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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:53 am Post subject: Breaking OPEC�s Grip |
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| Quote: |
Breaking OPEC�s Grip
A flex-fuel mandate would stop the U.S from funding its enemies.
By Robert Zubrin
�To wage war, three things necessary: money, money, and yet more money.�
� Gian-Jacopo Trivulzio, Marshal of France, 1499
A lot has changed since the turn of the 15th century, but Marshal Trivulzio�s famous aphorism still holds a great deal of truth. Yet Americans don�t seem to be heeding its implications. In fact, in waging the war on terror, the United States seems to be doing its best to fund its enemies.
Consider the following: In 1972, the U.S. paid out $4 billion for oil imports, an amount equal to 1.2 percent of our defense budget at that time. In 2006, we paid $260 billion � about half of what we paid for national defense. Over the same period, Saudi oil revenues have grown in direct parallel: from $2.7 billion in 1972 to $200 billion in 2006 � which will likely exceed $300 billion this year. Much of that money is being used to fund an international network of front organizations and Wahhabist madrassas devoted to spreading terrorist ideology. Meanwhile, Iran is using its share of the take to fund its nuclear bomb program, as well as terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
If something isn�t done to break the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) � the cartel that dominates and manipulates the global oil market � the situation is likely to get much worse: With China and India industrializing rapidly, world demand for fuel is going up. OPEC is positioned to exploit this new demand with radical price hikes that go well beyond the 50-percent increase it effected during 2007 alone. Venezuela�s Hugo Ch�vez and Iran�s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are already calling for prices of $200 per barrel. In short, we Americans are financing a war against ourselves � and the way things are going, we may soon be paying the enemy more than we are paying our own military.
The enemy�s unconstrained ability to loot us is also threatening our economy. Consider this: Congress is raiding the public purse to put $140 billion back in the pockets of American consumers, in the hope that this will provide an economic stimulus to prevent recession. Yet by paying $100 per barrel of oil, we are allowing OPEC to set oil prices high enough to take more than triple that amount out of Americans� pockets. If Ch�vez and Amadinejad have their way, our economy will soon be drained at a rate of nearly $900 billion per year, an economic de-stimulus tax package six times as large as anything Congress has put on the table to push the other way.
The economic depression resulting from $200-per-barrel oil would be nothing compared with an oil cutoff, which could be accomplished by an OPEC or Arab League embargo, or result from the irrational action of any number of lunatic forces at large in the Gulf. In 1973, the Arab oil embargo threw our economy into chaos � and, at that time, we produced 70 percent of the oil we used annually. Today, we produce only 40 percent of our own fuel, and the consequences of another cutoff would be catastrophic. Our continuing vulnerability on this score is a sword of Damocles hanging over the head of Western civilization � a disaster waiting to happen, and a tool for blackmail that prevents us from taking the necessary steps to defeat the Islamist threat.
In light of this, the top priority of U.S. national-security policy must be to break the oil cartel. This imperative has been apparent since the 1973 oil embargo, but no progress has been made. The only policy solution we�ve tried � domestic energy conservation � has failed, and will continue to fail for two reasons. First � putting aside the near-impossibility of getting American consumers to use less fuel � global demand will continue to grow, so it�s scarcely conceivable that domestic conservation efforts could affect the global oil price. Second, even if we could hypothetically create global conservation, OPEC could simply cut production to keep demand � and prices � high.
However, there is now a way to break OPEC, a surprisingly simple one. What is needed is for Congress to pass a law requiring that all new cars sold (not just made, but sold) in the U.S. be flex-fueled � that is, be able to run on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels. Such cars already exist � two dozen different models of flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) are being produced by Detroit�s Big Three this year � and they only cost about $100 more than identical models that can run on gasoline only. (The switch to FFV requires only two minor upgrades: in the materials used in the fuel line and in the software controlling the electronic fuel injector.)
FFVs currently command only about 3 percent of the new-car market. After all, there is little upside for consumers to own one, with alcohol-fuel pumps being nearly as rare as unicorns. Little wonder: Why should gas-station owners dedicate one of their pumps to alcohol fuels (like E85 � a mix of 85-percent ethanol and 15-percent gasoline � or M50 � a mix of half methanol and half gasoline) when only a tiny percentage of cars can use them? But, within three years of the enactment of an FFV mandate, there would be 50 million cars on American roads capable of running on high-alcohol fuels. Under those conditions, fuel pumps dispensing E85 and M50 would be everywhere � creating, for the first time, an effectively open market in vehicle fuels, and competition for OPEC oil.
By mandating that all new cars sold in the U.S. have flex-fuel capacity, we would induce all foreign automakers who want access to the American car market to switch their lines to flex fuel as well, effectively making flex fuel the international standard. In addition to the 50 million FFVs we�d see in the U.S. in three years, there would be hundreds of millions more worldwide that could be powered by any number of alternative fuels derived from numerous sources around the globe, forcing gasoline to compete everywhere. This would effectively break the vertical monopoly that the oil cartel currently holds on the world�s fuel supply, constraining prices to the $50-per-barrel range (where alcohol fuels become competitive).
Such a development would also create a market that would mobilize tens of billions of dollars of private investment into techniques for the production of cellulosic ethanol and other advanced alcohol fuels. Those investments will further reduce the price of alcohol fuels and will radically expand America�s and our allies� potential resource base (although methanol already can be produced from any kind of biomass, without exception, as well as coal, natural gas, and urban trash).
With such a production and distribution infrastructure in place, we could proceed to not merely contain the petrotyrranies, but crush them at our pleasure by implementing tax and tariff policies that favor alcohols over petroleum. Instead of sending the U.S. president to beg Saudi dictators for favorable treatment from OPEC dictators, we could defeat these often anti-American and terror-supporting regimes. Effectively, we could take over a trillion dollars a year that is now flowing to the oil cartel, and direct it towards the world�s agricultural and mining sectors instead. This would not only be of great benefit to U.S. farmers and miners, but an enormous boon to the third world, which otherwise faces brutal looting through the regressive tax imposed by OPEC�s unconstrained price hikes. There is not just a strategic and economic case for breaking the oil cartel, but a strong humanitarian case, as well.
The Islamists� power lies in their control of oil. Our strength is in biomass and coal. These can be readily turned into alcohol fuels. By standardizing technology that makes such alcohols usable to the vehicles on the road, we will open the fuel market in a way that will destroy the monopoly-inflated value of our enemies� resources, while greatly increasing the value of our own resources and those of our friends and allies.
Instead of financing terrorism, we could be funding world development. Instead of selling controlling blocks of Citibank or CNN to Saudi princes, we could be selling tractors to Africa. That is the way to win the war on terror.
� Robert Zubrin, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributing editor of The New Atlantis, is an astronautical engineer and author of Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil.
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National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTg5NjkyMmJhNjJiNjIxMWIwNDkzNWZmOWZlMjgzZTg= |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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Step 1: stop buying SUVs
Step 2: Get the government to legislate real fuel standards
Step 3: Develop a real biofuel plan that's not based on the farm lobby's desires to line their pocket
Americans have the power to quickly affect 1 and 2. But they simply don't. It's a mystery to me. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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Biofuels are a terrible idea; they're not at all energy-efficient and they contribute even more to global warming than fossil fuels. The "ethanol solution" is a creation of the agribusiness lobby, which many environmentalists have unfortunately bought hook, line, and sinker.
Our only alternative at this point is nuclear power. Unfortunately, the crappy, unsafe nuclear reactors of the 1960s and 1970s have given nukes such a terrible image that they're politcally unworkable; the NIMBY problem is insurmountable.
What will most likely happen is that oil prices will continue to rise, until they reach the point where people's desire not to fork over their entire paycheck for a tank of gas is greater than their desire not to have a reactor near their city. Then we'll go nuclear and we'll be fine. Nuclear power has come a long way in safety, efficiency, and waste-control technology.
Or, somebody will come up with some major breakthrough in cold fusion or solar power, and we'll go that route. Either way, I think the energy crisis will be over by 2030 or so. Too bad I still have to pay $50 (and rising) for a damn tank of gas in the meantime. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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There is also clean coal. It is expensive but it can be done.
Future Gen was a power plant where the Co2 was put underground. Futuregen was canceled because it cost 1.8 Billion. But it does show what can be done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureGen
ethanol doesn't work now but it doesn't have to be that way either.
Last edited by Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee on Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:49 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
Step 1: stop buying SUVs
Step 2: Get the government to legislate real fuel standards
Step 3: Develop a real biofuel plan that's not based on the farm lobby's desires to line their pocket
Americans have the power to quickly affect 1 and 2. But they simply don't. It's a mystery to me. |
Cause Americans don't want to really go to war against the terror.
The US can win but Americans really have to want to. |
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saw6436
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Daejeon, ROK
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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| I propose Americans pay a yearly fuel use tax. The higher your cars MPG the lower the tax. You want to drive a car with 8mpg. Great! Shell out $2,000 per year (or $5,000. or $500, or whatever). All tax revenue to be used 1. R&D for renewable energy sources. 2. Soft loans for the public and companies to install solar/wind/whatever on their houses and factories. 2. Soft Loans/Grants for the auto industry for more fuel economy research. |
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twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
Cause Americans don't want to really go to war against the terror.
The US can win but Americans really have to want to. |
Americans are traditionally against the genocide required to get that sort of "win" you seem to want. |
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saw6436
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Daejeon, ROK
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Actually, in a perfect world, the US could just drop a few dozen Neutron Bombs on the region. Plant the American flag and tell the rest of the world to "fcuk-off". |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:21 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
| Biofuels are a terrible idea; they're not at all energy-efficient and they contribute even more to global warming than fossil fuels. The "ethanol solution" is a creation of the agribusiness lobby, which many environmentalists have unfortunately bought hook, line, and sinker. |
I think this is where we'll have to disagree. I think the current solution based on corn is a miserable joke. Now a lot of energy goes into food production. We're going to eat sugar regardless. Lots of that energy invested in sugar goes to waste in the form of the stuff we strip away and normally toss out. Granting you need about 1/3 more ethanol to get as far as gas, being able to recapture energy lost in farming doesn't seem like a bad idea. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| twg wrote: |
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
Cause Americans don't want to really go to war against the terror.
The US can win but Americans really have to want to. |
Americans are traditionally against the genocide required to get that sort of "win" you seem to want. |
who said anything about genocide? The US won world war II and the cold war without doing anything of the sort And this a a thread about alternative energy you moonbat.
Gee Whiz you have been drinking the koolaide.
But at any rate you demand the US accept a low level war against it by Well the US doesn't have to.
They Bathists the Khomeni followers and the Al Qaedists just ought to stop. They don't have a right to their war.
At any rate this is the kind of group that TWG wants to protect.
| Quote: |
Bomb in Syria Kills Militant Sought as Terrorist
By ROBERT F. WORTH and NADA BAKRI
BEIRUT, Lebanon � A top Hezbollah commander long sought by the United States for his role in terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in the 1980s, died Tuesday night in Damascus, Syria, when a bomb detonated under the vehicle he was in, Syrian officials said.
No one claimed responsibility for killing the commander, Imad Mugniyah, who had been in hiding for many years and was one of the most wanted and elusive terrorists in the world.
Mr. Mugniyah, 45, was suspected of planning the 1983 bombings of the American Embassy and a Marine barracks in Beirut; the hijacking of a T.W.A. jetliner in 1985; and a series of high-profile kidnappings in the 1980s, among other crimes. Israel accused him of helping to plan the 1992 bombing of its embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 people were killed, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in the city, in which 85 people died.
The embassy bombing in Beirut was a particularly sharp blow to the United States because a regional meeting of Central Intelligence Agency operatives was under way and crucial personnel were killed.
Although Mr. Mugniyah had not been accused of planning new attacks in more than a decade, American officials sometimes referred to him and his Hezbollah peers as the �A team� of international terrorism because of their cold professionalism and secrecy.
Widely believed to have undergone plastic surgery to avoid detection, Mr. Mugniyah had not been seen in public for years and was thought to have moved between Iran, Syria and Lebanon at various times. Before 2001, he had been involved in more terrorist attacks against Americans than any other person, and at one point he had a $25 million American bounty on his head.
�The world is a better place without this man in it,� said the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, on Wednesday.
Hezbollah announced Mr. Mugniyah�s death hours after reports first emerged late Tuesday night that a powerful bomb had exploded under a sport utility vehicle in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus, the capital, killing its occupant and damaging 9 or 10 other vehicles.
Hezbollah did not say how or where Mr. Mugniyah was killed, but the Syrian state news agency confirmed Wednesday that he was the man killed in the bombing, citing Syria�s interior minister, Bassam Abdul-Majeed, who said Syria �condemns this cowardly terrorist act and offers condolences to the martyr�s family and to the Lebanese people.�
A television station run by Hezbollah, Al Manar, hailed Mr. Mugniyah as a hero. �With pride and honor we announce that a great jihadi leader has joined the procession of martyrs in the Islamic resistance,� said a statement read on the station. �The martyr was killed at the hands of the Israeli Zionists.�
Israel officially distanced itself from the killing and, without specifically naming Mr. Mugniyah, said that it was looking into the attack in Syria. But some former Israeli security officials did not hide their satisfaction at Mr. Mugniyah�s assassination. Danny Yatom, a Labor Party lawmaker and a former chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, called Mr. Mugniyah�s death �a great achievement for the free world in its fight on terror.�
Israel has proved its willingness to carry out attacks in Syria. In September, Israel bombed a suspected nuclear site in the Syrian desert. In 2004, a Hamas commander was killed in Damascus by a bomb, prompting accusations against Israel.
Syria normally maintains tight security, especially in the capital. For that reason, there was also widespread speculation on Wednesday that Syria might have cooperated in the bombing, possibly as part of a deal with Israel or the United States.
Asked whether the United States had played any role in the killing of Mr. Mugniyah, Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, would say only that he was �not familiar with the circumstances of the death.�
Shortly after Hezbollah announced Mr. Mugniyah�s death, mourners began arriving at the Moujamaa al-Shouhada, a building in the Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
In Tary Dibba in southern Lebanon, where Mr. Mugniyah was born to peasant parents, black flags were raised and stores were closed. After his body was brought back to Beirut on Wednesday afternoon, Al Manar showed black-clad guerrillas standing on either side of his coffin in a Hezbollah hall in the southern suburbs.
Hezbollah announced that a mass funeral would be held Thursday, which it said would be a day of mourning in some parts of southern Lebanon.
Even some political figures who are bitterly opposed to Hezbollah, like the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, sent condolences on Wednesday.
Mr. Mugniyah�s funeral will coincide with an especially delicate occasion in Lebanon: the third anniversary of the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The Western-backed March 14 coalition, led by Mr. Hariri�s son Saad, has called for huge demonstrations, which many Lebanese fear could lead to confrontations with Hezbollah.
Mr. Mugniyah, who was also known as Hajj Rudwan, was one of the world�s most wanted men. American prosecutors charged him in the hijacking of the T.W.A. jetliner in 1985, during which a United States Navy diver, Robert D. Stethem, was shot dead and dumped onto the tarmac of Beirut�s airport.
| Quote: |
Mr. Mugniyah was also accused of arranging shipments of arms from Iran to Palestinian groups. American officials say Mr. Mugniyah was behind the 1983 bombing of the Marine compound in Beirut, in which 241 service members were killed. A car bomb at the American Embassy there in the same year killed 63 people, including 17 Americans.
The United States also asserts that he was behind the torture and killing of William Buckley, the C.I.A. station chief in Beirut, in 1984; the kidnapping and killing of Lt. Col. William R. Higgins of the Marines, who was on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon in 1988; and in his capacity as leader of the Islamic Jihad Organization, the seizure of a number of Western hostages in Beirut during the 1980s. |
In a statement, the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said, �Israel rejects the attempt by terrorist elements to ascribe to it any involvement whatsoever in this incident.�
Gideon Ezra, a minister from Israel�s governing Kadima Party and a former deputy chief of the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency, told Israel Radio on Wednesday that many countries had an interest in killing Mr. Mugniyah but that �Israel, too, was hurt by him, more than other countries in recent years.�
Mr. Ezra said, �Of course I don�t know who killed him, but whoever did should be congratulated.�
Witnesses said the bombing that killed Mr. Mugniyah took place just after 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday in Tantheem Kafer Souseh, an upscale neighborhood of Damascus, close to an Iranian school and a police station.
The targeted vehicle, believed to be a black S.U.V., was badly damaged in the attack �like a shredded metal can,� according to Housham Nasaiseh, 19, who works in a sweets shop nearby and who arrived at the scene a few minutes after the explosion.
The police were removing a body from the vehicle when he arrived, Mr. Nasaiseh said. Within an hour, the shattered vehicle had been towed away. By morning the scene had been cleared, and the only signs of the attack were a black mark on the ground and scars on the sidewalk and nearby buildings.
Reporting was contributed by James Risen and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, Nawara Mahfoud from Damascus, Syria, and John Kifner from New York.
Reporting was contributed by James Risen and Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington; Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem; Nawara Mahfoud from Damascus, Syria; and John Kifner from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/world/middleeast/14syria.html?hp=&pagewanted=print |
Imad also was probably involved in the Khobar bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996.
And this is the type who TWG wants to protect. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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| saw6436 wrote: |
| I propose Americans pay a yearly fuel use tax. The higher your cars MPG the lower the tax. You want to drive a car with 8mpg. Great! Shell out $2,000 per year (or $5,000. or $500, or whatever). All tax revenue to be used 1. R&D for renewable energy sources. 2. Soft loans for the public and companies to install solar/wind/whatever on their houses and factories. 2. Soft Loans/Grants for the auto industry for more fuel economy research. |
Put on a gas tax of about 3.00 dollars a gallon and tax imported oil.
Invest the revenues in alternative energy.
It is war. |
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saw6436
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Daejeon, ROK
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| Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 2:16 am Post subject: |
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| ^ That will work too. |
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