Why Are We In Iraq? For the Oil, of Course!

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Got your interest, huh??

A few weeks ago, on CNBC, an question was asked of William Seidman, the lead commentator on the network.

http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/speaker.cfm?SpeakerId=677

Someone asked him for the real reason that our troops were in Iraq. His reply was that it was for the oil in the region. Now that a lot of hot buttons are being pressed, let us look a little deeper into what he said.

Seidman explained that the main reason that we are in Iraq, is to prevent the US from being blackmailed. The middle east provides the majority of the oil with which our country runs. If the terrorists took over the oil supply, they would have the US by the throats.

Where would we get the oil to run those monster SUVs that young America loves? Anyone remember the gas lines of the 1970s? Our country would come to a virtual standstill, if the terrorists took over the oil supply.

Many people have been so focused on the large American companies who profit from oil, that they have completely ignored this much simpler concept.

What do you all think?

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I think it's likely. And for the record, I think that when a lot of people say it's for the oil, they don't always mean just the profits for the oil companies.

Without oil to run our tanks and airplanes we would be impotent. We only import something like 30% (i'll look that up) of our total oil imports from the middle east. But if we were to lose that 30% while at war we would definitely feel it domestically as our military needs would be the priority.

You could say that the war is for oil directly and for the preservation of our super power status indirectly.

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I would say it's impossible to say Oil wasn't involved, but it was hardly the only reason.

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Switching to hydrogen-based fuel for cars would have been cheaper than the war, and ultimately, a better long-term solution without the loss of life, but Bush don't play that. In fact, if the US government pursued this switching of fuel, they wouldn't need ANY oil, and would have effectively crippled the middle east economically.

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Switching to hydrogen-based fuel for cars would have been cheaper than the war, and ultimately, a better long-term solution without the loss of life, but Bush don't play that.

Cav- I agree that alternate forms of fuel are the way to go, but it would take a long time to develop these alternatives. The oil and gas plug could be pulled almost instantly.

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Hydrogen-based fuel is not just a pipe dream, it's a viable alternative, but the scientists pursuing the concept are underfunded because the auto industry has a stranglehold on the government, being such a huge lobby.

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I think there are other technologies besides hydrogen that could work well also. As I understand it the current method of creating the hydrogen also depends on fossil fuels.

I think it takes an all around approach. Hybrid vehicles are available now. We should be encouraging their production and expansion. We need to look at the way our cities and suburbs are designed and make as many changes as we can that allow people to walk, use bicycles and public transportation, and make other healthy and conservationist choices. This is something we should have been doing over the last 20 years.

But alas, as Phoenix says, the plug could be pulled instantly. Well, my feeling is that Americans never do anything unless we're forced to. The oil embargo of the seventies gave us more efficient cars. When that ended we suddenly stopped caring about fuel efficiency.

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I agree with cavfancier.

I also think that the GOP is scrambling to find a justified reason for Iraq and came up with yet another new one using an old one with a new angle.

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Either hydrogen based cars or hybrid cars could conceivibly make the US completely unreliant on that 30% of oil you import from the Middle East, even if you still need to rely on fossil fuels in the interim, while new technology is developed. Hey, get more from Canada. That would be mutually beneficial, and I know some gas suppliers already do buy their crude from the north. We're also way too polite to invade.

Incidentally, hydrogen fuel production does not rely on fossil fuels: http://4hydrogen.com/about.html

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Quote:

I also think that the GOP is scrambling to find a justified reason for Iraq and came up with yet another new one using an old one with a new angle.

revel- I was attempting to make this thread as apolitical as possible. How did you come up with your conclusion that my thread had anything to do with the GOP?

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the auto industry has a stranglehold on the government, being such a huge lobby.

Cav- That is definitely true. But the fact remains that the auto industry are producing gas guzzlers for one and only one reason. THEY SELL!

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My overall take is, and?

It can be a legitimate goal, but needs to be accomplished legitimately. There is oil is Russia, and Russia is going through a particularly difficult and unregulated time. It could be seen as legitimate to grab control of all of Russia's oil as a safeguard for the possibility of Mideast terrorists grabbing the oil in the Mideast. But does the legitimacy of that goal -- removing possible leverage from the terrorists -- mean that we can just go and DO it?

The process is the thing, and the process here was spectacularly bad.

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The real reason we went to Iraq?

Yes, it was oil! But not the oil you think!

Our invasion of Iraq had more to do with the fact that Iraq changed it's oil standard to the Euro from the dollar a year or so before the invasion.

Why is this problematic for America? Because at the time, the dollar was waaaaaay down on the Euro (remember that? like 35% for a while) and it made more sense for countries like Iraq to simply be getting, literally, more money per gallon of oil by using the Euro.

Why is this a problem for America? Well, a lot of other countries in the M.E. were starting to consider doing the same thing. This is a big problem for our government. Why? Because right now, to pay for oil bought by the U.S. government, we do something that may surprise you:

print more money.

That's right. When the government needs to buy a billion dollars of oil from Saudi Arabia, we can just run off a billion dollars of cash and send it over there. It doesn't have to be backed up by real resources; we removed ourselves from that standard years ago.

Now, when the official note that is being used for exchange is euros, the U.S. gov't has to actually pay it's bills; we can't just print up a bunch of Euros and give them away, after all.

Does this process cause inflation? You bet! But it also allows our government to run in a state where we get oil basically for free from the Middle East. The leaders of OPEC don't care; the dollars they recieve spend just like real ones, all over the world.

What was the FIRST thing that we did in our capacity as occupiers of Iraq? That's right, secured the offices of the Iraqi Oil Commission and one of our first official decrees was that we were changing the Iraqi oil standard back to the dollar.

Economics are more important to this administration than any number of people's lives.

Cycloptichorn

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cavfancier wrote:

Either hydrogen based cars or hybrid cars could conceivibly make the US completely unreliant on that 30% of oil you import from the Middle East, even if you still need to rely on fossil fuels in the interim, while new technology is developed. Hey, get more from Canada. That would be mutually beneficial, and I know some gas suppliers already do buy their crude from the north. We're also way too polite to invade.

Incidentally, hydrogen fuel production does not rely on fossil fuels: http://4hydrogen.com/about.html

I understood that the current methods for producing hydrogen relied on fossil fuels. http://www3.iptv.org/exploremore/energy/profiles/hydrogen.cfm

But it doesn't really matter. The point is that I agree with you. We should be investing heavily in all viable alternatives, including hydrogen.

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Agree with soz and cy. Even if it was deemed to be necessary it was still a morally bankrupt decision.

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

Quote:
I also think that the GOP is scrambling to find a justified reason for Iraq and came up with yet another new one using an old one with a new angle.

revel- I was attempting to make this thread as apolitical as possible. How did you come up with your conclusion that my thread had anything to do with the GOP?

Your thread is titiled why are we in Iraq. I don't see how you can keep that from being political.

Perhaps GOP is the wrong word, I just meant those that favor us being in Iraq.

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Re: Why Are We In Iraq? For the Oil, of Course!

Phoenix32890 wrote:

Got your interest, huh??

A few weeks ago, on CNBC, an question was asked of William Seidman, the lead commentator on the network.

http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/speaker.cfm?SpeakerId=677

Someone asked him for the real reason that our troops were in Iraq. His reply was that it was for the oil in the region. Now that a lot of hot buttons are being pressed, let us look a little deeper into what he said.

Seidman explained that the main reason that we are in Iraq, is to prevent the US from being blackmailed. The middle east provides the majority of the oil with which our country runs. If the terrorists took over the oil supply, they would have the US by the throats.

Where would we get the oil to run those monster SUVs that young America loves? Anyone remember the gas lines of the 1970s? Our country would come to a virtual standstill, if the terrorists took over the oil supply.

Many people have been so focused on the large American companies who profit from oil, that they have completely ignored this much simpler concept.

What do you all think?

Hmmm - it seems this is an argument - though also seemingly couched as a simple fact - for invading other countries every time we worry that we can't have something we want?

This would, of course, justify Japan's attack on the US also given the embargo, or blockade, or whatever it was.

I mean, I know this is how countries actually tend to operate - but it is interesting to see it stated calmly, without the usual folderol and stuff to make you weep - you know, freedome and such.

Of course, one could argue that just buying it from other countries might have been cheaper.

Oh - seems the invasion hasn't worked - petrol is well over a dollar here - and oil prices continuing to rise.

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cycloptichorn has hit on something I have seen before. And it fits the puzzle perfectly.

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Good arguments, all. But what Cycloptichorn sez is quite revelatory.

If one must wonder what's truly at stake regarding the American economy for us to do the things that we do in the Middle Eastern region, here is one clear example. We are now building military bases in Iraq and getting ready to occupy that land as long as those oil reserves are there. America will control that oil, and at the cost of thousands of American lives.

This should be no surprise. One should also refer to the Carter Doctrine (in keeping with the apolitical format here) to realize at what point the precendent was made that America must have unfettered access to Middle Eastern oil.

The West is so dependent on oil that it'll do anything to get it.

The Middle East considers their oil sacred and their own. America doesn't realize that we are making some major investments in future terrorist acts via our actions in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.

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I don't see how that negates the war for oil scenario at all.

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Why Are We In Iraq? For the Oil, of Course!

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