"DurangoKid" wrote in message
...
Don Quijote wrote:
"Bald Headed John Kane" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 03 Jul 2003 12:25:38 -0700, Don Quijote wrote:

" -M.L. King
What people don't realize is our military (US) costs are huge to
ensure cheap oil, they only look at the pump price and bitch
about taxes.

But it's quite silly. OPEC doesn't keep oil cheap because of US miliary
might, they keep it cheap because it is in THEIR interest. Why?!? Because
they are afraid that high oil prices will lead to conservation, to greater
investment in energy efficiency, to the development of alternate sources of
energy, etc. Which, of course, is exactly what high oil prices would do.

The war in Iraq isn't going to make Iraqi oil cheaper -- the US (and
everybody else) are *still* going to have to buy it at market rates. And in
the short term, of course, the war has reduced the flow of oil from Iraq to
a trickle which, of course, does not tend to lower prices.

To the extent that the war was about oil, it was about it in the sense that
it is dangerous to let a brutal nut case like Saddam Hussein have access to
a huge stream of oil money. We (and/or Europe and/or Japan) are going to be
paying that money to Iraq regardless of the outcome of the war, but now it
won't be going to Saddam (and definitely not to Uday and Qusay) to support
their police state, torture and execute their citizenry and acquire weaponry
to threaten the Middle East.

Mark