This might be my most important post to date.
Please: go with me here, and read until the end.
Whilst the rest of the world’s journalists pen uninformed and untruthful screeds about the circumstances in Japan in re its three runaway reactors, there is yet still an overarching concern. If one but dons and utilizes the Long Run Glasses.
And, in my world, in the long run, this issue easily, very easily trumps whatever jeopardy Japan may face.
Because the United States of America — Uncle Sam — is in fact the Last and Best Hope for the entire planet.
And America has been betrayed, ladies and gentlemen.
You have been betrayed.
Every lawful citizen and taxpayer has been betrayed.
I first became aware of this situation via TexasFred:
New report says US has largest fossil fuel reserves in the world.
I read this once in disbelief and then had to read it again. I’d never heard of this, prior. I thought: it simply can’t be true. It must be a lie. Read it. What do you conclude?
Weren’t we told the exact opposite?
In that light, at the same time, Mr Obama wants to tap our oil reserves. Why?
This is fuel kept in reserve for, bottom line, our last-chance military needs. Mr Obama wants not to enable military victories, but to try to drop the cost of a crude barrel. He is in “good” company: Bush Sr did this in 1991 during the Gulf War; Clinton did it in 2000. And Bush Jr did it behind Katrina in 2005. And it is WRONG. Even Chevron — who could profit — thinks this is a bad idea.
Moreover, did anyone make a stutter-step besides ME when you read the “fossil fuel reserves” link?
That is my point.
From The Daily Caller:
Senators James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ranking Member of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, will release a report Thursday from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) showing that the United States’ combined recoverable natural gas, oil and coal endowment is the largest on Earth.
Russia comes in as a close second with recoverable fossil fuel reserves, followed Saudi Arabia, China, Iran and Canada.
According to the new report, an updated version of a 2009 paper, the United States’ resources are larger than Saudi Arabia, China and Canada, combined. The report estimates that the U.S. has 163 billion barrels of recoverable oil and enough natural gas to meet the country’s demand for 90 years.
The CRS report is being made public at a time when oil and gas prices are skyrocketing and the Department of Interior is embroiled in a battle with oil companies over offshore drilling. Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Michael Bromwich, Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, appealed a court decision that ordered them to act on five pending drilling permits.
Further:
Moreover, earlier this week it was reported that President Obama is considering tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a response the rising gas prices. On Monday, the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.51 – up 39 cents since the unrest in Libya began in mid-February.
The rising cost of oil is putting immense pressure on the White House to act. And Obama, said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is “very cognizant of the fact that Americans are experiencing a sharp rise in prices at the gas pump that affects them and their family budgets.
“The largest on earth.”
Those points made, let us consider an overarching goal or — a placement, a massively-important question. In consideration of the fact that technology enables our ability to tap oil heretofore unconsidered.
It distills down to an IF / THEN equation.
IF the US may possess the greatest untapped oil fields, greater than Russia, greater than Saudi Arabia, Canada and China combined — THEN why have we sent our young and good men into heavy combat behind various wars and skirmishes in the Middle East — which is a place on earth wherein inherent Evil exists behind Islam and wherein there exists the belief that “oil stability” is paramount?
I’m telling you, ladies and gentlemen, I am still having a hugely difficult time wrapping my Wheelhouse around the concept that the largest oil reserves on the planet lie beneath our feet.
Because, if this is true, we have literally wasted more American lives and billions of American dollars than we would even remotely want to consider. Our entire defensive posture, our entire linear Strategic Thought has, if this is true, been a blatant LIE.
And we could have let all those heathen Middle Eastern nomadic, barbaric, no-account pederastic bastards kill each other off with abandon and not much cared. Much as they’ve themselves wished.
Because you and I and the rest of cogent Americans know the actual unspoken truth: that we’ve invested ourselves in the Middle East due — primarily and only — due to oil. The gift of which by recognition we, truly, gave to them.
Perhaps it’s time to bring in the Religious Left.
Perhaps it’s time for the Leftists and Marxists and Socialists and Demorats to make an accounting.
And, moreover, perhaps it’s time for Republicans to take their own share of the guilt.
Above, I mentioned genocide.
I ask you: is it not genocide when you purposely sacrifice generation after generation of good American soldiers behind the uninformed and — further — the politically-correct stance of energy disavowance when, truthfully, the answer literally lay beneath our feet? Purposely occluded and stymied by Leftists, Demorats and “wanting to get along” Republicans?
We could solve our own problems. We could abandon the Middle East. We could, concurrently, develop alternate resources in the ten, twenty, thirty, forty years in reserve?
And we REFUSE to do so?
Oh my God. How many Americans have we sacrificed on the altar of Politically Correct?
I still find it difficult to wrap my Brain Housing Group around this.
Please weigh in. What think you?
BZ
The lost lives are certainly the highest cost, you have to realize the cost in shipping all those dollars overseas for that imported oil too, that cost is immense! the military actions are extremely expensive, and for what? the cost of all the jobs that could be HERE producing all that oil! the more ya look at it the angrier you could get, but, who’s to blame? we are, the American voter.
Money in the bank? You are in the oil business (Getty size or bigger). You gamble on offshore oil knowing the political risks. After you pump them dry, you still have your protected USA fields intact. Do I know for sure? No. I do know of oil wells in NW Colorado drilled during the depression years that are capped and have never been touched.
Mark: yes, we ARE.
WSF: but we may have them. And what to do with them?
BZ
GREAT POINT! BZ.
And those leftist environutjobs have cost more lives, more money and more damage to the environment by their “Activism” than would have ever occurred without it.
Every time there is an accident at anything related to energy, it’s the “Stop” doing it crowd that causes these dumbass politicians to over react. That is OUR reality here in Cali. It’s come to the nation in the form of Obama, Pelosi and Reid.
Thank you for the link!!
BZ, this is not new… It’s been known since the early 1970’s but it was literally too hard to get permission to drill thanks to the econazis… And WSF is correct, there are a LOT of wells all over Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and Florida that have been shut down/capped rather than fight the LWL. The big boys made the decision to go offshore/overseas as they could actually drill in less than 5 years and not worry about lawsuits year after year after year. The ones I truly blame are the econazis, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, NRDC and their ilk for the deaths.
Let’s ask a different, although related question:
Given that the “science” crowd refers to petroleum as a “fossil fuel” (due to the theory that the oil has somehow distilled itself from the rotting carcasses and bones of long-dead dinos), AND the deepest you have to dig to find a dino fossil is 1500 – 2000 feet, why do you need to drill to more than 20,000 feet in order to tap the “fossil fuel”?
Could it be that this “fossil fuel” is another naturally occurring mineral that is a part of the planet’s geological make up?
Or, to put it another way, if petroleum is long-dead dino goo, what, exactly, filled the La Brea tar pits for the now long-dead dinos to get trapped in?
Here is a story that expands, in a small way, Old NFO’s remarks.
A Great uncle leased oil rights to some property he owned and an oil well was brought in. It didn’t make him rich but it did ease his retirement.
Being the asshole he was, he tormented the oil company until they shut down the well. They told him they would continue to pay the annual fee but would wait until he died before restarting the well.
In a way, that has happened on a national scale.
Cary: my my my, how interesting that is. . .
WSF: wonder why your uncle tormented them? He didn’t care for the stipend produced?
BZ
BZ Who knows why a drunk does what he does. The man’s whole life was a slow moving wreck.