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OPEC: A Recurring Nightmare
Guest Column | By Ruth S. King | June 23, 2008
OPEC,
acronym for The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was
founded in Baghdad on September 14th, 1960, ostensibly to bargain and
negotiate the sale of oil to the West by Algeria, Indonesia, Iran,
Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates, and Venezuela.
Here is how they describe themselves on their official website:
"The OPEC Member Countries coordinate their oil production policies in
order to help stabilise the oil market and to help oil producers
achieve a reasonable rate of return on their investments. This policy
is also designed to ensure that oil consumers continue to receive
stable supplies of oil."
They sound just
like another commercial fraternal organization, but with the exception
of Venezuela and a bizarre on again/off again romance with Ecuador, all
member states are Muslim and the bulk of the oil reserves, estimated to
be more than three quarters of the entire world's, are located in the
Arab Middle East.
In the 1970s, OPEC nations began to wield
political influence, and in 1973 they added Syria and Egypt to their
cartel by creating OPAEC (Organization of Arab Oil Producing Nations).
Uniting them was an abiding hatred of Israel and a desire to target all
nations which had supported Israel during the nearly devastating sneak
attack in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Their weapon was an oil embargo
one month after Israel reversed its early setbacks and maintained
control of the Sinai Peninsula and encircled Egypt's Third Army.
The
price increases and the decrease in production created economic
dislocations and inflation in all the targeted nations. Rationing was
instituted as Americans idled on long lines waiting for the "odd/even
days" at the pumps. However, European nations responded with
alternatives ranging from windmills to nuclear power. Only the United
States failed to produce a serious energy policy.
President
Richard Nixon announced an initiative called Project Independence whose
stated goal was to achieve energy independence by 1980. His presidency
was already threatened and industry, Congress, scientists and
technology did not respond to the challenge. By the time Gerald Ford
replaced Nixon, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger bowed to OPEC
threats and pummeled Israel into accepting the aggressors' terms for a
truce with Egypt. It was not his finest hour but then, did he ever have
a finest hour?
Jimmy Carter (whose own gas emissions could power
a small city) did actually confront the issue in 1977. Here is what he
said on April 18th, 1977:
"With the exception of preventing war,
this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our
lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if
we do not act quickly....... We simply must balance our demand for
energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can
control our future instead of letting the future control us....... The
1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our
energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago
in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and
more time has passed by without our planning for the future. And it
will get worse every day until we act...... must conserve the fuels
that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful.
.....We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our
consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves.
We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the
environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy."
Nonetheless,
he instituted economically devastating "profits taxes" added solar
panels and wood stoves to the White House, and generally produced no
results.
Just before Carter mercifully lost his bid for
re-election, America confronted a second energy crisis....the 1979
embargo brought about as a result of the fall of Shah Reza Pahlavi, and
the takeover of Iran by the mullahs and Ayatollah Khomeini.
Americans
idling engines on long lines for the second time in seven years blamed
the oil companies instead of OPEC, and the politicians did as they
always do: they proposed rationing and, in fact, coupons bearing the
picture of George Washington were printed and issued but never used.
Now,
it got interesting. People bought smaller and more fuel efficient cars
and furnaces, and by 1980 the West appeared to be taking energy
independence seriously and began explorations in Prudhoe Bay, the North
Sea, and new markets were found in Mexico. Oil prices began a six year
decline leading to a 46% drop in 1986. But then, Americans got
complacent again and the Saudis began to open another front against the
West.
By September 1990, the media was talking about $40 a
barrel for oil and home heating oil and gasoline prices began to hit
record highs. Again, OPEC was on a roll, but this time they had
successfully embarked on a systematic "buying" of American diplomats
and former legislators who were happy to shill for them for big bucks.
Among
them were Congressman Paul Findley, Republican of Illinois who is head
of a "think tank" The Council for the National Interest, among whose
"thinks" is hatred for Israel; Edward Walker a former ambassador to
Egypt and the United Arab Emirates; Raymond Close formerly station
chief of the CIA in Saudi Arabia; Eugene Bird former counselor to the
United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia; James Akins a former ambassador
to Saudi Arabia who stated right after 9/11:" The Arabs have a record
of religious tolerance which is not equaled or even approached by any
European country."
Even former Senator and candidate for
President Bob Dole gets money to lobby for Dubai; and Madeleine
Albright (former Secretary of State), former Rep. Tom Downey (D.-N.Y.)
and Carol Browner (who served as director of the Environmental
Protection Agency in the Clinton Administration) have all been hired by
the UAE. And who will ever know how much the Saudis and Emirates have
contributed to the Clinton Library?
In an act of dazzling
effrontery, only six months after September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia,
where almost all the terrorists were born, bred, educated, funded and
encouraged, actually floated a so-called "peace plan" for the Middle
East. It was nothing more than another "Israel gives a lot and gets
nothing and Arabs give nothing and get a lot" deal but it elicited
gushing praise and enthusiasm and a visit to the Crawford Ranch.
Saudi
Arabia and OPEC cohorts don't just hold us over a barrel of oil. They
fund and control radicalized Middle East departments in major
Universities throughout the nation; fund maddrassas where hatred for
the West and the "infidels" is core curriculum; they openly support
terrorists while they buy up business and heart and minds in America;
cruises transporting gullible Americans routinely stop in Abu Dhabi
where passengers gush about their hospitality without a moment's
thought to why fuel prices have double the cost of their passage; so
called "culture festivals" in these oppressive regimes attract hundreds
of Americans including prominent Jews (such as the wife of human rights
activist Elie Wiesel); and, most appalling, even Mortimer Zuckerman,
who is a former President of the largest pro-Israel organization known
as the President's Conference, is now happily embarked on a major
business venture with Dubai-based Meraas Capital LLC.
And
here we are with oil hitting new highs and no alternatives. As for the
candidates? Obama is incoherent and McCain? Well before he was for
drilling and nuclear power, he was against it.
Congress? Well, so
far the dim bulbs there have come up with nothing better than the
"massive energy bill" of 2005" which will phase out the incandescent
bulb over the next dozen years.
If past is precedent, and America shows true grit, OPEC will lower the price slightly to lull is into doing nothing.
That will be a resounding victory for the thugs at OPEC and a nightmare for America.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ruth King is a freelance writer. She has written a book and articles on gardening, and also writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel.
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
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