re: #279 Spare O’Lake

1. Explain to me why influencing US foreign policy (which you admit) is not simply the flip side of kow-towing (which you deny).
2. Explain the difference between a semantic ploy and a lie.
I need to know this in order to reconsider what I thought was a clear policy statement by Pres. Obama directed to ending oil dependence from ME regimes which do not share America’s interests.
3. Explain to me why America cannot reduce its imports of oil from ME sources immediately and offset those reductions by temporarily increasing its imports from non-ME sources until alternate non-oil sources can be developed.

We can easily cut imports from ME sources immediately, and offset those reductions by imports from non-ME sources. But so what? Those we import from would export less to other countries, which in turn would import more from the ME instead. Upshot? Higher transportation costs for all, but other than that, both ME and non ME oil producers sell the same amount of oil as they would have, and at essentially the same price.

This achieves nothing.