A couple items to respond to. Did we "start" the wars? That's a whole lot less important than the premise that we became involved primarily to protect the flow of oil. Would anyone really argue that we invaded Iraq (twice), Afghanistan (twice), Libya, etc. because the American people felt so strongly about the dictators who ran those countries violating human rights or debasing women? I doubt that anyone would argue that. Our political leaders decided to spend American blood and treasure to most importantly protect the flow of oil out of the region. Almost all of the other arguments used to justify our invasions were secondary to oil.

Will our economy require huge amounts of oil to continue to operate? Absolutely. But is that a reason for our elected leaders to continue to kick the can down the road in addressing what really needs to be done to reduce our reliance on foreign oil? I'd argue that putting off inevitable decisions has been going on for decades--President Carter first established the Energy Department, which was supposed to come up with an overarching energy policy. Because nothing has happened since is no reason not to demand that it should start NOW!

As far as reserves which we have which are not being tapped, you're probably right. But the question is WHY? The answer is that the big oil companies can make a whole lot more money buying foreign oil, having most of it refined offshore, then selling it to U.S. consumers at a price of whatever the market will bear. Did you ever notice that the profitability of the oil companies actually improves when the price of oil rises? Why would that be?

What's missing is this equation is governmental intervention to "steer" both the public and private sector parties to a logical and necessary energy policy--smaller cars, electric cars, more drilling of U.S. reserves, more refining inside the U.S., more use of nuclear and less of fossil fuels, etc. All my theoretical proposal was intended to do is to get people thinking about how the real cost of the gas we use is being disguised by self-serving companies in the private sector and politicians who want only to get re-elected. Why aren't we drilling in the Gulf? Simple, because there was a big oil spill and the politicians are scared that if we resumed drilling and something like that happened again, they'd lose votes and maybe not get re-elected. Why aren't we drilling in the Alaskan wildlife preserve? Easy. Because it's a whole lot cheaper for the oil companies to buy oil from Saudi Arabia than to drill for it and send it by pipeline to a port to tranship to refineries in Mexico to make gas.

What I'm saying is that if the public was required to pay the actual cost of the gasoline they consume--a number much closer to $5.50 a gallon than $3.50, things would begin to change in a hurry. That would be a good thing.