huge recessionary shock. It might even throw us and the other Western countries into a depression. What if it went over $20 a gallon? What if they decided to sell to China for significantly less?
Neither candidate is talking about this problem in such direct terms, and you have to wonder why. Probably it's because we don't want other nations to hear our candidates talk about this in public. It's also likely that they don't want confuse voters with such detailed policy discussions--there's nothing here that could help either candidate.
But I've been thinking about it a lot. Kerry is the better candidate for this issue because Bush and his administration are too close to big oil. While both see it as a major threat, I think that Bush, Cheney, et al are aligned with the status quo--a return to American dominance over foreign oil. Kerry (I hope) is better suited to a long-range solution to this energy problem.
Anyone who thinks that oil had nothing to do with our invasion into Iraq should ask themselves why we don't have troops occupying North Korea. Sure, Iraqi oil is for the Iraqi people--just like coffee beans are for coffee growers. As American capitalists, we're compelled to pay you for your oil...we just don't want to pay too much. We can't.
But the oil weapon works like this: Demand for oil grows exponentially as developing nations become industrialized and Western consumption grows. Meanwhile, finding oil becomes harder and harder. We know there's a finite amount of oil available to us--it could be 60 years worth, it could be 6 years worth. Since we don't know exactly how much is there and we don't know what demand will be tomorrow, we find ourselves in the precarious position of being cut off or falling victim to the same market forces we love so much.
In fact, you can think of our armed forces in the middle east as a brute form of price controls.
It's been said that Al Qaida does not want to destroy us militarily. No one on the planet could. But, they might be able to destroy us economically. If the fundamentalist Islamic ideology took control of Iraq and Saudi Arabia (already it owns Iran), as well as other members of OPEC, it would have enormous power over oil prices. What would happen in this country if gasoline suddenly shot up to over $10 a gallon? It would be a huge recessionary shock. It might even throw us and the other Western countries into a depression. What if it went over $20 a gallon? What if they decided to sell to China for significantly less?
Neither candidate is talking about this problem in such direct terms, and you have to wonder why. Probably it's because we don't want other nations to hear our candidates talk about this in public. It's also likely that they don't want confuse voters with such detailed policy discussions--there's nothing here that could help either candidate.
But I've been thinking about it a lot. Kerry is the better candidate for this issue because Bush and his administration are too close to big oil. While both see it as a major threat, I think that Bush, Cheney, et al are aligned with the status quo--a return to American dominance over foreign oil. Kerry (I hope) is better suited to a long-range solution to this energy problem.
Labels: politics
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