Strategic Oil Reserves

[FzPilot]

So they stop filling it to help fuel cost right?

Here's a little known fact: Not paying for war in Iraq for 2 months equalls the entirety of federal fuel tax collected in one year!

 

[wrightme43]

Credit where it's due

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Janet Albrechtsen | May 14, 2008

THERE is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster.
Then, just as swift and with equal predictability, those wedded to the Great Satan view of the US begin to carp, drawing on a potent mixture of cynicism and conspiracy theories to criticise the last remaining superpower. When the US keeps doing so much of the heavy lifting to alleviate suffering, you'd figure that the anti-Americans might eventually revise their view of the US. But they never do. And coming under constant attack even when helping others, you'd figure that Americans would eventually draw the curtains on world crises. But they haven't. At least not yet.
So it was last week. The US stood ready to help the cyclone-ravaged Burmese people. It did not matter that Burma's ruling junta was no friend of the Americans. With more than 100,000 people feared dead and many more hundreds of thousands left destitute, US Air Force cargo planes loaded with supplies and personnel started arriving in nearby Thailand to begin humanitarian operations in Burma.
A US Navy strike group in the Gulf of Thailand sent helicopters ashore, ready to arrive in Burma within hours. Alas, Burma's military leaders left their people to die for 10 days before finally accepting help from the evil empire. Even if the Yanks are allowed to boost their assistance to Burma, they can expect a groundswell of criticism.
Back in 2004, the Americans - along with the Australians - arrived within hours to help the hundreds of thousands of people left devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami in Asia. A US carrier group steamed towards Indonesia's Aceh province. A second US Marine Corps strike force made its way to Sri Lanka with water, food and medical supplies.
The Pentagon spent millions of dollars sending C-130 transport planes from Dubai to Indonesia with tents, blankets, food and water. A navy chief in charge of co-ordination efforts said the US would deliver "as much help as soon as we can, as long as we're needed".
The resentment that comes from needing the military and economic might of the US translated into the most absurd criticism. Jan Egeland, the former UN boss of humanitarian affairs, cavilled about the stinginess of certain Western nations. His eye was on the US. Former British minister Claire Short was equally miffed, describing the initiative by the US and other countries as "yet another attempt to undermine the UN", which was, according to her, the "only body that has the moral authority" to help.
I love moral authority as much as the next guy, but the UN's moral authority is a mighty hard sell given that the UN club includes the most odious regimes in the world, such as Burma. And notice how the UN's moral authority did not quickly translate into helicopters laden with food and water?
When the UN finally does anything of use, it's propelled in large part by US dollars, with the US contributing more than any other country. Those other giants, China and Russia, are not filling the coffers of the UN's moral authority.
Then came the even more toxic comparisons between Iraq and US humanitarian assistance in Asia. In the anti-American mind, opposition to one US policy means blasting everything the Americans do. Of course, Egypt's Al Akhbar newspaper said the US was helping tsunami victims to "consolidate its hegemony" and had nothing to do with humanitarian and moral principles. But similarly rank reasoning was common. London's The Guardian newspaper columnist George Monbiot was not alone in sneering at US marines who, just a few weeks before saving lives in Sri Lanka, were "murdering civilians, smashing the homes and evicting the entire population of the Iraqi city of Fallujah".
The need to paint Americans as a greedy, selfish, war-mongering superpower cannot be disturbed by facts. It matters not that, in the year before the tsunami, the US provided $2.4 billion in humanitarian relief: 40per cent of all the relief aid given to the world in 2003. Never mind that development and emergency relief rose from $10 billion during the last year of Bill Clinton's administration to $24 billion under George W. Bush in 2003. Or that, according to a German study, Americans contribute to charities nearly seven times as much a head as Germans do. Or that, adjusted for population, American philanthropy is more than two-thirds more than British giving.
There is a teenaged immaturity about the rest of the world's relationship with the US. Whenever a serious crisis erupts somewhere, our dependence on the US becomes obvious, and many hate the US because of it. That the hatred is irrational is beside the point.
We can denounce the Yanks for being Muslim-hating flouters of international law while demanding the US rescue Bosnian Muslims from Serbia without UN authority. We can be disgusted by crass American materialism and ridiculous stockpiling of worldly goods yet also be the first to demand material help from the US when disaster strikes.
The really unfortunate part about this adolescent love-hate relationship with the US is that, unlike most teenagers, many never seem to grow out of it. Within each new generation is a vicious strain of irrational anti-Americanism. But unlike a parent, the US could just get sick of it all and walk away.
The US has had isolationist periods in the past and it must be enormously tempted sometimes to have another one soon. The consequences of that possibility deserve some serious thought. If the neighbours worry about Russian bullying over oil and gas, just imagine a Russia unfettered by a US military presence in Europe. How long would South Korea, Israel or Taiwan last if the US decided it wanted to spend on itself the money it presently devotes to military spending in the Middle East and Asia?
None of this is to say the US does not deserve loud and frequent criticism. No country has as many or as strident critics - internally and externally - as the US. The US actually promotes such debate. But just occasionally we should moderate that criticism when circumstances demand a dose of fairness.
Indeed, why not break into a standing ovation every now and again? As more US C-130s and helicopters stand waiting on Burma's doorstep, desperate to help a shattered populace and stymied only by an appalling anti-US regime, this is one of those times.
Let's hear it for America.
[email protected]

 

[CanadianFZ6]

The oil sands are going to make Canada a fortune. A stinking huge fortune.

I just hope you guys dont spend it all on Terrence and Phillip dolls. LOL LOL LOL

Yes, and the dolls are in production as we speak....

 

[HavBlue]

Anybody pay attention the the price of crude in the last week? When it was at $123 per barrel it all of a sudden spiked to $127 per barrel. Seems the idiot running Iran started shooting his mouth of (that's normal) about cutting back on oil production. Then, the Saudi government and others in OPEC went through the roof. About this time Iran said wait, not right now but too late, the price had already gone up. Now there's a place more than a few would be willing to roll over....

 

[yukon_alex]

We are not a cruel country that goes around invading and taking things from other countries. We could. The fact is we could pretty much invade whatever country we want, smash it, and take what ever we want. The only real resistance could come from England, Russia, France, and China.
England and France with nuclear weapons.
Russia, and China with soldiers and nuclear weapons.

That is not to be arrogent, its just the facts.
Remove the nuclear option and the only countries really able to mount a strong defense would be China, and Russia.
If we were bent on world domination, or controlling the worlds oil supply, we would not be working to build a democracy in Iraq.

I agree that the US has a VERY powerful armed forces. BUT. If the US were bent on world domination, the entire world would resist. How many fronts can a country of 300+ million people fight a war on? Even without nukes, I think the US would have a hard time if all of the countries around the world decided that they didn't want the US to lord it over them. The only good thing that would come of that is that for a short time, the entire world would be focused on just one thing. Afterwards? Back to the backstabbing, cheating ways of politics.

Of course, the real response to people that think the US is trying to control the world through economic force or miltitary might should be: "Why would we want to take ownership of your problems?"

This is a great discussion. And these are my thoughts.

 

[HavBlue]

I agree that the US has a VERY powerful armed forces. BUT. If the US were bent on world domination, the entire world would resist. How many fronts can a country of 300+ million people fight a war on? Even without nukes, I think the US would have a hard time if all of the countries around the world decided that they didn't want the US to lord it over them. The only good thing that would come of that is that for a short time, the entire world would be focused on just one thing. Afterwards? Back to the backstabbing, cheating ways of politics.

Of course, the real response to people that think the US is trying to control the world through economic force or military might should be: "Why would we want to take ownership of your problems?"

This is a great discussion. And these are my thoughts.

In terms relative to trade debt, the Nation of China is number one by a factor of 3+ to all other nations. We now owe China 259.1 billion dollars while we owe Japan 83.1 billion, Mexico 74 billion, Canada 65 billion and the entire National debt as of January 2008 was $9,195,477,639,808.95. If the entire world wanted to take down the United states, all they need do is call in their markers and we would in effect be toast. Forget the entire world, just have China call in it's markers and we are history in terms of economy.