Thursday, September 20, 2007

Greenspan says (basically) that with higher MPG cars, Iraq war could have been avoided

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In a statement that would shock no one except for the fact that it's coming from Alan Greenspan - Alan Greenspan! - another voice has chimed in to say that the Iraq war was really all about oil.

According to the Times of London, Greenspan writes in his new book that, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." The official line, of course, is that the the U.S. invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; this turned out to not be the case.

Now, there are all sorts of reasons why the ex-Federal Reserve Chairman could be right or wrong about the reasons for the Iraq war. I'm pretty sure that oil had something to do with it, but the larger economic and empire questions should not be ignored just because a Republican we don't expect to go against official pronouncements speaks out.

As far as putting this up on a green car blog, I hope you'll agree that calculating overall oil use and demand is a pretty vital component for understanding the broader environment that hybrids and SUVs exist in. I'll read what you have to say about all this in the comments, but I wanted to just point out how vital of a role Greenspan is admitting the gasoline-powered vehicle has in deciding American foreign policy. Greenspan's comments will (thankfully) give the Woolsey-minded readers of our site another reason to support greener cars for national security reasons; they give the rest of us plenty to chew on as well.

[Source: Times Online via EV World]

 

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