The High Cost of Democracy

So by now you have probably noticed the gas price hit $4.00/gallon but if not consider yourself lucky and go fill up your car.

Of course the panic and speculation is already starting for $5, $6, $7 a gallon.


To me this comes down to a simple *supply and demand problem which follows the Peak Oil theory and regardless of your position on the Iraq war I found the following article very interesting.

Now before you freak out and call me Rush Limbaugh's secret lover, read the following paragraphs from the article and tell me what you think.

March 10, 2008 Issue
Copyright © 2008 The American Conservative

Oil for War

After invading one of the most petroleum-rich countries on earth, the U.S. military is running on empty.

by Robert Bryce

Today the average American G.I. in Iraq uses about 20.5 gallons of fuel every day, more than double the daily volume consumed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq in 2004. Thus, in order to secure the third-richest country on the planet, the U.S. military is burning enormous quantities of petroleum. And nearly every drop of that fuel is imported into Iraq. These massive fuel requirements—just over 3 million gallons per day for Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Energy Support Center—are a key reason for the soaring cost of the war effort.

In 2007 alone, the U.S. military in Iraq burned more than 1.1 billion gallons of fuel. (American Armed Forces generally use a blend of jet fuel known as JP-8 to propel both aircraft and automobiles.) About 5,500 tanker trucks are involved in the Iraqi fuel-hauling effort. That fleet of trucks is enormously costly. In November 2006, a study produced by the U.S. Military Academy estimated that delivering one gallon of fuel to U.S. soldiers in Iraq cost American taxpayers $42—and that didn’t include the cost of the fuel itself. At that rate, each U.S. soldier in Iraq is costing $840 per day in fuel delivery costs, and the U.S. is spending $923 million per week on fuel-related logistics in order to keep 157,000 G.I.s in Iraq. Given that the Iraq War is now costing about $2.5 billion per week, petroleum costs alone currently account for about one-third of all U.S. military expenditure in Iraq.


OMG! Enough Already.

Regardless of what happens in November do you really think this was all about bringing Democracy to an oppressed country and why should we (Americans) always be the ones to say that Democracy is the "right" form of government for the entire world?

Don't get me wrong, I understand the problem with evil communist dictators, I really do, but at what point does the cost not justify the means?

*EDIT: As I've dug deeper and deeper into this the past few days I have realized the complexity and enormity of the current state of oil and that many factors are truly contributing to the current economic state. There are several economists and energy experts arguing over whether the oil price is over inflated due to commodity trading and we actually have a surplus of oil but an unregulated decrease in refinery production to unnecessarily drive the price even higher.

One economic article discussing the futures trading can be found here