Astonishingly Energy-Inefficient, War

(((Oil, Iraq, Energy security, How we're spending so incredibly much more on the Iraq War than on developing renewable energy.)))

Okay, either we're out to make the world safe for democracy, or we were really concerned about oil.* Let's leave aside the problems with the first view, for a moment, and focus on the second. Even if both of these are factors, the truth is that there are much, much better ways to think about long-term energy needs than to worry about, what, being cut off or blackmailed by Saddam Hussein?

This graph makes it, well, graphic. We should throw in some figures on health expenditures and on income support.

*Or it was because Saddam was such an evil tyrant (unlike Kim Jong Il, who remains comfortably in power), or it was because there were terrorists there (well, there weren't, but there are now), or it was because, well, Saddam was the guy who tried to kill his dad).