[Acrylic-bob]

The Afghanistan War was staged to assist in routing the pipeline from the Russian's Caspian Field to the Indian Ocean any other direction would have been too expensive. The Taliban would not play ball and so had to go. Pakistan, seeing which was the wind was blowing, was prepared to be more pliable and so escaped with it's nuclear weapons intact.

The oil reserves in the US are falling, as are the reserves in the North Sea. There is still plenty of oil out there but it is becoming less economicaly viable to extract it.

As China grows in economic importance, taking over the role of 'The workshop of the world' it will demand more of a dwindling resource. Us Oil companies are concerned to protect their grotesque profits and have no intention of allowing China a free ride. Thus it is necessaryfor them, either overtly or covertly, to control the supply.

I notice that Libya has also decided to play ball with the US.

Nuclear Fusion as a means of generating electricity is dangerous and leaves a legacy of nuclear waste that will remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. The dream of Nuclear Fission providing unlimited energy from water and saving all our ****s, is just that, a dream. For reasons best known to the Chancellor and the Oil Companies research into obtaining energy from renewable sources, ie wind waves and sunshine, is so poorly funded as to make little or no impact.

So you see the oil companies need to keep us using oil to protect their profits and they are not above using those profits to stifle research in order to keep holding us over their oil barrel.