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Why Is Everyone Lying About Energy? In early March, President Bush, addressing an International Renewable Energy Conference, was widely quoted saying that the United States has to "get off oil." Earlier he had said that America was "addicted" to oil. These are such huge lies one wonders why he is telling them, unless perhaps he has quietly been investing in ethanol production. For the record, "renewable" energy refers to solar and wind energy for electricity, and biofuels for transportation. None of these options can ever be expected to provide the electric energy America uses, nor will biofuels ever replace oil for transportation.
The problem is not a lack of known reserves of oil. The problem is the way the lack of knowledge by the consuming public is being exploited. Yes, the price of a barrel of oil has reached and surpassed $100, but that price is subject to a myriad of factors that have nothing to do with scarcity. As OPEC president, Chakib Khelil, told reporters recently, "There is sufficient supply. There’s plenty of oil there." He’s telling the truth. One factor for sure is the falling value of the U.S. dollar. Oil that is priced in Euros has not risen nearly as much. "Energy independence," says Bryce, "is hogwash. From nearly any standpoint—economic, military, political, or environmental—energy independence makes no sense. Worse yet, the inane obsession with the idea of energy independence is preventing the U.S. from having an honest and effective discussion about the energy challenges it now faces." Nowhere is this more obvious in the campaigns of the Democrat and Republican candidates. John McCain, the GOP nominee, is committed to the global warming hoax that is based on the lie that the use of all forms of energy are contributing "greenhouse gas" emissions at such a rate the Earth is warming dramatically. It isn’t. There isn’t a scintilla of scientific data to demonstrate this. It has warmed about one degree Fahrenheit—naturally—since the end of the mini-ice age in 1850. The Democrat candidates are no better on the subject of energy and Sen. Clinton is on record wanting to seize the profits of "Big Oil" and divert them to ever more research into alternative energy options. Take the case of ExxonMobil whose profits—after you factor in the billions it spends on exploration, extraction, refining and distribution—have been the same for years, about ten percent. Over the past three years, this one oil company has paid an average of $27 billion a year in taxes to the federal government, about 41 percent of the company’s taxable income. Bryce points out that, "The reality is that the world—and the energy business in particular—is becoming ever more inter-dependent. And this interdependence will likely accelerate in the years to come as new supplies of fossil fuel become more difficult to find and more expensive to produce." "Energy independence, at its root, means protectionism and isolationism, both of which are in direct opposition to America’s long-term interests in the Persian Gulf and globally." U.S. energy policies, tragically, are leaving us ever more vulnerable to the uncertainties of the global oil market. Congress prohibits exploration and extraction of oil and natural gas from 85% of the nation’s continental shelf. It prohibits access to the oil in Alaska’s ANWR. It has mandated that gasoline be refined in numerous different blends and that ethanol—a huge subsidized scam—be added to it, reducing its efficiency while increasing its cost. On top of that, it taxes gasoline, adding over 40 cents to every gallon that consumers purchase. Predictably, when consumers, oblivious to the realities of the global oil market and everything else involved with delivering gasoline at the pump, begin to complain, politicians begin to think about regulating gasoline prices. It doesn’t work and it will likely worsen the Recession we’re in. It was tried by the Carter administration and was a full-scale disaster. Between 1978 and 1980, thanks in part to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, crude oil prices more than doubled from about $9 a barrel to over $21. Back then, Carter was advocating solar energy, conservation, synthetic fuels, and other "solutions", but they didn’t work then and they won’t work now. In terms of our enormous energy needs, Congress and the White House are seriously mismanaging America. Energy is the "master resource." Without it everything else slows, stalls, and stops. The nation’s economy is entirely dependent on our ability to function in a world where oil, natural gas, and coal are global commodities. They don’t have a nationality. They have a price. And that is set by supply and demand, not the federal government. The government is literally wasting billions on "alternative forms" of energy and "climate change." It should be encouraging the building of more refineries, more nuclear fission, coal or gas-fired plants to generate electricity, more pipelines. It should be eliminating the restrictions on access oil, gas, and coal within and these sources from beyond our nation’s borders. The President, the candidates competing to be the next President, and members of Congress are all lying to Americans about the realities of energy. The situation is likely to get much worse before it ever becomes better. Have you visited my blog? My posts augment these weekly commentaries, keeping up to date with events on a daily basis. Our Nation, Our Military, Our Mission "About 490,000 U.S. service personnel are forward-deployed around the world."
The quote above is from Major General Richard Sherlock, director of operational planning for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It should be noted that they are all volunteers. In a nation with just over three hundred million population, their bravery, their dedication, their sacrifice strikes me as extraordinary, but I also think we probably need a lot more such people as the 21st century portends an "asymmetrical war" against fanatical jihadists bent on dragging everyone back to the 7th century. A February article in The American Legion Magazine by Alan W. Dowd, drawing on available data from public records, including the Pentagon’s "Active-Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and By Country" report, reveals just how committed the United States is to the mission of maintaining peace throughout of the entire world. "To display every U.S. deployment on earth," wrote Dowd, "would be to highlight virtually every country from Albania to Zimbabwe." The Congressional Research Service reports that the U.S. has a military presence in 144 nations. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of where Americans are "forward deployed" in a dangerous world. After more than 50 years since the stalemate that ended the Korean conflict, 1950-53, we have 27,114 U.S. forces in South Korea. My former affiliation, the 2nd Infantry Division and several Air Force tactical squadrons are based there. Across the border is the criminal, Communist nation of North Korea. U.S. forces have fallen by 9,000 in the past three years. Long since the end of World War II, having protected Europe against the possibility of an invasion by the Soviet Union, we have 10,152 personnel in England. A raft of Army, Navy and Air Force personnel are stationed there. We have 58,894 personnel in Germany. At the height of the Cold War, we had nearly 300,000 U.S. troops deployed there. Reunited with the fall of the Berlin Wall, today there is no East Germany controlled by the Soviet Union. We have military assets in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Portugal. We maintain a minor presence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo/Serbia. Coming soon we will station "force protection" troops in the Czech Republic and Poland. We even have a small force in Greenland. Keep in mind that we are in these nations and others at their invitation and as the result of mutual defense treaties. Because 70 percent of the U.S. military’s Iraq-bound air cargo passes through Turkey, we have 1,668 Air Force personnel based at the Incirlik Air Base. We have been there since the 1950s. We’re building new air force facilities in Romania and some 2,500 in Bulgaria. Both are former Soviet satellite nations. A small force for naval support is based in Greece. There’s also a deep-water port and airfield at Souda Bay in Crete. In addition to approximately 168,000 U.S. fighting forces based in Iraq, there are 26 other nations represented there for a total of 11,830 additional personnel. Approximately 3,830 Americans have given their lives to depose a homicidal dictator and bring about a democratic government in that nation. Nearby in Kuwait, which was liberated in 1991 after an Iraqi invasion, we have 16,500. Kuwait is the logistical hub and staging area for U.S. operations in Iraq. There are approximately 24,800 U.S. troops conducting counter-insurgency and stability operations in Afghanistan. In addition, there are some 20,000 non-U.S. forces deployed there as well. About 700 coalition personnel have been killed, including 445 Americans. Elsewhere in the Middle East, there are bases and forces deployed in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and even Saudi Arabia. These nations are our allies in the effort to destroy al-Qaeda. They are essential to insure the security of the flow of oil to the global marketplace. Turning toward Asia, there are 50,000 forces stationed there. Japan hosts a carrier battle group, the 111 Marine Expeditionary Force, the 5th Air Force, and elements of the Army’s I Corps. Approximately half are based in Okinawa. There are a small number of personnel in the Philippines, primarily in a training mission to help that nation deal with Islamic terrorist groups. Australia is host to just over 700 personnel and, in Guam, the U.S. maintains critical Navy and Air Force facilities and military units. There are plans to deploy F-22 fighter-bombers, aircraft carriers, and 20,000 more troops there. Major units of the U.S. military are based in Hawaii to the tune of 35,874 personnel. The volatile continent of Africa and its strategically critical Horn has just over 2,000 personnel conducting humanitarian, training, and military operations. We have a small number of special operations units in the Trans-Sahara region, mostly concerned with counterterrorism. The U.S. presence is likely to increase, given the creation of an Africa Command. In North America, we have major units based in Alaska, a forward-deployed position in the event of trouble in Asia. A handful is based in Canada as part of NATO and mutual defense commitments. As might be expected, there are 876,378 military personnel are based in the United States. Some 63.8 percent of America’s active-duty personnel are based here. There are, for example, 3,000 National Guard deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border to assist our border patrol units. The Southern Command we maintain units that deploy in training exercises with troops from 19 nations in South America. Small units are maintained in Honduras and Columbia. There are just over 900 in Cuba at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay where we also have just over 300 detainees from the various fronts of the global war on terrorism. There’s even an Army garrison at Fort Buchanan in beautiful Puerto Rico. All this sounds like a lot of military power and it is, but we need more. Early word of a classified Pentagon assessment of risk levels and the ability of our military to respond call for 12, not 15 month, tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and longer rest periods at home. We are wearing out our fighting personnel, along with a significant need to replace equipment that active conflicts have destroyed. For example, the Air Force has about 5,800 aircraft. The Department of Defense budget calls for the acquisition of 93 aircraft in 2009. At that rate, it will take 62 years to replace the current fleet! While the politicians are giving away $150 billion in a bogus "stimulus" bill, how much wiser it would be to provide the $20 billion per year for the next five years that both the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff say is needed? In terms of our Navy, the need for a strong military is evident in the two carrier groups we are keeping in the Persian Gulf to safeguard the Middle East. We are likely to do so as long as Iran continues to threaten the peace of the region and Iraq seeks stability. As for our volunteer military, we are going to need many more people to serve because other nations, unfriendly to our interests, continue to increase their military capabilities. The ancient Romans knew something about maintaining troops in a far-flung empire. "Si vis pacem, para bellum." If you want peace, plan for war. Yes, everyone wants you to donate. The Center knows that, but the Center needs your support to maintain our communications program. If the truth counts for you, take a moment to make a donation. Thanks!
©
2008 Alan Caruba. |
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In one of the most brilliant analysis of America’s dependency on oil, "Gusher of Lies", by Robert Bryce, the author spells out the realities of a world in which, not just the United States, but all nations are going to be importing oil for as long as crude can be pumped from places around the world that include the Middle East, Russia, Africa, South America, and the deep ocean waters. 
Americans know that we have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I suspect they have little idea that nearly a half-million of our soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors and coast guard are in far-flung places prepared to deter and defeat the enemies of the freedom we enjoy and want to extend worldwide.