Liberation and oil

To the editor: In response to the letter of Jan. 20 by Mr. Bob Fletcher and Mr. Robert Ritzer which sounds like an e-mail from Karl Rove and the Republican war machine, I must ask, is it the responsibility of Americans to take on enormous debt ($235 billion and counting) in order to “liberate” another country who didn’t even ask for our help? How would we Americans have felt if France had invaded and occupied our country in order to “liberate” us from England? Isn’t the responsibility of liberation “we the people?” However, I don’t believe the real reason that we invaded Iraq was to promote democracy or advance freedom. The reason is simply oil. Two thirds of the remaining world’s oil happens to lie beneath the sands of Iraq (and Iran and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). Unfortunately, we could not bribe and cajole Saddam Hussein as we have the princes and sheiks of Saudi Arabia. I don’t think Saddam ever once visited Bush’s ranch in Texas! And because “the American way of life is non- negotiable” as Dick Cheney has said, we are utterly dependent on access to that oil. If they won’t deal with us, we will deal with them, militarily. The world is currently approaching “Peak Oil,” which means that half of the world’s oil has been used. We will never run out of oil but the second half of the oil will be much more difficult and expensive to get. The world supply and demand is roughly even at about 84 million barrels per day. (We Americans, 5 percent of the world use an astonishing 25 percent, or 21 million barrels per day of which the USA produces 5-6 million barrels per day. We import the rest). As China and India ramp up their economies and lifestyles the race is on to secure energy supplies. That’s what this war is about. And until we as Americans can honestly confront our addiction to cheap oil, we will continue to send our sons and daughters to be killed and maimed so that we can comfortably sit in our 4,000-square foot homes with an ambient temperature of 72 degrees year round and drive our 15 mpg cars and SUVs to Wal-Mart to purchase chit from China and argue amongst ourselves the issues of evolution, gay marriage, abortion, taxes and the war in Iraq. Lisa VanDenBerg Warwick