Why Is Oil Worth Fighting For

Arab News ^ | 30 October 2004 | William F. Buckley Jr

[kipita]

Teresa Heinz Kerry’s reference to “greed for oil” can be passed over, and is being passed over, as routine political hyperbole. But maybe the time has come to examine the words and their meaning. This is so because “oil” is widely used as the great engine of human avarice. In years — and centuries — gone by, the devil word was “gold.” It was gold that brought out the reserves of evil in men. It ranked with and even exceeded love and sex. Oil could not, of course, go through hobgoblinization until its uses were discovered. But now it is used as the commonplace agent of evil.

What needs to be said about oil is that it IS worth fighting for. We would all agree that air and water are necessities. Without them life instantly ends. Without oil, life does not end, but life radically changes.

If one contemplates oil as simply an agent of energy, the idea becomes instantly clearer. Every advance by mankind against the material duress of life is most easily expressed in terms of energy spared. Electrical power is generated in part by coal, by running water and by nuclear energy. But much of it is created by oil and gas. What is it that a people are willing to fight for? The security of home and hearth come first, and that is achieved mostly by weaponry; but weapons that seek to have their effects beyond the range of a cartridge of gunpowder do so, on battleships and airplanes, by the propellant force of oil.

If you are willing to die in order to protect your local hospital, then you must be willing to die for oil, because without electricity, your hospital won’t take you beyond a surgeon’s scalpel, and a surgeon is helpless without illumination, which is provided (in many places) by oil.

To say that we must not fight for oil is utter cant. To fight for oil is to fight in order to maintain such sovereignty as we exercise over the natural world. Socialism plus electricity, Lenin said at the outset of the Soviet revolution, would usher in the ideal state. He was wrong about socialism but not about electricity. Electricity gives us whatever leverage we have over nature. To flit on airily about an unwillingness to fight for oil suggests an indifference to the alleviation of poverty at the next level after bread and water. Throw in, perhaps, the wheel. That too is an indispensable scaffolding of human power over nature. But then comes all the power not generated by the muscles of human beings and beasts of burden.

Oddly, those who speak so lightly about oil are often the most reluctant to explore seriously alternatives to it. In the history of discovery, only one such has materialized, which is nuclear power. Although nuclear power proceeds inconspicuously to light most of the lamps in France and promises to do as much in China, a mix of superstition and Luddism stands in the way of developing the nuclear alternative here.

Meanwhile, we must get on with oil, and the reserves of it are diminishing, and such great storehouses of oil as exist are mostly in the Middle East. The idea that our effort in Iraq is motivated by lust for its oil fields is easily dispelled by asking who is today profiting from such oil as is being produced in Iraq. The answer is: The Iraqis. The great need now is for increased security forces deployed to protect the oil from the nihilists and from those who reduce any consideration of oil to politics. What is achieved, that any sober judgment will approve of, by the destruction of oil fields, the kind of thing that Saddam Hussein tried to do in Kuwait in 1991?

It’s unlikely, given the spook that now attaches to the mere mention of oil, that the presidential candidates will say wholesome things on the subject. But it would bring fresh air to international discourse if we heard from either or both that oil is a great natural bounty, and that we must encourage its production, guard against its despoliation, and honorably defend it as worth a total national commitment.

— W. Buckley is founder of the American conservative weekly National Review.

[the invisib1e hand]

at the risk using hyperbole, oil is the life-blood of material civilization.

[LiberalBassTurds]

Good post bump.

[endthematrix]

Explain this to a Earth First hippie. Peace and understanding gets you how far when Islamofacists are plotting America's destruction?

[AmericanMade1776]

Teresa Heinz also said being a Mom was not a real job. Teresa also said to soak raisins in Gin to cure Arthritis.
Teresa also said let the young Hurricane Victims go naked in Alabama , as long as they have water. Teresa also called her husband's opposition neanderthals.....

[familyop]

"Why Is Oil Worth Fighting For"

Oil is absolutely necessary for defense for many reasons.

But speech about fighting for oil and so forth is most often aimed at implying that we went to "war for oil." Nothing could be further from the truth. We aren't taking all of Iraq's oil or coercing it away from Iraqis. The USA invaded Iraq, because Saddam Hussein threatened for so many years to take America down while trying hard to accumulate and develop weapons and allies to do so.

[the invisib1e hand]

they'll figure it out when they become soccer moms and dads.

[hummingbird]

...so we can keep our computers running...on Free Republic!

[Always Right]

This is the same lady who thought cloths for flood victims was not a neccessity, they could run arund naked for a few days.....

[Welsh Rabbit]

Whenever I hear anyone utter the empty phrase, "We're only there for the oil.", I tune them out forever at that point (especially when they're referring to our involvement in Afghanistan!).

[Barlowmaker]

How else would we ever have a TV reason to watch Hollywood Hearthrob Dash Riprock try to coax bodacious Bugtussel nymph Elly Mae and her critters out of the ceement pond?

[paudio]

I like this article. Many people seem to be ashamed to admit that oil is important. Let alone argue for it. Part of it because we're fed by MSM that the oil companies dictate Bush administration.

Looking at the amount of contributions this year, however, if memory serves me, oil industry only gives about 11 millions while trial lawyers give about 80 millions.

So, yes. Oil is important for our live. And if we must fight for it, so what?

[kipita]

I agree and Buckley said it very well. I have found Arab News to be very pro-American and intellectual. It's a good source for news from the Middle East.

[SirLurkedalot]

My reply is " Fine, then you don't mind paying for my gas since it's soooo cheap now A**HOLE!!!"

[Mobilemitter]

American oil is worth fighting for. Muslim oil is not. All oil which through either drilling, refinement or distribution leads to income for any muslim organization should be labeled as such. We as consumers (and human targets) have the right to know, don'cha think?

Let us vote with our wallets, it squeaks louder than most political wheels and gets greased way faster.... hey, was that American grease?

[kipita]

Excuse me as it's after tapas and fino. But I'm sick and tired of whinny children and their whinny issues in relegating America to a state of weakness and whinny people. Peace and prosperity are only achieved through strength. If you hit me first in the face today, tomorrow I'll put a knife in your heart.

[TheFrog]

So lets see, based on the 2004 estimate of world wide supply, there are 1050 billion barrels of oil available. 686 billion barrels of that oil are in the Middle East. 50 Billion barrels are in North America. During the first quarter of this year the United States consumed an average of 20.25 million barrels of oil a day (world wide consumption of 80.47 million barrels a day). If we only consumed our own oil we would be out of oil in less than 7 years (assuming DOE energy consuption projections). Given last years projections of world wide consumption (that are lower than actual consumption) the world will start to have serious oil problems in about twenty years. Oil is not the solution. The US had best start moving to a more diverse energy supply (nuclear, hydrogen, wind, solar)with in the next few years or we are toast. Write to your congressman and get them to sign on to the Presidents energy policy.