[JRandomFreeper]

What world do you live in?

The world where congress won't let American companies tap our vast resources off of the coast of Florida, California, and up in Seward's Folly... er.. Alaska.

Oh, and that would be direct control, but the envirowackos and lefties in congress can't allow that.

/john

[Filibuster_60]

That's not my point. In fact our dependence on Mideast oil is less than it was a generation ago, thanks to our diversification strategy. The real point is that whether we like it or not, the Arabs are sitting atop 60% of the world's proven, easily extractable oil reserves. If we don't buy that oil to fuel our economy, others will. Pure economics dictates that we continue to go after cheap petro while it's still around. Strategic wisdom dictates that we stick around in at least some fashion in the Mideast to ensure that we remain the region's dominant power, regardless of how many troops we have on the ground.

[Redcloak]

We don't need to tap into Alaska or the coasts. Just take the oil from the Arabs. They have no real claim to it.

They weren't nation states when Westerners discovered and then extracted the oil. The Arabs weren't involved in the process. They just happened to be pitching their tents on the sand above the oil. Were it left to them the oil would still be buried. It's quite simply not their oil. Kick them out of the areas around the oil fields and take back what the West developed. They needn't be our "subjects"; they need merely be gone. Is this imperialism? No. It's simply the recovery of stolen property.

(This also has the effect of de-funding their radicals. Oil money can't pay for terrorists when the oil money is in someone else's bank account.)