By Diana West
Who said the following:
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“U.S. politicians must muster the courage to scrap the fable of energy independence once and for all. If they continue to lead their people toward the mirage of independence and forsake the oasis of interdependence and cooperation, only disaster will result.”
Hint: ”Mirage” and “oasis” are clues.
Answer: Saudi Arabia’s Turki al-Faisal, who delivered this point in a hectoring lecture against US politicians who promote US energy independence from Saudi Arabia in Foreign Policy magazine in August 2009.
Da noive, yes. But in President Barack Obama, Turki seems to have found his turkey: a US president with the Saudi idea of “courage” to destroy not just US chances for energy independence, but US chances for political independence from the umma overall, which, believe me, becomes impossible as the intake of Saudi crude increases.
It’s not just that this administration has presided over the near-end of new domestic drilling. Now, the Obama administration is, to date, refusing to approve of a pipeline from friendly, democratic, human rights and environmentally conscious Canada that would effectively end our our need for Arab and other nasty oil exporting countries such as Venezuela. A report comissioned by the Obama administration itself states that a proposed new pipeline from Western Canada to Texas would substantially eliminate Middle Eastern from our import mix. It would also create 100,000 American jobs, according to House Energy Chairman Fred Upton. The Obama administration’s “foot-dragging” on this fabulous endeavor, which the co-founder of Greenpeace actually supports, seems to be the Saudi prince’s dream come true — and America’s nightmare.
From Newsmax:
The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week passed a bill requiring President Barack Obama to speed up a decision on approving the pipeline. The bill was introduced by Nebraska Republican Rep. Lee Terry, who maintains that the Obama administration has been too slow in making a final decision, the Montreal Gazette reports.
The Canadian province of Alberta has the world’s third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and more than Russia or Iran. Daily production from oil sands is expected to rise from 1.5 million barrels today to 3.7 million in 2025.
Delivering the oil will mean building two pipelines, one south to the refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast and the other west toward the Pacific, where it can be exported to China.
If the United States doesn’t approve its pipeline promptly due to environmental concerns, “Canada might increasingly look to China, thinking America doesn’t want a big stake in what environmentalists call ‘dirty oil,’ which they say increases greenhouse gas emissions,” according to a report from The Associated Press.
Say, wasn’t it environmentalists that scotched Shell Oil’s exploratory drilling project off of Alaska in the Arctic Circle earlier this year? You betcha, as Sarah Palin noted at the time after Shell in February announced an end to exploratory drilling this year in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas after Alaskan native and environmentalist groups went before the federal Environmental Appeals Board and successfully challenged the drilling permits Shell had received from the Environmental Protection Agency.
It’s a pattern. Obama wants to turn the local oil off. Meanwhile, there’s the Chinese angle to consider:
Sinopec, a Chinese-controlled company, has invested $5.5 billion in the planned pipeline to the Pacific coast.
Sinopec has also paid $4.6 billion for a stake in Syncrude, Canada’s largest oil-sands project, and PetroChina, Asia’s largest oil and gas company, bought a $1.7 billion stake in Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.
According to Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, American government officials have expressed concerns about the Pacific pipeline delivering oil to China that might have otherwise gone to the United States.
Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Newsmax in an interview last week that the pipeline project could create 100,000 jobs and said: “Why is it that we’re not working with Canada, which will be producing more than 3 or 4 million barrels a day from oil sand, and we’ve stalled on the application to build a pipeline?
Ask Big O.
Of course it is accurate – but it doesn’t stop the lying liberal Democrats spread their vile propaganda as we see once again in No. 20 above. Here we see a liberal Democrat propagandist continue the Democrat tactic of inverting the facts and trying to shift the blame even when we know that Bush tried to stop the madness but did not have the votes as we saw in the Fox News report on Youtube I posted in No. 18.
Here is some more credible information that Obama was involved when he sued to force Citibank to make loans to people who could not repay:
http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/
Here is a report on the government’s role, which started under the Clinton regime when Janet Reno threatened to sue the banks if they did not make bad loans.
http://www.openmarket.org/2011/05/20/government-role-in-causing-financial-crisis-much-bigger-than-thought/
Quote:
Clinton-era affordable housing mandates were also a key reason for the risky lending. The Washington Examiner cited a recent study by Peter Wallison, who had prophetically warned about risky financial practices for years, finding that two-thirds of all bad mortgages were either “bought by government agencies or required to be bought by private companies under government pressure.”
As the economist Thomas Sowell noted, liberal lawmakers and others ignored warnings about the dangers of these mandates:
“It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today’s financial crisis. Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers . . . . the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn’t.”
Unquote.
You know as much about the oil business as all the other talking points you have on file to be zapped up repetitively whenever somebody criticizes your idiot republicans and phony conservatives.
Remember HST “The buck stops here”? Bush had a majority in congress for 6 years and he did not use his good offices or Bully pulpit to force congress to act. He did not exercise his executive powers to institute strict oversight by creating or giving power of oversight by executive order. Maybe it would have been temporary until the next president but if as you say he was aware and did nothing except to raise the issue in congressional committee then did nothing? He is the executive responsible for the oversight of the financial markets through any number of existing government agencies and through his own appointees.
Yes the congress opposed but he didn’t as it is apparent try very hard. looks more like a president trying to cover his ass and stupid republicans believe this crap. Get real It was in the final analysis Bush’s fault.
The Fanny and Fanny debacle didn’t begin with Bush but he had 8 years to do something anything but in the end he did nothing and millions of Americans are paying a heavy price which is still being exacted.
The item about Spitzer is damming enough but the Ponzi scheme dwarfs Fanny and Fanny as I posted above.
I read George Will’s piece mentioned by American Eagle, and the comments on the WP website. I found Will’s piece to be a book review, which seemed accurate. Many of the comments were of the “shoot the messenger” variety, sliming Will in intemperate language; the sign of an ignorant mind. Some were “blame the other party”, a string the President has long run out. A few were substantive resposes to the arguments of the book being reviewed; fair enough.
Another mind-bogglingly stupid comment by an ignorant moron who thinks oil markets can be manipulated and knows what is an acceptable level of profits an oil company should have before punishing an oil company.
This is the same kind of stupidity we get from Imam Obama, the most stupid and incompetent president in history who is still trying to destroy the US economy but now finds the Repulicans in his way.
More ignorant poppycock about “high degree of certitude”. That’s still a lot of dry holes, moron. At least this ignorant moron cannot dispute that the oil and gas industry’s profit marging is less than a corner convenience store. No wonder he stayed a “roughneck”.
The Bush administration had nothing to do with the financial crisis you Obama-loving liberal Democrat idiot. In fact Bush and McCain tried to stop the madness but did not have the votes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM
Here is a far more honest analysis by George Will:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/burning-down-the-house/2011/06/30/AGeRSGuH_story.html
Brooksley Born, the Cassandra of the Derivatives Crisis
After all,” Born said, looking back, “I’m a lawyer, and I think the existence of fraud prohibitions is critically important.”
But Greenspan was insistent, she said.
“Greenspan was saying we shouldn’t do it,” Waldman recalled. “Rubin was saying we couldn’t do it.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502108_4.html?sid=ST2009052502127
The mind-boggling stupidity of this comment can be gaged by the fact that the Oil and Gas Industry – one of the most complex, risky, dangerous and difficult industries in bringing its product from its sources to its end users – has a 6.2% net profit margin, which ranks 114 out of 215 industries.
The price of crude on Sept 8, 2001 was around $22.00 and your oil companies did not declare bankruptcy did they? Since 9/11 oil prices averaged out over $65.00, Do the math boozo. With modern technology oil exploration is down to a science where the areas to be drilled are surveyed to determine the probability of oil and no drilling is executed unless there is at least a 70% chance of finding gas and oil. I roughnecked on a drilling barge in the red sea for a year and half and they knew with high degree of certitude where the oil was.
Your Bush did Just that and you are now paying the price. “Why the Bush Administration ‘Watergated’ Eliot Spitzer
Why Derivatives Caused Financial Crisis
Yes let business and private money do what they want. 🙂 🙂
yamit82 Said:
The mind-boggling stupidity of this comment can be gaged by the fact that the Oil and Gas Industry – one of the most complex, risky, dangerous and difficult industries in bringing its product from its sources to its end users – has a 6.2% net profit margin, which ranks 114 out of 215 industries.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/05/oil-profit-margin-ranks-114-out-215.html
To achieve the most efficient economy we need to get government and other economically ignorant smart asses out of the way and let reasonable tax rates and demand and supply at un-coerced prices and private investors do what is best for them – which always turns out to be the best for everyone else.
@ AmericanEagle:
Why don’t you lobby your republican and conservative friends to demand government reduce by % equal to rises in price. So say you set a base price of say $3.00 a gallon and if the price goes up government will reduce it’s various taxes $.30 per gallon? Tax the hell out of the oil companies if their net profits exceed a certain level, and or close all tax loopholes. Natural gas which is plentiful in America should be the power companies fuel of choice. If America runs short Israel might be willing to sell some of ours for a price.
IlaniYal Said:
IlaniYal
If there is no effective way to “drill” shale as yet, why don’t we leave it up to the private sector to decide?
How about all the other oil reserves in Alaska as well as on and off the continental USA?
How about nuclear power plants?
Why would jobs NOT be outsourced with Democrats in charge of the White House and the Senate – who are all in the pockets of the BIG labor unions and the extreme environmental lobby?
Did you read the column in the link in No. 11 above?
These things are all intertwined. Higher gasoline prices are like a tax increase on any economy.
I don’t think oil dependence is the first priority here, it’s the lack of jobs and employment opportunities with all manufacturing being outsourced. The one who mentioned Palin and her desire to “drill baby drill”, there is no cost effective way to drill shale yet.
More on the Obama regime’s desperate assault on America. November 2012 cannot come soon enough.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39383
Quote:
As I explain in a new report, titled “EPA’s Anti-Industrial Policy: Threatening Jobs and America’s Manufacturing Base,” EPA’s regulations are unrivaled in the harm they pose to America’s economy. The report focuses on four of EPA’s most egregiously anti-business proposals and how they will cost jobs and undermine America’s global competitiveness with China.
Consider EPA’s policy to regulate industrial boilers. It is so awful that 41 senators, including myself and 18 Democrats, sent a letter on September 27 to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, expressing opposition to it. “As our nation struggles to recover from the current recession,” the senators wrote, “we are deeply concerned that the pending Clean Air Act boiler MACT regulations could impose onerous burdens on U.S. manufacturers, leading to the loss of potentially thousands of high]paying jobs this sector provides.”
Unquote.
Keelie, you need to read all I wrote. I did not say Obama’s opposition to the pipeline makes sense.
I said that we might see that it makes sense to Obama however, if one sees Obama’s opposition to the pipeline in the context of his overall ideologically driven thinking regarding moving America to a greener economy.
That means standing in the way of American efforts to be oil energy independent. Instead, Obama has been inflicting economic pain on America (eg. lost jobs by not pushing for oil energy independence) to try to create a situation where Americans might then see their pain eased, if they support Obama in pushing for massive investment in the alternate energy sector, which would bring jobs to America. Obama would in that fashion move closer to realizing his ulterior motive and goal of making America a mixed oil-alternate energy reliant economy.
I know my suggested explanation is a huge stretch, but given what we see about how Obama thinks and manoevers, I don’t think it is so much of a stretch.
Did I vote for any of these “opponents” to enter parliament in the last Canadian election? How many of these “opponents” on the US side of the border were voted into Congress by US voters?
If the answers point to the fact that these people (“opponents”) do not represent the majority of people in each of these countries, why are they being not only listened to, but are being the source of all bans on energy independence in all its forms.
And Bill Narvey:
Does this strike you as a sane approach to American energy independence? If so, I would get on some serious medications.
Yamit, Obama has also upset the Saudis. He is ideologically blinkered to steer his ideological course regardless of miscalculations and recriminations from people at home, from friends and allies and even enemies he is convinced will succomb to his point of view if he keeps going in the same direction.
Bill Narvey says:
The Saudis may still be influential but America???
US loses Jordan
Obama’s policies have cost the US yet another faithful ally, Jordan. The local monarch sensed that he is next in line for removal by the US-backed Arab Spring, which seeks to put Islamist democracies in place of secular authoritarians. Jordan faces no military threat now, as it did in decades past when it needed US protection against Iraq, Syria, and Israel. So Jordan started accepting vast subsidies from Saudi Arabia, which come with a small price: joining the Saudi-led Middle East bloc.
Though it makes little sense, one possible explanation for Obama’s resistance to the pipeline from Alberta to Texas relates to his overall policy to force America to invest in alternate energy sources.
Obama nixed the idea of drilling for oil in the Gulf with the excuse it would present only more risk of another BP Oil disaster. He has however, supported deep sea drilling off the Brazil coast and invested heavily in Brazil developing that resource, promising Brazil that America would be Brazil’s best customer.
He nixed the idea of drilling in the Anwar in Alaska, catering to the environmentalists concerns over the impact to native wildlie, flora and fauna.
Though currently, Alberta is selling oil to America, Obama by his reluctance to approve the oil pipe line, is limiting the U.S. ability to acquire more oil from Canada.
All this, Obama is doing knowing that he is standing in the way of creating American jobs that Diana West estimates to be in excess of $100,00.00.
Obama of course does need to maintain his relationship with the Saudis which still are very influential in that Mid East region and he hopes they will pave the way for America to protect and even advance her interests there as well as create opportunities for better American relations with the Muslim world.
The foregoing explanation makes little sense because it accuses Obama of working against the interests of Americans, he claims to be most concerned about in order to create the impetus to force America to pursue alternate energy sources.
That is one of Obama’s lesser articulated views/policies, but if one looks to the full breadth of Obama’s ideological views, one might just find that to Obama, trying to weave those ideological views into a cohesive overall ideolgical agenda, one might find some logic in what he is trying to accomplish by denying oil drilling rights to companies for off shore drilling in the Gulf and off the California coast, his efforts to not allow drilling in the Anwar and the roadblocks he is putting up against the oil pipeline from Alberta to Texas.
Obama speaks of shared sacrifice when it comes to getting America out of the painful recession she is going through.
If the foregoing explanation for his actions re: oil is correct, then the idea of shared sacrifice that he speaks of means more than just the case of some higher taxes, cut backs on entitlements and redistribution of wealth.
It would mean that Americans are in for a whole lot more pain as Obama seeks to set next stage of his grand plan in motion which is to further force Americans to move to a dual energy base of alternate energy and oil. As for the latter, he doubtless intends as part of his grand scheme to have America continue to use the OPEC nations as a significant oil source in order to maintain his relations with the OPEC nations and take what they can give him in bettering America’s relations with the Muslim world.
So can Obama’s words and policies in the foregoing regard be explained in the context of his ideological prime directives? Likely not, but then again…..
There is a perfectly good reason to stall the pipeline. Obama wants to make sure that when he leaves office they let him into Mecca and Medina. 😉
@ :
Not only King Coal but Emperor Oil as well. If we got a US President like Sarah Palin, the US, its friends in the west and Israel could put the Saudis and Iranians out of business.
We are slowly being strangled.
O.K., Big O., I have a few questions for you. Why are you holding up this deal for an oil pipeline? The dirty shadow of corruption seems to loom over this win-win deal for the U.S. Maybe that’s the reason. So far your administration has proposed and backed only ideas and projects that are bad for the country. The winners of your “stimulus” plans were large corporations and banks, not the jobless citizens of America. Your medical plan was pushed through in the dead of night, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars from seniors receiving Medicare benefits. We ordinary people lost our jobs, our homes and our futures. What’s next?
Perhaps the positive aspects of the creation of 100,000 jobs, an end to middle eastern oil dependency for our main source of energy and the possibility of never having to kiss the hand of a Saudi Arabian monarch again are too good to accept. Why? Is that against your “global” perspective of the American future? Or do you think of the phrase “American future” as an oxymoron?
King Coal says Saudi lies.