The job of a President, like a father, is to keep bread on the table and a roof over the family's head.

Every President has had to alter diplomacy and foreign policy to insure the US "family" has enough oil. When one source falls down, the State Department and all the other departments are put to work to obtain another source.

When Iraq oil imports went to zip between 1991-96 we made much of it up by dealing with Venezuela. (a pre-Chavez Venezuela)

Now that Chavez is playing Commie-dictator that supply is jeopardized and so we have been filling and expanding our strategic reserves as a contingency.

So now we need Iraq's oil more than ever and we need to keep those fields operating at their capacity.

(Begin analysis you will not find elsewhere)

Think.

Our presence in Iraq let's us deal from a position of strength. The media LIES white is black and upside down is right-way up. That's why they say the US is less respected, feared, etcetera - when the opposite is true!

We have the Iraq fields and their capacity secure. From Iraq we can support Saudi Arabia as well. With Canada & Mexico being stable exporters that leaves Venezuela with less power to extort the US. Why does Chavez HATE Bush so much? Ever wonder about that? He knows Bush outsmarted him by securing Iraq's fields. His tin-plated dictatorship is far less important than it was in 2001 and he knows it.

That's why Chavez is cozying up with Iran and Syria. He would willingly PAY them millions to get the US out of Iraq, because it would put him in the catbird seat again! You have to spend money to make money.

I have friends in Venezuela. They have reported that since Chavez came to power the infrastructure has gone straight to heck. Roads, sewer & sanitation and other services are falling apart. All the "good press" about social programs is so much fluff - Chavez is spending, hoarding and utilizing the oil revenues for other things than the people. They had hoped he would be gone if they could have a fair election, but knew too it would be rigged.

Iraq, to someone charged with providing for America, is worth more casualties than we've sustained. And because Bush knows the nations who are behind the insurgency, understandably Bush is very peeved yet must bite his tongue and talk about 'seemingly senseless sectarian killing'.

Mentioning OIL would've immediately fed the wolves who need tens of millions of US folks working against their own best interests - but who are told that thinking in these ways is "enlightened".