"Matt Colie" said
Why do they make noise about dependence on foreign oil..

Energy independence sounds all well and good, but if the world is gonna
run out of fossil fuel in the foreseeable future, doesn't it make sense
to use up the other guy's first? This may seem a bit greedy and
politically incorrect to put ourselves first, but to me it seems like a
smart thing to use up the other guy's reserves first.

After all, what condition would you rather be in? The Arab, South
American, Siberian, etc. oil fields have been depleted and those of the
U.S. are still producing, or our fields depleted and us completely
dependent on foreign oil? Bear in mind that the governments of some of
those places don't have much of a history of being nice to us. How
would they behave if they literally had us "over a barrel"?