>I'm not talking just about that. I'm talking about propping up all the oil
>despots, who serve to keep "our" oil out of "their" people's hands.
I'm a little skeptical of this argument. If "they" got control of the oil, they'd still need to sell it to "us." They'd have a huge cash flow to deal with, and enormous temptations to siphon it off and/or invest it in London and New York. The material circumstances almost inevitably generate the incentives for a resource rentier class.
Doug