Pickens warns against buying 'enemy' oil
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Calgary Herald
Shaun Polczer
09/23/2010
Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens said Wednesday that the United States' dependence on oil from the Middle East is indirectly funding the war in Afghanistan and leading to the deaths of American and Canadian soldiers while raising his nation's government debt. Speaking to a chamber of commerce audience in Calgary, Pickens said the U.S. ought to increase imports of Canadian oil while developing domestic natural gas supplies to displace up to 2.5 million barrels per day of imports from OPEC and other nations that support the Taliban insurgency that has killed 153 Canadian and 1,302 American troops since 2001, including Calgary Herald journalist Michelle Lang, who died with four Canadian soldiers on Dec. 30, 2009. More than 40 per cent of America's oil imports come from countries that are hostile to western interests and sympathetic to groups such as the Taliban, he added. "I want to get the United States off oil from the Middle East," he said. "I'm convinced that buying oil from the Middle East is paying for both sides of the (Afghanistan) war." Pickens said shifting cars and long-haul trucks to natural gas would cut U.S. imports of OPEC oil by more than half, which he said would put a dent in funding to groups such as the Taliban. He insisted that countries such as Saudi Arabia are indirectly funding groups that support terrorists and other groups opposed to the U.S. "We cannot continue to buy oil from the enemy," he added. Chris Hellman, a spokesman for the Boston-based National Priorities Project, said the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost American taxpayers more than $1.08 trillion US, not including the long-term indirect costs of treating more than 7,200 wounded. The mounting costs of both wars amount to more than one-tenth of the U.S. government's $10-trillion debt. Pickens said developments in unconventional gas production that have unlocked more than a century of new supply would ensure a reliable domestic fuel source that could displace foreign oil imports, create North American jobs and slash the U.S. trade deficit. A report by the Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas this spring said Canada's unconventional gas resources amount to four quadrillion cubic feet -- enough to meet domestic needs for more than 100 years.
