Necessity is NOT the Mother of security...

Don't get me wrong, Baddboy. I DO agree that were we faced with an immanent fuel crisis, our American ingenuity would rise up and give us an alternative as quickly as ever we have seen. When we were running out of whale oil, we developed gas technology to light our streets and homes. When that proved too expensive, we developed electrical networks for the same purposes. When we needed to win wars... we developed the technology to level cities with one bomb, from one plane. We are very good at that.

I'm not concerned that we are about to run DRY of oil. I think even most conservative estimates put our known oil resources at lasting through the next 75 to 100 years, and there may be half that again in undiscovered areas.

I'm concerned with another nation's ability to interrupt... or even slow... US crude oil imports in such a manner that it interrupts the daily functioning of our society. Even OPEC has the ability to do this (as has been demonstrated TWICE in US history)... and they are a group of nations that can only agree on one thing: they don't like Israel.

We have seen the price AND availability of oil jump due to terrorist activity (see 9-11) and we have seen what even a moderate natural catastrophe (when seen on a global scale) can cause to production and distribution of fuel (post-Katrina disaster). How many more of these do we need to experience before we understand that our society's BIGGEST THREAT isn't illegal aliens refusing to assimilate into our culture, it isn't Communism, or Fascism, or Liberalism, or even Environmentalism, it isn't global warming, or the coming of a new ice age, and it certainly isn't high taxes or low minimum wages.

The biggest threat to the society we all know and love is that EVERY facet of that society DEPENDS on a resource we can't supply ourselves (not even 50% of our daily needs overall). If we want to continue to enjoy the dolce vita, then we must continue to place the welfare of our nation and culture in the hands of Middle Eastern extremists, South American fascists, and pseudo-reformed Communists from the former Soviet Union, with no control and very little influence on how those people view our dependence.

Imagine...

9-11 isn't a strike by extremists trying to make headlines, but by concerted attackers bent on devastating America's ability to function. Instead of crashing planes into buildings full of people, what if they had crashed their planes into the only FOUR gasoline production facilities in the nation, the biggest in Houston, TX and the other three in lower Louisiana? What if a plane had been flown into the San Diego Naval Fuel depot (near Twentynine Palms and the MCAGCC) which holds and distributes 40% of ALL ship, vehicle and jet fuel for the entire Western Command of the US Military? How many of THOSE targets would have needed to be hit to devastate the US's ability to function as the only superpower?

I'm more than willing to stop discussing my issues with the price gouging that I am convinced is going on within the gasoline market here in the US, at least not in this post. I am getting more and more convinced though that NO discussion of national security is going to carry any real weight with me if it doesn't address this flaw in the American "armor"... very quickly.