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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (13921)	11/19/2004 11:28:50 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

<rose colored glasses> Blix tried to order some after he was adviced to get some new glasses, as he could not find any WMDs. However, he still claims he has no position in the book shelves, among those fictional stuff books. Btw, he is still waiting for that promised shipment of those glasses, to see what could have been seen through them.

To: Dan B. who wrote (13921)	11/20/2004 10:00:48 AM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Oh yeah, silly, Middle Eastern countries won't decide to quit selling oil to the US. But if they did, I'd propose we do without it, literally. LOL. True enough. I kid you not. Your proposal? TIA, if you have a different one than mine. Excellent idea. We should start today. If we did, we would not be in Iraq; we would not be threatening Iran. We'd be saving quite a bit of money, too. The cost of military operations; the billions in military hardware that we give away to certain middle east countries each and every year; the cost of all the bases in the area, the staff, equipment and ammo replacement, fuel used in operations, food, and other costs - it adds up to over 100 billion a year currently. And that's just the money that we know about - the publically disclosed figures. Who knows what is hidden from us. How much does DIA spend there. CIA spend there. NSA spend there. How much of the budget for NRO goes to middle east operations? All spent, primarily (lets keep Israel out of this for a second) to secure access to oil / shipment of oil through pipelines and sea routes. That is the number 1 export of the region to us, by a long shot. For all intents and purposes the region exports nothing else to us. Take that 100 billion and spread its cost across the oil we actually import - I did this recently - and each barrel will cost 166$. The gasoline (not all of a barrel of oil is gas) will cost 6$ a gallon. Is it worth it? No. Meanwhile the US consumes over 25% of total world energy output each year (and US consumption is growing like everywhere else) yet we have only 4% of world population. China and India have 4 and 5 times US population, yet each use 1/2 the energy we do. Their demand is growing and will, eventually, outpace ours. The US produces more GDP per capita than other advanced economies - but not that much more - approximately 10 - 12% depending on who you are comparing to - but uses double the amount of energy per capita to do so. That is not sustainable. Personally, I would like to see the US stop sucking on the teat of accessible oil by force (100 Billion in military spending in the region very certainly is "sell us the oil or else, and by the way China, India - take note") and honestly work to reduce dependency oil, period. Its not just the middle east which is in our targetting sights. You probably were not also aware that we've been trying to destabilize Venezuela (for economic reasons, oil) and they are one of our larger suppliers. Prominent neocons - the same think tank that people like Wolfowitz and Cheney find home in - have been calling for "action" on Chavez and Venezuela. Why? Because they don't sell their oil to the US with a smile. Wake up.