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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (69839)	1/11/2009 5:06:34 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

If we had followed Carter's synthetic fuel programs to a greater extent, and/or pushed nuclear energy for electricity with more cars powered by natural gas, we would still be an oil importer. If we imported less, even much less, oil we would still have had Saddam as an aggressive dictator seeking nuclear weapons and other "WMD" in Iraq, and very likely would have had Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The invasion of Iraq follows from all of that, it isn't a direct externality from the fact that we use or the fact that we import, oil. Also you have to consider the possible long term benefits from the operation in Iraq, not just its costs. Even if you think the cost is larger than the benefits, and so the operation was a bad idea, the net negative is smaller than the gross negative (negative not considering the positives).