"Nuke Their Ass..Take Their Gas!"

Elena and I had a delightful dinner Saturday afternoon at TGI Friday's. I hope you have these restaurants in your country. They charge reasonable prices and provide incredible five-star foods. Anyway on the way out of the restaurant, we saw a very old and beaten up pick up truck with those giant tires and oversized springs. There was a bumper sticker on the back with the inscription in the title above. The writer was encouraging the US government to use nuclear weapons against OPEC members. Once the country or countries neutralized, the US could seize the oil and solve their energy problems.

This bumper sticker made us both think a lot. What would civilized Europeans, South Americans, and Arabs think if they saw such a bumper sticler? What would Iranians think if they saw such a bumper sticker? Elena commented that they probably would not be surprised. She commented that cars in Tehran probably have bumper stickers just as nasty about the USA.

Over thirty years ago when the Arabs put an oil boycott on the US over our support of Israel, there was serious talk of invading the Middle East to get the oil. President Bush certainly had his eye on oil when he invaded Iraq. The American people were promised that oil revenues would defray the monetary cost of the war. Oil revenues would pay to rebuild the country. Instead the $70 billion US a year oil revunues are socked into Swiss bank accounts. At the same time the Iraqi government is begging foreign creditors to forgive old debts. The American tax payers has been stuck with a $500 billion dollar bill for Iraq. It could easily exceed $1 trillion US dollars. 46 million+ people in the USA suffer without medical care so we can fight a hopeless war.

In the broader picture, oil is getting more and more expensive. The oil remaining is either in the hands of unfriendly governments, deep under the sea, or in oil sands that are expensive to extract and create a lot of pollution. As countries like India and China need more and more oil, there is a great possbility of a military confrontation over oil.

Please let me give you some fascinating military facts. The US Navy is still the largest Navy in the world. China now has the second biggest navy. India has navy #3 in the world.

Why does China need such a big navy? Perhaps they are planning to invade Taiwan. This is wrong. Relations between Taiwan and China are improving since Taiwan elected a new president. China uses its big navy to protect its access to oil in the Middle East and Africa.

Why does India need a big navy. Are they planning an amphibious assault on Pakistan? I do not think they would risk a nuclear war and 30 million casualties with such a folly. Like China, India uses its large navy to protect the sea lanes from the Middle East and Africa where tankers come with this oil.

Please look at the three candidates running for president in the USA right now. All of them talk in grand and vague terms about American energy sufficiency.

What we need right now is a program equal to the Manhattan Project of World War II (that created the atom bomb) or the Apollo programs that landed men on the moon in 8 years. This new program would address the whole problem of energy. Its goal would be to develop and implement alternate sources of energy that would once and for all end dependence on oil. Such a program should share this knowledge with the entire world so that everyone could benefit.

What we need now is courage and vision like that shown by Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy.

Tags: Breaking the dependence on crude oil