This year, the USA will import 5 billion barrels of oil. At $100/bbl that is $500 billion dollars taxed out of the US economy by the collection of foreign governments known as OPEC, some of whom are using it to promote terrorism directed against the United states and numerous other countries. When George Bush took office in 2001, we were paying $90 billion per year for foreign oil. So the Bush administration has effectively responded to 9-11 by increasing our financing of the enemy fivefold -- and now we are actually paying OPEC more than we are paying our own defense department (the US DOD budget this year is about $435 billion).
A few "minor" details to point out, courtesy of the US DOE's Energy Information Agency:
1) We import 5 billion barrels of "total crude oil and products," but less than 4 billion barrels of actual crude oil. "Products" includes things that are already refined, such as gasoline, kerosene, and even liquified petroleum gas.
2) Only about 1.9 billion barrels of crude oil come from OPEC countries.
So 1.9 billion barrels times $100/barrel is $190 billion dollars to OPEC - not, in fact, more than we pay the defense department. This does not leave me inclined to believe any other figures or comparisons Zubrin quotes.
Oh, and one other thing. Only about 800 million barrels come from the Persian Gulf, with roughly 200 million from Iraq, so say $60 billion dollars. I know terrorists can come from any part of the world, but to the American public it means the Persian Gulf. Hyperbole, anyone?
This I can agree with, though: "the Bush administration has effectively responded to 9-11 by increasing our financing of the enemy fivefold."
