The truth about Mideast oil...we don’t need it.

From Ahmed Amr at Axis of Logic (excerpts pulled from a very long article):

Yet, a review of the Department of Energy’s own figures for 2004 reveals that the United States imports more oil from Canada than from Saudi Arabia. Mexico is our second major supplier and Saudi Arabia and Venezuela tie for third place. In fact, 37% of the twenty million barrels of oil we consume every day comes from domestic oil production. In comparison, petroleum from the Gulf - including Saudi crude – accounted for only 12% of our total oil consumption in 2004 and less than 5% of our total energy requirements.

For 60% of all energy requirements, we depend on nuclear energy, natural gas, coal and hydroelectric power. In contrast, the 1.5 million barrels of oil we import from Saudi Arabia every day satisfies only 3% of our daily energy fix and Saudi crude accounts for just 7% of America’s oil requirements.

This might come as a surprise, but America produces 70% of the energy we use right here in the United States of America. In fact, domestic energy supplies give the United States a comparative trade advantage against many industrialized countries like Japan, China, Italy, South Korea, Germany and India – which are almost entirely dependent on imported oil and natural gas.

Over half of our oil imports come from the Western Hemisphere.

One of the reasons for the recent spike in oil prices has nothing to do with access to supplies – which continue to grow even though our invasion of Iraq has actually reduced the amount of oil coming out of Mesopotamian oil fields. As any oil trader will tell you, it is the demand for oil from emerging economic giants like China and India that has driven this market. In the case of China, imports rose 16% in 2004.  Which begs the question: should we blockade oil to the Chinese market to alleviate pressures on aggregate supplies?

With the exception of oil exporters like Canada and Great Britain, the United States is far less dependent on Gulf oil than the vast majority of industrialized nations. Europe, Japan, China and India are infinitely more vulnerable to any disruption in the flow from the Gulf region.

If one could pour all of America’s annual energy consumption into twenty bottles and line them up against a wall, only one of those bottles would contain the oil we import from the Gulf.  It should also be noted that we don’t get that bottle for free – we pay the same market price as everybody else. So, why spend so much in American blood and treasure for that one single bottle – instead of trying to get by on the energy content of the other nineteen bottles?

Amr comes to this startling conclusion:

...there is no compelling argument to justify America’s military adventures in the Gulf.

Finally, Liberals agree that the US didn’t attack Iraq because of the oil. It is so nice to see an independent organizaiton publicizing the facts and making the arguments the Bush Administration doesn’t. Why are these liberals doing this? Do they finally get it?

At some point, intervention and empire cease to be economically rational, even from the perspective of die-hard cold-blooded imperialists. Eventually, they degenerate into a costly tradition. We conquer because we can. We continue to fight a war because we haven’t finished it. It was Napoleon who once observed that “Great empires die of indigestion”. We have reached that point in the Gulf. It’s time to pack up and leave. The sooner we do it, the cheaper it will be.

In other words, the sooner Amierica stops this Quixotic attempt at freeing people from tyranny, the sooner we can push the Jews into the sea. And it will be cheaper too.

I feel like such an “ugly American.” And damn proud of it.