The Oil Poll

Winston Churchill started the West's addiction to oil in 1913, when he announced that in the interests of national security, Brittan would sign a long-term contract with Anglo-Persian (who would later become Anglo Iranian, then British Petroleum or BP). This contract was to supply the British navy, for "national security". Does this sound, how should I put it, hauntingly familiar to George W. Bush's reasons and wording about such things?

World War I, a bloody, slow war, dragged on for a number of years, as each side introduced more mobile weapons. In 1916, the tank was introduced to combat, and in 1918, there were over 150,000 trucks, cars, and motorbikes. The number of planes in the Royal Air Force grew from 250 in 1915, to 55,000 in the end of the war. This was all made possible by the contract Winston Churchill made with Anglo-Persian in 1913. In 1917, the U.S. was producing 335 Million barrels of oil, or 67% of the world's consumption. IN FACT, THE U.S. SUPPLIED 80% OF THE ALLIES' WARTIME PETROLEUM NEEDS. (The U.S. was who France and Brittan turned to for help when the needed oil.) Eventually, Germany lost the war due to a extreme lack of oil resources. Does this help you understand how the first world war was about OIL?

Many people wonder how the U.S. got involved in the Middle East's oil affairs, since we used to have so much oil. But a given area can only contain so much oil, of which only so much can be pumped daily-and the U.S. quickly outgrew it's supply with it's own demand, (which happened around the middle to late 1960's). But the Middle East began to attract the attention of the West as early as immediately after WWI, as the great powers realized they needed oil to power their war machines. In specific, Mesopotamia, which Brittan quickly re-named Iraq, and the areas around Baghdad, and Mosul, which were thought to hold huge oil reserves. When Germany lost to the Allies in WWI, Deutsche Bank's stake in what is now called 'Iraq Petroleum Company' became property of Standard of New Jersey (Exxon), Socony (Mobil), and five other U.S. companies. Along with this came a very favorable concession for the foreign companies-EXCLUSIVE DRILLING RIGHTS IN IRAQ UNTIL THE YEAR 2000. Does this seem like a reason for terrorism to have struck around this time, seeing as how we may have been pushing for a new/different drilling contract at the EXACT SAME TIME? ...And if we knew this was going to be a problem as long ago as we did, why we'ren't/aren't we building a huge, futuristic public transit system, run by hydro-electric, solar, or wind-power, to ease our dependence on foreign oil?! Are we stupid?!

WWII could have been ended early by a decisive invasion in 1944, by General George Patton, but was prevented by a lack of fuel. In fact, the U.S. would never have gotten involved in the war, but for Japan's desperation at capturing the oil fields of Indochina. And Japan would have been successful at ending the War with their 1941 attempt at Pearl Harbor, if they hadn't failed to hit the four and half million barrels of oil the U.S. had stored there. Over the next four years, the U.S. methodically defeted the Japanese by bombing each of their oil tankers before it could return from the Dutch East Indies. So because Japan chose not to put OUR four and half million barrels of oil on OUR Hawaiian beaches, we littered OTHER coutries' beaches with oil, and waited them out. Nice strategy, and to think, all for oil... (That was environmentally responsible of us. And we complain about cancer, when here we are doing the things that cause it! Shame on us!)

In 1939, Standard Oil of California, along with Texaco had agreed to a six-year, concession with Ibn Saud-the Saudi King-440,000 miles, equivalent to one-sixth of the size of the U.S.. Geologists at the newly formed Saudi-American Oil Company, Aramco, confirmed there was more oil underneath the Saudi dessert than in all of the U.S. At this time, the U.S. was afraid of the interests of the Soviet Union, and the Iron Curtain was up. In 1940, the U.S. accounted for 2/3 the world's oil demand, but postwar Europe became dependent on Saudi oil. Then in 1951, the U.S. was involved in a coup at Brittan's prompting, and forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh out of Iran, because he seized BP's oil fields after finding out the west had been giving him a very raw deal. This was the FIRST time we were involved in the power structure of another nation for our OWN oil advantage...

You can thank oil for the following products:

One last question: Does the U.S. make enough oil to fuel our own energy needs (heating and natural gas usage), with enough left over for making CDs and Computers, and other futuristic things? A: Yes, the U.S. does still pump enough oil daily out of our own soil to keep our country at this standard of living. But we DO NOT have the Oil it takes to continue driving, and especially not enough to keep adding new drivers to our highways each year. Even now, we don't have the freeway space for as many drivers as there are driving. (This is why there are traffic jams so often, in all cities nationwide.) This is not good for our pocketbooks or our lungs! We MUST put in mass transit, and make the future happen, here in America, NOW. It is up to us, NOW to stop our FOREIGN OIL DEPENDENCY! Will you please pledge to drive less, or to somehow make your life use less oil, for everyone's sake? It could mean less terrorism for us all! (The children being born right now thank you...) Even if all you do is recycle your plastic grocery bags outside the stores, it's a really good start. And remember to thank our troops whenever you use plastic, they're over there fighting for it right now.