Thursday, November 08, 2007

All of our problems started in 1980, with the election of Ronald Reagan as President. President Carter, during his time as president put in place some very sound policies with regard to energy in America. He put into place the policy that America would never import more oil than it did in 1977. He also vowed to have the United States get 20 percent of it's power from solar energy by the year 2000. Can you imagine how affordable solar panels would be if they began mass-producing them in 1979?
When Reagan took office he scrapped those very reasonable and responsible policies and replaced them with a use-more-oil policy. He did this obviously to enrich his pals in the oil industry. Lets look at the chain of events brought about by Reagan's foolish moves. America's quest for oil led us to go to Kuwait when Saddam Hussein overran it in 1991. We then had to push Hussein back into Iraq, and enforce a no-fly zone in that country for 12 years. We also put many of our troops in Saudi Arabia to keep Saddam from trying to invade Saudi Arabia and take over their oil supply. The presence of our troops in Saudi Arabia enraged the Muslim world in general and a man by the name of Osama Bin Laden in particular. The outrage Bin Laden felt led him to become the world's number one terrorist, which led him to attack the World Trade Center in 2001.
The WTC attack on 9/11 gave our current president the cover he needed to invade and occupy Iraq. This invasion, in addition to costing the lives of 3800+ American soldiers, has cost the American treasury hundreds of billions of dollars. It also has diminished America's prestige in the world, and our ability to occupy the moral high ground in dealings with other nations. At a later time I will discuss the negative impact Reagan's fiscal policies, and the continuation of those policies under the two Bushes has had on America's ability to compete in the world markets, and the disasterous effect those policies have had on the everyday lives of average Americans.

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