Any chance you can comment on the outcome of the Cope India exercises? Maybe you know some Pentagon insiders who can settle once and for all: did India's Air Force really beat ours? Thanks in advance

Personally, I never foment on the first date.

Oil is the 'hottest' commodity in the world and has been for some time now. What is not clear is how much oil exists and in what locations (the old 'peak oil' discussion.)

One can either believe that the US entered Iraq for the purpose of attempting to control Iraqi oil resources, or not. What is not open to debate is the fact that no new refineries have been built in the US for the last 30 years or so.

While it is true, to a degree, that the price for oil, per barrel, is determined on the global, open market, it is also true that oil must be refined into a useable form before consumers can purchase it. If consumer demand for gasoline and home heating oil is steady, prices are likely to be steady as well and the oil companies will enjoy a steady profit margin. When/if demand outpaces 'readily available' supply, prices increase. We are now paying close to $3.00 per gallon for gas and the oil companies' profits have RISEN along with the price at the pump.

Oil, like politics, is a business. There are no heroes in this arena. It is about making, and keeping, money, and does not involve considering the actual 'costs' of doing so, for anyone, anywhere on the globe, except for the investor/profiteer.

Representatives from US oil companies were negotiating with the Taliban about oil/natural gas resources and pipelines before 9/11 and representatives of US oil companies are in Iraq now. Despite whatever else may be happening in the world, one should not underestimate the attraction of money - and power - to some men and women. There are no heroes here.

Re Lugo's comment: "Even if you could somehow "separate out" the expenses for "security in the Middle East" and delete them from the defense budget, you would not be spending significantly less than $400bn a year."
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Wrong again, Lugo.

For years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon's only justification for its huge budget was the cited need to fight two wars at the same time --one in Korea and one in the Middle East. Even before 911, Centcom got a large share of the $325 Billion/year defense budget. The subsequent increase to $400 Billion /year has been directly driven by events in the Middle East --plus there is the additional $60 Billion/year for Homeland Security and the $200 Billion plus for the war in Iraq. Plus the $9 Billion /year we give to Israel, to Egypt (to leave Israel alone), and to Turkey.
How many gallons of gasoline could you buy with that?

The USA spends more than the next 23 largest military powers COMBINED -- and most of those powers are our Nato Allies.
If the "Defense Budget" is for the defense of the USA, why do other major countries only have to spend $20- $50 Billion/year while we spend $400 Billion/year plus???
See, e.g., http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/spendersFY03.html

Why is it that we could spend over $4 TRILLION on "defense" in the past 15 years and yet 19 goatherds with few resources could pull off 911?

So why does Fox News -- with its "fair and balanced" coverage -- and Rush Limbaugh -- with his fake patriotism -- NEVER mention the above to the US voters?

Don, it goes without saying that I disagree with your view that the primary purpose of the US military is to protect US oil interests. Even if you could somehow "separate out" the expenses for "security in the Middle East" and delete them from the defense budget, you would not be spending significantly less than $400bn a year.

Military costs may be consumption, but they are not optional. The choice is not "either buy a military or invest in alternative sources" - that is a false dichotomy, since we have to do both.

In any event, you have not refuted the basic economic facts I stated in my previous post. (Nothing after "wrong Lugo" disproves what I previously said.) I assume that's why you instead chose to change the subject by bringing deranged conspiracy theories into the discussion.

Wrong, Lugo.

Our defense budget is over $400 billion per YEAR -- and much of that is devoted to keeping control of the Middle East.

We pay $3/gal at the pump -- and several dollars more per gallon via our income tax.

Basically, Our military budget is a $400 billion /year subsidy to protect the foreign investments of the oil companies. That's a HUGE distortion of the free market. That's why investors won't put money into energy research and developing alternative forms of energy -- which they would if the TRUE cost of gasoline showed up at the pump instead of on our income tax forms.

Our military expenses in the Middle East are a RECURRING COST -- just like consumption. That is , we have to ante up $400 Billion/year every year -- we gain no capital from prior years investment.

If we diverted just a $billion or two into energy research, energy conservation (e.g, highway construction to alleviate the gas being wasted in traffic jams,etc) we could achieve enormous cost savings. Plus our expenditure would be an INVESTMENT --our construction or new inventions would pay returns year after year for the next 30-100 years.

Cheney's entire life has been based upon manipulating the public trust, government powers, and public treasury for the benefit of private interests. That's what they pay him for. Neither he nor Bush could last a week in a real business environment.

In that respect, They are like Bush the Elder -- who criticized a single "welfare Cadillac queen" during his 1988 Presidential campaign -- and then told us two weeks AFTER his election that he was going to take $150 Billion of our money and bail out a bunch of crooked Savings and Loan executives down in Texas. I believe the final bill was closer to $300 Billion. You could have run the welfare budget for decades on what he took for bankers and wealthy investors.

Don, the price of oil is determined on the world market. If a new source of supply is created, then no matter who gets the oil from that exact source (Chinese, Chileans, Americans, whoever), the price of oil for everyone drops accordingly. Even when oil goes from the Caspian directly to China, blue collar Americans in pickups benefit, because these Americans can now fill up with the oil from somewhere else (e.g. Saudi Arabia) that would otherwise have been sent to China.

Doubtless some American companies will benefit from the extraction of oil from the Caspian, but so be it. Why else would these companies bear the costs and risks of finding and extracting oil, if they did not expect to profit? If an American company does not do this, then someone else will. I'd rather see a company that employs tens of thousands of Americans benefit than a foreign oil company.

Ah, Lugo, you don't understand American business. The Caspian Sea oil isn't going to America's blue collar pickups --it's going to China. Consider the hardon an Exxon executive gets at the thought of 1+ Billion CHinese buying GMs and needing to ..er.. fill it up.

After all, the Chinese are the ones holding hundreds of billions of US dollars --not blue collar American families.

The potential profits are immense -- and will go to a favored few. Meanwhile the costs in dollars will be paid for by the Republicans continuing to steal $TRILLIONS from US workers Social Security /Medicare accounts.

The cost in blood, of course, will be borne by American blue collar families. We saw that in Iraq. Daughters of West Virginia might get beaten and raped --or courtmartialed for following White House orders.

But Bush's daughters were back here wearing designer dresses on the cover of Vogue magazine --continuing their father's proud military tradition of never getting within 5000 miles of an active battlefield.

So Don, only "the superrich" use gasoline and petroleum related products? That's news to me. I would have thought that everyone in America who drives a car or uses products made of plastic could benefit from the development of oil reserves in Central Asia. But whatever...

Has anyone heard if there were any confrontations between the peace demonstrators and the military exercises going on in D.C. over the weekend?I saw that Cindy Sheehan got herself arrested but that had nothing to do with the exercises.Don't understand why she wanted to be arrested.That's certainly not going to get her that meet with the king. Sure looked like a flash back to the Nam era.But a lot of us back then were not asking to be arrested(some were but not most)They viewed us as the enemy and it was a little scary sometimes.

Maybe we could add 'domestic investments' to that list, as well, in light of the recent contracts awarded to particular companies for restoration efforts per Katrina? The MSM seems to have only mentioned these in passing, as it were.

As for the 'battle for hearts and minds', otherwise known as the US' counter-propaganda campaign? It doesn't exist, except in the form of millions of dollars wasted in trying to compile and present well-spun advertisements that are recognized as - well-spun advertisements - by targeted audiences. Mr. Bin Laden and company have been 'winning' the propaganda war for a very long time. Why? Because people in the rest of the world have already formed their attitudes and beliefs about the US according to the actions that they have witnessed -- and not according to the statements that the US has made.

At some point, the discussion at home and abroad will need to focus on the topic at hand. That would be Mr. Bin Laden's central arguments concerning US policies, and accordingly, the US' responses, yes, actual verbal responses, to those arguments. The 'elephant' has been in the room since 9/11 and attempts to tranquilize it via military means have, to date, failed. Attitudes are ultimately formed in accordance with 'what one does' and not with 'what one says'. This can not be 'news' to anyone.

Actually, the real great game is the push by the US government to seize the second largest oil reserves in the world -- the Caspian Sea area north of Afghanistan--away from Russia and China.

Part of that great game is deploying US soldiers in Central Asia under the guise of the "war on terror" as well as dismantling the soft underbelly of Russia via support for resistance movements in Georgia, the Ukraine,etc.

That Great Game has been going on since the end of the Cold War. It's why a former consultant to Unocal is head of Afghanistan. IT's why Dick Cheney was on Kazakhstan's Energy Board during the 1990s.

See; e.g, http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040216&s=kleveman

You wonder why the Mainstream Media so resolutely ignores the actions the US Government takes to promote the foreign investments of our superrich --and the ways in which those actions promote hatred and the growth of terrorism.

I snickered at a recent TV show scene in which a little girl says "Daddy says TV is useful --because it diverts peoples' attention away from what is going on"