No Nukes for Oil
Gas is over $4.00 a gallon in most of the country. Food prices are on the rise. So what do you do when your oil-rich and oh-so-compassionate Wahhabi chums won't boost petroleum production? Offer them nuclear technology, of course!
Above: "Please can we have more oil, please?"
As detailed in a White House press release under the title "Strengthening Diplomatic Ties with Saudi Arabia," the administration will "assist the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to develop civilian nuclear power for use in medicine, industry, and power generation."
This has been reported by Middle East sources as well, including our friends at Haaretz and the always-enthralling Al-Jazeera.
So Iran isn't to be trusted not to make a bomb, but Saudi Arabia is? The nation who showers the families of suicide bombers with cash, uses our petrodollars to fund terror groups and extremist mosques, and spreads one of the most radically virulent and barbaric forms of Islam around the world?
George Bush is about to let a nation (who sits atop more oil than the scalps of all the McDonald's fry cooks on the planet) into the nuclear club -- a nation which inhabits a region in which the mere assumption of nuclear goings-on has been proven to trigger air strikes and regional instability. Meanwhile, we haven't licensed a nuclear power plant in 30 years, much less built a new oil refinery. While nuclear and refining capacity have still managed to make some increases over the last few decades, we are sitting on our oil-addicted hands while we provide the energy source of the future to nations that sponsor our destruction. Notice I said nations, not nation. Why?
Get ready for this one. France is also building reactors for Algeria and Libya. That's right -- the same Libya that we took the nuclear car keys away from after they were found to have been building a weapon. What's really going to fry your falafel is the fact that you're footing the bill for enormous investments in a country that is as familiar with complex infrastructure as Barack Obama is with American history. That is to say, not very.
Has Bush finally decided that, regardless of the evidence of Iran's malevolent intent, the world will never look favorably upon an Israeli-US strike on her nuclear facilities? If so, has he also decided that allowing Saudi Arabia to go nuclear is the only way to achieve some semblance of balance in the region and offset the threat of nuclear blackmail by Shiite Iran? After all, there are no "allies" in the Middle East; just useful friends who haven't slit your throat yet.
In 2004, Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." He had a completely legitimate point, but the same can be said for Saudi Arabia (never mind the fact that this is the country that gave us Osama bin Laden).
Representatives in Congress are beginning to take notice of the issue as well. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke out against the administration's ludicrous and hypocritical initiative:
"At a time when Saudi Arabia and its allies in the OPEC cartel are squeezing consumers with devastatingly high oil prices, the Bush Administration is rewarding the Kingdom with promises of future nuclear cooperation."
"Nuclearizing the most dangerous region in the world poses an enormous and unnecessary risk that has few or no benefits for this country."
Above: "Please can we have more oil, please?"This has been reported by Middle East sources as well, including our friends at Haaretz and the always-enthralling Al-Jazeera.
So Iran isn't to be trusted not to make a bomb, but Saudi Arabia is? The nation who showers the families of suicide bombers with cash, uses our petrodollars to fund terror groups and extremist mosques, and spreads one of the most radically virulent and barbaric forms of Islam around the world?
George Bush is about to let a nation (who sits atop more oil than the scalps of all the McDonald's fry cooks on the planet) into the nuclear club -- a nation which inhabits a region in which the mere assumption of nuclear goings-on has been proven to trigger air strikes and regional instability. Meanwhile, we haven't licensed a nuclear power plant in 30 years, much less built a new oil refinery. While nuclear and refining capacity have still managed to make some increases over the last few decades, we are sitting on our oil-addicted hands while we provide the energy source of the future to nations that sponsor our destruction. Notice I said nations, not nation. Why?
Get ready for this one. France is also building reactors for Algeria and Libya. That's right -- the same Libya that we took the nuclear car keys away from after they were found to have been building a weapon. What's really going to fry your falafel is the fact that you're footing the bill for enormous investments in a country that is as familiar with complex infrastructure as Barack Obama is with American history. That is to say, not very.
Has Bush finally decided that, regardless of the evidence of Iran's malevolent intent, the world will never look favorably upon an Israeli-US strike on her nuclear facilities? If so, has he also decided that allowing Saudi Arabia to go nuclear is the only way to achieve some semblance of balance in the region and offset the threat of nuclear blackmail by Shiite Iran? After all, there are no "allies" in the Middle East; just useful friends who haven't slit your throat yet.
In 2004, Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." He had a completely legitimate point, but the same can be said for Saudi Arabia (never mind the fact that this is the country that gave us Osama bin Laden).
Representatives in Congress are beginning to take notice of the issue as well. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke out against the administration's ludicrous and hypocritical initiative:
"At a time when Saudi Arabia and its allies in the OPEC cartel are squeezing consumers with devastatingly high oil prices, the Bush Administration is rewarding the Kingdom with promises of future nuclear cooperation."
"Nuclearizing the most dangerous region in the world poses an enormous and unnecessary risk that has few or no benefits for this country."
"Even as the Bush Administration is attempting to prevent oil-rich Iran from acquiring the means to manufacture nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful nuclear energy program, its policy is to help Saudi Arabia develop that same capacity. And it is doing so while encouraging many others to embrace nuclear power."
Oh, and a question to all the useful idiots out there. After 5 years of a "war for oil," why aren't we swimming in the stuff by now?