> 1) Venezuela produces oil, and is very close to the U.S. It's not a
> very poor country, either.
>
> 2) Natural resources aren't as central to economic life as they used
> to be. There are many sources for most, and most are in oversupply.
>
> 3) On a lot of these issues, the state takes the lead. As far as I
> know, the oil industry was not enthusiastically behind the war on
> Iraq, for example.
>
> Doug
====================
Methinks the people at the Ecological Society of America would disagree quite vehemently with your second assertion.
Ian