RE: The United States has not spent $ 300 million a day on war in Afghanistan.
August 26, 2021 at 9:26 am
(This post was last modified: August 26, 2021 at 9:44 am by Anomalocaris.)
Atheistquest is more right than many thinks. The fact that the US does not physically get the majority of its oil import from the Middle East in 2020 disguise 3 things;:
1. The commodity price that the US pays for its oil imports still depends largely the global spot clearing price for crude oil. Middle East remains the dominant force in setting that price by virtue of the low marginals cost of its oil production, and the excess capacity available from its wells and refineries. These allow Middle East producers the most latitude to set the global market clearing prices through discretionary production policy and thus set the prices paid by buyers even for oil sourced from elsewhere. So America may not supply much of its oil domestic oil needs with imports from the Middle East, its influence in the Middle East remains vital to how much it pays for the imports from Canada and elsewhere.
2. The influence of middle eastern producers are actually in a long term structural decline that began around 2008, so when the US undertook it rampage through Afghanistan and iraq in 2001, the importance of controlling middle eastern oil to the American economy to American influence on global economy would be even greater than is the case today.
3. While the US may source much of its domestic oil needs from wells in North and central America, I strongly suspect the petroleum that fueled its military operational needs in Middle East and Central Asia were not shipped from the same stock that supplied its domestic needs, but we’re sourced directly from more nearby producers in the Middle East. So availability of these nearby supplies probably made fueling these operation substantially more affordable than would have been the case if it had to ship from North American refineries.
Also, Taliban was founded by a group of religious students who were radicalized by religious schools supported by Pakistan using religious text books that emphasized importance of fundamentalist interpretation of Koran and the role of jihad in Islamic faith. These text books were authored under CIA sponsorship and specifically intended By the CIA to radicalize conservative tribal Afghan youths against the Soviet occupiers. While CIA in the 1980s may have been abetting a trend, it’s role in speeding the trend forward, and possibly overcoming hurdles along the way, is not to be underestimated.
1. The commodity price that the US pays for its oil imports still depends largely the global spot clearing price for crude oil. Middle East remains the dominant force in setting that price by virtue of the low marginals cost of its oil production, and the excess capacity available from its wells and refineries. These allow Middle East producers the most latitude to set the global market clearing prices through discretionary production policy and thus set the prices paid by buyers even for oil sourced from elsewhere. So America may not supply much of its oil domestic oil needs with imports from the Middle East, its influence in the Middle East remains vital to how much it pays for the imports from Canada and elsewhere.
2. The influence of middle eastern producers are actually in a long term structural decline that began around 2008, so when the US undertook it rampage through Afghanistan and iraq in 2001, the importance of controlling middle eastern oil to the American economy to American influence on global economy would be even greater than is the case today.
3. While the US may source much of its domestic oil needs from wells in North and central America, I strongly suspect the petroleum that fueled its military operational needs in Middle East and Central Asia were not shipped from the same stock that supplied its domestic needs, but we’re sourced directly from more nearby producers in the Middle East. So availability of these nearby supplies probably made fueling these operation substantially more affordable than would have been the case if it had to ship from North American refineries.
Also, Taliban was founded by a group of religious students who were radicalized by religious schools supported by Pakistan using religious text books that emphasized importance of fundamentalist interpretation of Koran and the role of jihad in Islamic faith. These text books were authored under CIA sponsorship and specifically intended By the CIA to radicalize conservative tribal Afghan youths against the Soviet occupiers. While CIA in the 1980s may have been abetting a trend, it’s role in speeding the trend forward, and possibly overcoming hurdles along the way, is not to be underestimated.
