I think one of the critical points in this article is not only the content but the author - Bill Moyers. Mr. Moyers is renown for getting his facts straight and presenting open and honest content - no matter the topic. I remember when America first invaded Iraq, then Chief Warmonger and Soon-to-be-war criminal Donnie Rumsfield mentioned that the name of the operation was Operation Iraqi Liberation. One of his military minders pointed out what the acronym spelled (O.I.L.) and the moniker was quickly changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom OIF - kind of the sound that is made when you make a big blunder! The conclusions in this article are truly no surprise. Any clear citizen of this planet knows that Iraq is about oil (as is Iran) and it is about a natural gas pipeline to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan. What I also find interesting is that no word has been printed or published about the oil find in Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan that is larger than the Saudi play and it is short sweet crude (low sulphur content and shallow). It is estimated that there are over 5 Billion barrels of oil there and it would only cost $25 USD a barrel to bring it out and refine it. And I am not even going to go into the oil on the North Slope and in Prudhoe Bay. There is enough oil there to keep America guzzling for another 200 years - even with accelerated consumption. So what is the deal? The Big Five (Exxon, Mobil, Shell, Total and BP) do not want to invest in infrastructure - pipelines, pumps, refinery operations and port processing utilisation. It is easier and more profitable to them to have the finished products transported into the US (gasoline, kerosene, diesel, various plastics in pre-manufactured composition) than refine it in the USA. So, the way you get others to refine the raw materials is make it profitable to them - directly or indirectly. Here are a couple of tags for you to view on Alaska Oil: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14219844/ http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/gull_island_oil.html And on the Bakken Oil reserve (Montana, N.D., & Sask.): http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868 wiki it too - but you need to read the most current reports because the estimates have gone way up since extensive thumping has been done (ground based radar that defines an oil play). Cheers - drink up - soon your water will cost you more than your oil!