How about a "BOOT IN THE A$$"!
Posted on 05/19/2008 8:08:02 PM PDT by Fred
The president of the United States, supposedly the most powerful man on Earth, goes, hat in hand, to our “friends” in Saudi Arabia asking them to increase oil production in order to bring a measure of relief to rising energy prices.
Our “friends” tell him no.
The president is in no position to bargain, or even threaten. What’s he going to do? Cut off financial aid? The Saudis have more money than Allah.
End any military or intelligence support that keeps Islamic radicals from making the House of Saud their next target? As hard as it might be to deal with the princes, it would be even harder to deal with whatever regime might rise in their place.
If this exercise in humiliation isn’t enough to drive America toward energy independence, what is?
We need the oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
We need the oil in Bakken Formation of Montana and North Dakota. In April, the U.S. Geological Survey released new findings indicating that formation holds 25 times as much oil — as much as 4 billion barrels — as previously thought. It is the largest continuous oil accumulation the USGS has ever assessed.
Closer to home, we need the oil in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. In 2006 Congress passed legislation allowing oil exploration about 100 miles off the Florida coast but banning it closer in. That’s a start. If the efforts outside the 100-mile barrier prove successful, Congress should consider moving it even closer to shore.
The Florida delegation in the U.S. House and Senate need to rethink their persistent objections to efforts to produce energy off the state’s coasts. An oil rig 50 miles out wouldn’t spoil a tourist’s view of sunset.
We can wring our hands about global warming or cluck our tongues about the need for alternative sources of energy.
Yes, there are myriad benefits to burning less in the way of fossil fuel and technology certainly will lead us to a better way one day.
But in the near- and mid-term, ours is an economy based on oil, coal and natural gas.
We use more than we currently can produce domestically and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
So we can increase production or we can continue to rely on our “friends,” like Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela, to sell it to us on their terms.
In rebuffing President Bush, the Saudi oil minister said the market is in balance. Indeed it is in perfect balance for the seller, with prices setting new record highs seemingly every week.
For the buyers, the balance is decidedly imperfect.
When one of your best customers keeps you supplied in state-of-the-art weaponry and supports your regime in spite of its less-than-stellar record on human rights you might consider cutting that customer a break.
Failing to do so might cause you concern that said customer might tell you to keep your product and to get your weapons and support elsewhere, especially if that customer has billions of barrels of the same goop under his feet and off his coast.
But the Saudis apparently have no such concern.
It is high time they acquired it.
BTTT!
The Saudis? Friends of the Bush family going way, way back. Nothing to see here.
amen brother, but plenty of voters in this country, Joe and Jane bag o donuts would rather see this country destroyed if that is what it takes to punish Bush, Cheney and Haliburton, that most evil triumvirate. This country is full of entertainment addled spoiled brat fools who don’t appreciate what they have and are willing to throw away our collective prosperity to assuage their mis guided sense of justice.
Lord help us from ourselves
“Which will end in a glorious smash as big as the dot-com bubble. “
It will be fun to watch.
Those who think oil will never go down will be run over.
When it comes to energy our government treats us like fools. If new exploration combined with drilling new wells not been stopped 20 years ago in the US, we would not have all these problems with energy prices.
Wonder why the author left out CANADA, the country from whom we get the MOST oil???
Saudi Arabia is a bit of a mystery, but they haven't found any large fields for a long time. Small fields “yes” but when / if Ghawar goes into decline, it will be tough for them to maintain production. When will that occur? Some believe now.
The two new large fields that Saudi Arabia is bringing on line in the next year or so, are both ancient history in terms of the date of discovery, and both have significant problems. If they have better prospects, I believe that we would be seeing them now.
Exactly why pre-9/11 we should have secretly funded Osama in his bid to overthrow the house of Saud. Oil would have maybe spiked to around $70. Then about a week or two into the coup, we could have rode in to the rescue of our ‘friends’ the Saudis and taken over all the oil fields to protect them.
In the game of global chess, it always pays to look many moves ahead. And to know which rooks should be sacrificed.
How about a "BOOT IN THE A$$"!
Wow, thats a wee bit controversial. Have to think about that!
... OK thought about it, I guess it fits the Iraqi proverb “use your enemies hand to catch a snake”. I think that’s iraqi, or Persian... Anyway thats pretty hard core, Byzantine emperor kind of intrigue. Lots could go wrong plenty of balance of power stuff just makes my head hurt. OK I just think I will drink a beer and go to bed.
I like the way you think. “We have met the enemy, and they are us”.
Pop a batch of popcorn if you like, but if peak oil is coming soon it won’t be fun to watch.
Oil can go down. If it does, 2 billion Indians and Chinese will be very happy to sop up the excess.
Every oil field that has produced more than a million barrels per day is now in decline with the possible exception of Ghawar, the granddaddy of all oil fields at 5 million barrels per day. When that one goes down, because it has been very well managed with water floods and multilateral wells, it could go down in a hurry.
Cantarell peaked. Danquing peaked. The North Sea peaked. Texas peaked. The North Slope peaked. The U.S. peaked. Western Siberia and probably all of Russia has peaked [depends on how many frontier basins they actually have.] The Kuwaitis say Burgan has peaked. The story of oil is the story of depletion.
Party hardy dude.
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