Will they move into Bahrain? People who want freedom there are be oppressed and killed. Saudi troops are in the country to help do it. Will the U.N. send forces there to stop that? Odds are they won't. Which then begs the question Why not? What is the line that separates the use of force in a situation like that? The U.N. has drawn a line in the sand but will it be applied equally everywhere?
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It's called a tiny little "bit" of oil versus a hell of "a lot" of oil, and it's what keeps the world's economy moving.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who worked for a little while in the tar sands (before I nearly froze to death in July) up north of Ft. McMurray, if things go belly up due to the lack of oil from overseas in Canada, the Canadian environuts will be cast aside in a heartbeat for the good of the whole nation's economy and the sands will be really raped to keep the machine going.
John it reminds me of the thinking involved when Bush 2 went into Iraq. I believe it was Rumsfeld who was asked "Why Iraq? Why not North Korea?" and hi response was that Iraq was "Doable".
ReplyDeleteTo go into Bahrain would upset the Saudi's. Yemen, maybe.
Personally I think the West should be pushing to have the Arab League countries provide the air force. The Saudi's have a modern one, and didn't mind sending troops into Bahrain to attack protesters.
Call me paranoid but having the West prvide the planes leaves it all open for the Arab countries to just blame it all on the west when the Fundamentalists start looking for someone to attack.
One of my brothers works in Fort Mac and says the next big thing in Canada vis-a-vis oil will be Saskatchewan. There is supposed to be 3-5 times more oil there than in Alberta.
ReplyDeleteHe was also saying that the US is pushing to have a pipeline put from Alberta/Saskatchewan right down to Texas so the oil can be pumped down and refined there.
Yeah, I know about Sask. My (Canadian) company tried to get me to go out there. And it isn't the U.S. who is solely pushing for the pipeline, it's mostly certain Canadian interests as a lot of Canada's oil is already refined into gas south of the border near Chicago. Due to the higher tax rates in Illinois, it would actually be cheaper to ship the crude farther to more business/oil friendly Texas with its access to high seas ports.
ReplyDeleteHow would I know that it's Canadian interests pushing their agenda besides seeing it first-hand? Well, right now, Texas and Louisiana are producing at about 96-99% of capacity as no new refineries have been built in ages (over 30 years) down there thanks to "not in my backyard" neighbors and the EPA making quite a big stink about it. Remember how the prices of gas spiked big time after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shut down the refineries for a few months in Texas to longer than that in Louisiana?
A couple of refinery shut downs or disasters along the Texas/Louisiana coast is all it would take to really raise the price of gasoline in to the stratosphere.
A true high-capacity Canadian pipeline down to Texas won't be happening until gas hits $7-$10 a gallon in the U.S. Then, the U.S. will have too much to lose and Canada will have too much to gain for it not to happen.
It's interesting to note that the first new refinery in 30 years is now being built in South Dakota (by a Texas company) to process Canadian crude. It still won't be online until about 2014 though and only be able to process about 400,000 barrels a day.