Protesters at the University of Illinois, along with protesters from all over the nation, have gathered to demand justice be brought to the Libyan people. As of recent, chaos within the Libyan people has broken out in anger over government dictator Moammar al-Gadhafi. Gadhafi’s attempts to stop the riots have caused an energy crisis. This energy crisis is threatening the United States already damaged economy. The students on campus feel that Gadhafi should step down as President of Libya, but without U.S. intervention, the violence in Libya and the downfall of the US economy may continue. Therefore, President Obama should intervene to help bring justice back to the Libyan people and prevent any more damage on the US economy.
Thursday February 24th at 1:30pm, I witnessed students of the University of Illinois assembled together, protesting the violence occurring in Libya. Graduate student, Fatemah Hermes led the protesters in chants directed toward Libyan leader Moammar al-Gadhafi. Protesters claim that the actions being taken by Gadhafi are unethical. Gadhafi is bombing his own cities and destroying Libyan oil refineries, killing hundreds to possible thousands of Libyan citizens (Hermes). The main focus is happening between Libya’s capital Tripoli and second largest city Benghazi. Other rally members agree that it is the job of President Barack Obama to step in and help these poor citizens from the tyranny of Gadhafi.
According to OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), Libya is the fourth largest oil producing country (OPEC). However, due to the recent bombings and violent riots that have broken out, Libyan oil production has come to a halt. The lack of oil production has put not only Libya’s economy in disa...
... middle of paper ...
...ation put in to resolve the problem. However, two new questions arise after doing research. First, what option is Obama going to take in helping the Libyan people? Secondly, what would happen if Obama let the conflict resolve itself, would it hurt the US economy?
Works Cited
1) Hermes, Fatemah. "Justice For Libya." Arab Student Association. Champaign-Urbana. 23 Feb. 2011. Lecture.
2) Organization for the Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. .
3) "2011 Unemployment Percentage." Chart. New York Times 25 Feb. (2011). Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
4) Rich, Motoko, and Catherine Rampell. "Rising Oil Prices Pose Threat To US Economy." New York Times 25 Feb. 2011 [United States of America] : 1+. Print.
5) Jervis, Rick. "Analysts detail White House's options in Libya." USA Today 25 Feb. 2011. Print.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has been calling every citizens and every nations to support his Middle East policy. Nonetheless, the U.S. has been involved in the middle-east struggle for more than half of the century, wars were waged and citizens were killed. Yet, political struggles and ideological conflicts are now worse than they were under Clinton’s presidency. As “President’s Address to the Nation” is a speech asking everybody to support the troops to keep fighting in Iraq, I, as an audience, am not persuaded at all because of his illogical fallacy in the arguments. In this essay, I will analyze how and what are the illogical fallacies he uses in the speech.
America is dependent on other nations for their ability to create energy. The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil at 18.49 million barrels of oil per day. And it will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future considering the next largest customer of oil only consumes about 60% of what the U.S. does. This makes the U.S. vulnerable to any instability that may arise in the energy industry. In 2011, the world’s top three oil companies were Saudi Aramco (12%), National Iranian Oil Company (5%), and China National Petroleum Corp (4%). The risk associated with these countries being the top oil producers is twofold. One, they are located half way around the world making it an expensive to transport the product logistically to a desired destination. And two, the U.S. has weak, if not contentious,...
In 2004, crude oil producers around the world expected a 1.5% growth in the world’s demand for crude oil. The actual growth rate was more than double the projections at 3.3%. This growth was due to rapidly industrializing of foreign countries such as, China and India. Therefore the lack of crude oil affected the supply of gasoline to consumers at the pump.
“Ready for War.” Intelligence Reports Iss. 131 (Fall 2008). 46-54 SIRS Researcher. Web. 03 Feb. 2011.
Early 2011 uprisings swept across the Middle East and North Africa, and many rebellions are still going on today. The Arab region has seen revolts and conflict since the 1800‘s, but only recently have these revolts been redirected to the problems of Arab society (Ghannam, J. 2011 pg 4-5)The Arab Spring Uprising was first sparked in Tunisia and eventually struck Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and then spread to other countries. Citizens throughout these countries were dissatisfied with the rule of their local governments. Issues like human rights violations, political corruption, economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, dictators...
The United States has had several scares throughout its history in terms of oil, most turn out to be over exaggerations of a small event. However, these scares highlight a massive issue with the U.S. and that issue is the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil. Why does it matter that our oil should come from over seas? In a healthy economy this probably wouldn’t be as relevant, but the U.S.’s economy is not exactly healthy at the moment. There are 4 things that I would like to address: what the problem is, how it affects us, what some solutions are, and what solutions I feel are best.
Worldwide, there are many factors contributing to the increase in cost per barrel. Most recently, Libyan rebels, inspired by the success of their Tunisian and Egyptian neighbors, are up...
SUMMARY: The Syrian Civil War between the Syrian government, and the insurgents, as well as the Free Syrian Army has been escalating since early 2011. The United States, and our allies have faced difficulty in sending aid to Syria, and continue to deal with obstacles in sending even basic medications to Syrian civilians. However, the United States and its allies have also contributed to the lack of organization and the disparity in Syria by sending aid and artillery to individuals based only on political connection, and ignoring organization, local alliances, and without a true understanding of the reality of the Syrian localities to best protect the Syrian protestors. The question addressed in this memo will be defining the viable options to be pursued in Syria, how to pursue them, and assessing the most beneficial path of least resistance when offering aid, funds, and artillery to specific groups in the country. The recommendation will be that although the best alternative action item would be to choose a Syrian group with the least oppositional values comparative to the United States to fund, supply with arms, and train; that the United States should do nothing for the time being. Given the physical and financial risk involved with the Syrian Civil War, it would be prudent for the United States to simply observe how the war progresses over the next several months, as well as complete some research to truly understand the state of affairs in local areas of Syria to determine the extent to which the United States could identify a group to provide aid to, as well as the extent to which the United States involvement would be within Syria.
The night before the anniversary of 9/11 in 2013, Barack Obama delivered a speech to the United States of America on the subject of Syria’s inhumane use of chemical weapons on its own citizens. The United States’ intelligence analysts estimated that more than 1,400 civilians were killed due to the chemical warheads that were launched on the area right outside of Damascus. In President Barack Obama’s address to the nation on Syria, he attempts to persuade the American people to support his plan of a targeted air strike on Syria. By describing the victims of Syria, giving reasons for the inhumanity of the Syrian government, and reinforcing his credibility,
The U.S dependency on foreign oil presents many negative impacts on the nation’s economy. The cost for crude oil represents about 36% of the U.S balance of payment deficit. (Wright, R. T., & Boorse, D. F. 2011). This does not affect directly the price of gas being paid by consumers, but the money paid circulates in the country’s economy and affects areas such as; the job market and production facilities. (Wright, R. T., & Boorse, D. F. 2011). In addition to the rise in prices, another negative aspect of the U.S dependency on foreign crude oil is the risk of supply disruptions caused by political instability of the Middle East. According to Rebecca Lefton and Daniel J. Weiss in the Article “Oil Dependence Is a Dangerous Habit” in 2010, the U.S imported 4 million barrels of oil a day or 1.5 billion barrels per year from “dangerous or unstable” countries. The prices in which these barrels are being purchased at are still very high, and often lead to conflict between the U.S and Middle Eastern countries. Lefton and Weiss also add that the U.S reliance on oil from countries ...
The Arab Spring is an extremely prominent issue today. This refers to the series of protests and civil wars that have been occurring in the Arab World due to discontent with government, human rights violations, poverty, and other factors. Countries where this is an issue include Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Sudan. One of the countries hit hardest by the revolution was Egypt.
One of most crucial aspects of humanitarian intervention is the lack of proper motives. As noted by Bush, Martiniello, and Mercer, in the case of Libya and Côte d’Ivoire the Western nations were pursuing their own economic imperial interests under the guise of humanitarian intervention (Bush). The lack of pure motives to help decrease crimes against humanity resulted in an increased number of human rights violations in both Libya and Côte d’Ivoire (Bush). In order
Mast, Tom R. Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage. Austin: Hayden, 2005. Print.
In conclusion, OPEC's monopoly of the petroleum industry has been a strong one since the 1960's since its members enjoy economies of scale. Its decisions concerning the output of petrol have always been strong affecting the rest of the world. This monopoly is socially inefficient due to the output and the deadweight loss that results. Interestingly enough, to break this monopoly, the new Iraq has the potential to turn the market power around.
This rise in prices was real problem for the United States because they had no spare production to make up for the lack of Arab oil. Inside the U.S., the public suffered greatly because of the popularity of suburbia which in turn created a large dependency on oil to go anywhere. Therefore, the OPEC shock was detrimental to the life of the American citizen during its duration. People became very aware of the importance of oil, its price, and its availability. Thus there became an especially strong political pressure on companies, which promoted “equal suffering” and “fair share” principles to promote diversion. The king of Iran came up with a new basis for oil prices and it won app...