This just looks cool. I want one. via [boing boing]
1:23:13 PM  #  

The left blasts their own argument in the foot and then turns around and blames the current administration:

Although Iraq is a major petroleum producer, the country has little capacity to refine its own gasoline. So the U.S. government pays about $1.50 a gallon to buy fuel in neighboring countries and deliver it to Iraqi stations. A three-month supply costs American taxpayers more than $500 million, not including the cost of military escorts to fend off attacks by Iraqi insurgents.

Analysts say there never was a good case -- either before the war or afterward -- that a U.S. invasion would pay dividends in cheap oil. "Some of the neo-conservatives might've been saying that, but no energy analysts were walking around saying that," Cordesman said.

I don't seem to recall any neo-conservatives ever favoring the invasion effort because we would get cheaper oil prices. As a matter of fact they kept repeating this war was about national security, peacekeeping efforts, violations of international human rights, and most definitely NOT about oil. If I recall correctly, it was the anti-war movement who claimed this war was about oil, in order to boil the argument down to faulty rhetoric and twist it past the breaking point. To quote Einstein, "Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." I think the "No War for Oil" campaign definitely violates that concept.

The effort to boil the war down to an oil for lives equation is callous and ignorant. It seeks to engage people and elicit an emotion, without supplying any of the facts. It not only is insulting to the people that it tries to (and sometimes successfully) convinces with its use, it is denigrating to the many men and women in Iraq right now who are risking their lives.

I can firmly understand many facets of the anti-war movement, but this definitely isn't one of them. If it was an argument that was put forth by argumentative upper-class kids on college campuses, I could forgive them their naivete. Coming from respected news sources, it's just shameful. via [jwz]

9:48:34 AM  #