Does anybody truly know why America is at war? Many liberals think that America is at war for a profit which only benefits a small number of highly influential people. Conservatives on the other hand think that America is at war to fight terror. I believe that both sides are misguided. Since government is driven by money, and money is power, I spent the past several weeks searching for a reason that could economically justify the $1.2 trillion+ price tag of war. In other words, what is the return on our $1.2 trillion investment?

During the 1973 oil crisis, members of OPEC unreasonably proclaimed an oil embargo on the US. This embargo was “in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military” during the Yom Kippur War. Since US crude oil imports have eclipsed our production in 1995, America has become exponentially more vulnerable to another one of these irresponsible & irrational price increases by OPEC. The gap between the production and importation of oil in America continues to widen by the year (see graph above). Since America is not part of OPEC, and OPEC is regulated by OPEC alone; we need to have a military strong hold in the Middle East to prevent abrupt shifts in their policy. Suppose the US didn’t have a military presence abroad, and OPEC suddenly decided to triple the price of a barrel of oil to America, or any other country, how would we stop them? By blatantly starting a war over oil prices? That’s diplomatic suicide, not to mention it could end up leading to World War III (NATO V.S. OPEC). America cannot admit this is the reason we are at war because you cannot go to war over speculation; in this instance speculation over OPEC’s future behavior. Instead the United States used 9/11 as an excuse to create a strong hold in the Middle East prior to the gap between oil production and importation getting out of control. We currently consume 15 million barrels of crude oil a day; 6 million of which comes from OPEC. With the price of oil at $100 a barrel, we send $220 billion to OPEC every year. If OPEC decided to arbitrarily quadruple the price of oil, or cut off our supply (which they could easily do without US military presence), we would then send an extra $660 billion over to OPEC every year. In just (2) years, the amount of money we have spent on war since 2001 ($1.2 trillion+) is justified if it means preventing this price increase. At the time of the 1973 oil crisis, America was equipped to weather an oil embargo because we were producing more oil than we were importing. America currently consumes 26% of the world’s energy and uses it to produce 26% of the world’s industrial output; chaotic manipulation of these numbers by OPEC would cripple our economy, especially in a new era where imports are twice as great as production. Is our military presence abroad ethical? Fuck no. But is it a good business decision for the American economy? YES. Yes by a long shot, and that’s why we are doing it.

Most liberals believe that America is at war to profit economically; however they also agree that the vast majority of tax payer money vanishes into waste of war. To explain this contradiction, they assert that all the profits of war go to a handful of connected individuals such as Dick Cheney. Handing connected military contractors such as DynCorp and Fluor $2 billion in annual revenues from the US federal reserve is NOT the reason we went to war. Yes, the US may have unfairly given specific contracts to companies which should have went out for bid. And yes, certain CEO’s are profiting unfairly off this war. But by no means are a hand full of billion dollar contracts the reason we spent $1.2 trillion+ ($1,200 billion) on war over the last 10 years. Be serious. The entire market capitalization of Haliburton is $45 billion, which is less than 4% of the $1.2 trillion cost of war. Obviously there are profiteers in addition to Haliburton, but the gross profits they realize are still small potatoes when stacked up against the $1.2 trillion cost of war. Do you really think we went to war so the CEOs of a few companies could live in $40 million houses and get smiles of approval at their board meetings? If you think Cheney’s ties to Haliburton are corrupt, just look at the President of OPEC, Masoud Mir Kazemi. This guy was the head of Iran’s ministry of commerce as recently as 2009. You don’t think he would like to bury our economy and make Iran prosper by simply holding a meeting and raising the global price of crude? That’s a highly possible scenario if you remove our military from the equation. Independently, the OPEC members can use their leverage over the world price setting mechanism for oil to stabilize their real incomes by raising world oil prices. They did it during the 1973 oil embargo, so what makes you think they wont do it again? Now look at Abdalla Salem el-Badri, the secretary general of OPEC. This guy has been Libyan Minister for Oil since 1990. With that being said, do you really think America cares about democracy for the Libyan people? We recently intervened in Libya to stop dictator Moammar Khadafy from using genocidal violence to crush a Libyan uprising. If we going to act as the global genocide police, then why not go into Sudan and arrest President Omar al-Bashir

on his ICC genocide warrant? Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state ever indicted by the ICC, as well as the first to be charged with genocide. America could care less about Bashir because in January 2005 the Bush administration hashed out a peace agreement giving Southern Sudan independence along with 75% of Sudan’s petroleum production (500,000 barrels/day). So let me get this straight, we ignore someone officially indicted on genocide charges, and then turn around and attack someone who is not (Khadafy)? America wants democracy in Libya because under an unchecked autocracy Khadafy has the power to single-handedly tell the Libyan Minister for Oil, who is the secretary General of OPEC, to withhold OPEC’s supply and jack up the price of crude. Am I starting to make sense?

So how could we solve our dilemma and prevent war? The easy answer is to set up regulations on OPEC’s pricing policies, but this is not plausible. OPEC is made up of twelve countries which are individually led by twelve of the most stubborn people on Earth. Not to mention, regulation hurts any business; just look at what Finra is doing to stock brokerage firms in America. With that being said, the only solution to this problem is to go to war. Either that, or lay back and get victimized by an irrational string of unavoidable OPEC policy decisions. Our government chose the former. Do I think it is worth the lives lost, no. But do I think it saved our country, yes.