The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 310
freedom for first-world countries. Not participating didn’t cause us to spend extra
billions to defend and prop up one or the other country. From 1980 (the start of
the Iran/Iraq war to 1988 (the end of the war), the price of gasoline didn’t change
(it actually fell slightly). In the effort to defend the Saudi family and Kuwait (in
other words, subsidize them) we experienced skyrocketing gasoline prices as
well as an exploding national debt. The only reason we went to the aid of Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, and then back into Iraq in the recent seven years, is to protect their oil assets. It’s very possible that if we did not engage in the first and
second Gulf Wars that prices of gasoline might not have gone to the levels that
it has and we wouldn’t have spent trillions on the fight. We also would not have
lost thousands of servicemen.
As far as I know, from 1980 to the present day, the United States has lost no
servicemen in the effort to protect and defend ethanol production.
7b. You wrote: “If U.S. motor vehicles did not consume any oil at all, military expenditures would have, oddly enough, gone down by far less: by
$5.8 to $25.4 billion in 2004. The “best guess” of this analysis is that, if
U.S. gasoline consumers were forced to pay for the U.S. oil mission, gasoline prices would increase by $0.03 to $0.15 per gallon. Simple economics, however, suggests that the oil mission—however large it may be—is
unnecessary, regardless of what Congress may think. Oil producers will
provide for their own security needs as long as the cost of doing so results in greater profits than equivalent investments could yield.”
If the oil producers are so capable of providing their own security why was it
necessary to stage Operation Desert Shield and then Operation Desert Storm?
Why have the United States and other countries not been reimbursed 100% by
the Saudi and Kuwait governments? Since we acted as a mercenary force, why
haven’t we also received a profit in doing so?
For you to say that oil producers are willing and able to provide for their own
security, after what has gone on, you would have to be absolutely insane.
7c. You wrote: “Because Middle Eastern governments typically have little
of value to trade except oil—oil revenues, for instance, are 40 to 50 percent of Iranian government revenues and 70 to 80 percent of Saudi government revenues—they must secure and sell oil to remain viable (EIA,
2006). Given that their economies are so heavily dependent on oil revenues, Middle Eastern governments have even more incentive than do consuming states to worry about the security of oil production facilities,
