Why Gas Is So Expensive

On an unrelated sports matter, I came across an interesting article about Americans' gas usage, and perhaps why our pump prices are so high. Hint: It's not China but is related to the Iraq war, but not in the way you might assume.

Writes Michael Klare:

Every day, the average G.I. in Iraq uses approximately 27 gallons of petroleum-based fuels. With some 160,000 American troops in Iraq, that amounts to 4.37 million gallons in daily oil usage, including gasoline for vans and light vehicles, diesel for trucks and armored vehicles, and aviation fuel for helicopters, drones, and fixed-wing aircraft. With U.S. forces paying, as of late April, an average of $3.23 per gallon for these fuels, the Pentagon is already spending approximately $14 million per day on oil ($98 million per week, $5.1 billion per year) to stay in Iraq. Meanwhile, our Iraqi allies, who are expected to receive a windfall of $70 billion this year from the rising price of their oil exports, charge their citizens $1.36 per gallon for gasoline.

When questioned about why Iraqis are paying almost a third less for oil than American forces in their country, senior Iraqi government officials scoff at any suggestion of impropriety. "America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq," said Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq's Supreme Board of Audit, an independent body that oversees Iraqi governmental expenditures. "This is an immoral request because we didn't ask them to come to Iraq, and before they came in 2003 we didn't have all these needs."

In other words, the American military is burning up 40% of Saudi Arabia's daily output. There's no speculative oil bubble per se, it's a supply shortage. The Iraq Troop Surge has caused a Gas Price Surge. And like the war in Iraq, there is no end in sight. (and nevermind about the US paying retail for oil, or that we are protecting a country with the second largest known oil reserves and they are making us pay through the nose - via oil prices - for the privilege of doing so.)