I’m not certain what is more inane: That Hannity would say this — or that he actually believes such an invasion would lower oil prices for Americans. Think Progress has the story (with video) in this cross-post.
Friday’s Hannity on Fox News featured a discussion by the Great American Panel about high gas prices, which host Sean Hannity claimed are “now gonna go up to three, four, five dollars a gallon again.” The panel ruefully noted that Arab sheiks possess great amounts of oil, and pointed out a recent statement by Kuwait’s oil minister that he believes the market can withstand $100-per-barrel oil. After noting that Kuwait is a country that “would not exist [but] for us,” Hannity angrily offered his remedy:
HANNITY: There’s two things I said. I say why isn’t Iraq paying us back with oil, and paying every American family and their soldiers that lost loved ones or have injured soldiers “” and why didn’t they pay for their own liberation? For the Kuwait oil minister “” how short his memory is. You know, we have every right to go in there and frankly take all their oil and make them pay for the liberation, as these sheiks, etcetera etcetera, you know were living in hotels in London and New York, as Trump pointed out, and now they’re gouging us and saying ‘oh of course we can withstand [these prices].’”
Watch it:
In the most recent invasion of Iraq, there have been 4,442 American combat deaths and over 30,000 injuries, many of them traumatic and debilitating. The cost of the war is at $3 trillion and counting, and the invasion demolished America’s global standing. Apparently, Hannity would be willing to re-pay this cost for cheaper gasoline.
Hannity also acts as if Iraq should be grateful for the invasion and turn over its natural resources. Of course, anywhere from 100,000 to one million Iraqi civilians died during the unwanted invasion, which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and cultural heritage.
On the other hand, Hannity has previously noted that he “travel(s) on private planes, [and] I have an SUV that I’m proud of.” Surely, the hundred-millionaire would be hurt by $3-per-gallon gas.
– A TP cross-post.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Being from the UK this is my first impression of Sean Hannity. To me it seems like he’s a creation of Osama Bin Laden. I mean, these words certainly do their bit to create anti-American feeling around the world, not to mention fostering Arab-American hostility.
I say we invade Texas and Alaska. That’ll show’em!
A key problem arises:
The invasion of a country and the appropriation of its resources is expressly prohibited by Nuremberg (principle 6 part b, states the planning of an aggressive war with a view to the plunder of property both public and private is a war crime).
Fox News and Sean Hannity are a part of the government, qua spokesmen for the Republican party, and as such carry responsibility for the supreme crime (openly planning a war of aggression) from which stem the rest (torture, murder, wanton destruction, etc.).
Sorry, not a looney left concept, simply the rule of law – I guess respecting the opinion of the sage international body of jurists who wrote so fine a document makes me shrill.
Pax omnibus!
These days, it’s tough for a run-of-the-mill rightwingnut to be heard above the Palin-Beck-Limbaugh din. What’s a Hannity to do?
I have many, many thoughts about Mr. Hannity. All of them would get me banned from here.
Invade Texas? I’d rather give it back to Mexico.
You think you can make fun of the right-wingers, come up parodies so outlandish that there’s simply no way reality could top you. You’re writing fiction, after all, and they’re here, in the real world. It should be no contest, right?
Fat chance. Once again, Hannity proves just how wrong reasonable people can be about the depths of insanity he and his ilk will descend to in order to capture ratings.
Even worse, I would bet everything I own that every single person reading this site knows at least one person who would support an armed invasion of Kuwait for their oil without hesitation. Of course, these are always the chicken hawks who aren’t in the armed services and therefore wouldn’t be at risk of having their brains or viscera blown all over the landscape for someone else’s tank of unleaded regular.
[JR: Actually, I'm not certain I know any such person, though I certainly know some Tea Party types. The thing is, none of them are dumb enough to think that an invasion would lower oil prices. Of course, I know a lot of energy folks, and all of them realize that Kuwait ain't holding back oil at these prices, so again invasion is doubly senseless.]
Lou,
I know that my former brother in law (whom I love dearly) would support it. And no, he’s never been in the military (though he does love watching war movies).
I really don’t understand being that disconnected from reality.
It was possible that Hannity was arguing between the lines. Since Iraq is not giving us oil for free, the war must not have been about oil. It is a specious argument that ignores that fungible nature of oil, the global free market, and the nature of hegemony.
Yes, three trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives are not enough, apparently.
We must invade the Middle East, for more oil, so we can burn it and add roughly a hundred thousand times its heat of combustion as greenhouse heat to our atmosphere and biosphere.
Sure, that will fix everything.
Sorry, Iraq oil belongs to the English…..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1347598/MARK-ALMOND-This-BP-deal-finally-death-British-Empire.html
I had hoped that the idea of waging aggressive war against another country, and then having the effrontery, cruelty and indecency to levy funds to pay for the privilege it has just enjoyed belonged to the darkest days of the 20th century
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t China becoming a major customer for Gulf oil?
China doesn’t have much of a navy compared to the US, but I can picture the Chinese stationing a token force of maybe a couple of destroyers in the Gulf to protect “Their” supply of oil.
Who knows, perhaps they could establish an air base somewhere in the area (for training purposes of course).
Would Mr Hannity be willing to go to war with the Chinese?
Want to play a game?
this is one of those newfangled ‘sanctity of contracts’ arguments, isn’t it.
Since the “free market” economy isnt working to our liking we will just tweek the system a little and call it a “liberated market” economy. Surely that will work as planned.
One of the the questions I ask my fellow Canadians is whether they believe in a warming world whether Canada would be able to keep all the “benefits”: (assuming there are any resulting from climate change) to itself. In other words do they really believe the US would standby placidly while “greener” pastures beckoned to the north?
What people like Mr. Hannity confirm for me is that the answer is a resounding NO!
Sure, Sean. And while we’re at it, we could kill Kuwait’s leaders and convert its people to Christianity, right?
/sarc
No, that — when proposed with any degree of seriousness — is just Christian inanity. As evidenced by that blond woman whose initials are AC.
Hmm… Hannity inanity: It has a certain ring to it. ;-)
Of course, Hannity is just echoing the GOP’s talking points, as he has always done. But he’s right about one thing: Kuwait wouldn’t exist as a country except for us — and neither would Iraq. In fact, we (Western nations) have been meddling in the Middle East for oil and transport (the Suez Canal) for too long.
For those who would like to know more about Radio Free Rightwing, I recommend Toxic Talk by Bill Press.
All right, that’s it! I don’t want to be a part anymore of a species that has such creatures as members. I think ‘homo sapiens sapiens’ should be split into two categories. Either he goes to his category or I start one of my own!
Hannity makes this quote from Annie Leonard’s ‘The Story of Stuff’ sound a little less like innocent exaggeration and a little more like cold, bloody reality.
“the third world, which – some would say – is another word for our stuff that somehow got on someone else’s land.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
Seriously, there must be some legal basis to sue this guy?
I’m totally blown away by this. How can he get away with that without being lynched on the spot? Or at least without being fired?
Americans, wake up! A new Nazi-Germany isn’t something that’s waiting to happen to your country, it’s already arrived. Act accordingly.
I wonder if Hannity would give of us some discussion of the political concept that my dictionary description concludes: “typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.”
By the way, one of the very reasons for high oil pricing is the three trillion dollar foreign invasions, which the Congress has not declared as “war.” All this while we remain addicted to economic and ecologic collapse (courtesy of the financial/fossil/militarism elite and their bought fiends in government and corporate media like Hannity). Didn’t Osama (remember him?) say something about revenge for our oil/military activities in Saudi Arabia. Oops, wrong country.
Sure Sean Hannity! Go ahead and invade Iraq again. But this time you have to fund the entire thing with a tax on gasoline.
If we’d applied the same thinking to the previous invasion, over the 6 years of the war it would have cost Americans approximately $3.75/gallon of gas that we used over that time period. (Very rough figures.)
Sounds like he is also saying we would have to wipe the populations of those country’s so that there would be no one left to get in his way while that oil was pumped out. I think the last figures I saw for how much is recoverable is like 10yrs worth, but that’s only if we don’t use it all for the Armed Forces in the takeover of the rest of the Middle East. I fear like the WOMD’s what they think is there really isn’t. Is he really willing to wipe out all those people so he can drive his SUV cheaply?
I’ve heard of new energy systems involving magnets. Can anyone explain the principles behind this to me? I don’t believe in free energy, but think that magnets could somehow be used to improve efficiency.
” Countries that wouldn’t exist without the United States ?”
Surely Hannity means Canada, whose most conspicuous exports are tar sand oil, which is ours by right of Fifty Four Forty or Fight, and politicos who think the US should emulate the Foreign Legion in keeping a lid on the levant
By seizing Alberta and deploying Conrad Black, John Frum and Mark Steyn on a solar electric rubber duck in the Shat al-Arab, we can inflict a New Realism on talk radio and energy policy alike.
Another bar-stool warrior speaks. Hannity is an idiot..PERIOD!
No one wants to admit it, but the electric car will eventually be the nail in the coffin to oil-based invasions such as the ones Hannity desires.
Hannity doesn’t realise that the invasion of Iraq was not about selling oil to American consumers. It was about strategic long-term control of oil for the US military.
Someone commented on either Media Matters or Alternet something to the effect of “Go right ahead Sean; I’ll be right behind you.”
If I were Kuwait, I would threaten to boycott oil sales to the USA until Sean Hannity is completely and irrevocably banned from the airwaves.
Per Tacitus @3, reference to the Nuremberg laws; I should add that we are at a time in our history that serves as the equivalent of pre Hitler Germany. The sooner that analogy is made repeatedly in the mainstream media, the better it would be for all.
The right wing has to find someone to blame for our economic problems; they must be worried their base is going to decide right wing policies have been a disaster.
Did everyone see the SNL satire of Hannity?
Hannity foaming at the mouth:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/237914/thumbs/r-FOX-NEWS-SNL-medium260.jpg
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/16/snl-mocks-fox-news-civility_n_809644.html
The last official estimate for the cost of the war is $15B per month.
What they never mention on TV is that 2/3 of the US trade deficit is the direct cost of oil imports – about $40B per month.
Oil funds terrorists and is bankrupting the US.
Advocating oil gives aid and comfort to our enemies in time of war.
Advocating oil is treason.
@ dp #13 — No, I think Mr. Hannity and his cohort are still stuck in the delusion of a “manifest destiny” for the USA. Too bad we’re slowly sliding into third-world status: increasing infant mortality, decreasing life expectancy, reversion to a pyramidal distribution of wealth, declining standards in education, etc…
Mr Hannity is, in my opinion, the ill-begotten offspring, as are the teeming hordes of his like, of the miscegenistic mating of Ronnie Raygun’s abolition of the FCC ‘fairness’ doctrine, and your country’s clutching to its bosom of Rupert Murdoch. The dominance of the media by extreme Right crypto (not so crypto, really) fascists, civilizational supremacists, warmongers, hate disseminators and denialists has, I think it is plain, deranged your society. To invade Iraq because they are insufficiently grateful for the US first installing Saddam Hussein (a long-term CIA ‘asset’) then setting him onto Iran, like a pet attack dog, then, when his usefulness was over subjecting Iraq to two brutal wars and the savages sanctions regime, is the nightmare of a truly demented mind. Iraq’s really big crime in 2002 was Saddam’s hint that he would not accept payment in $US for oil any more. If the primacy of the $US in oil trading is lost, the end of the role of the $US as de facto global reserve currency is over, and with it the US Empire. Comrade Hu of China has been a little provocative, on the eve of his US visit by openly advocating such a change. He must imagine he and his country have nothing to fear from the dying hegemon.
And Tacitus#3, this is yet another example of your observation concerning deserts and peace. Were not various people, Streicher comes to mind, punished in condign manner, for advocating and propagandising for aggressive war, in the trials after the Nazi defeat?
Sean Hannity doesn’t know how the oil market works. It’s completely globalized and interconnected. Ownership of oil resources does not translate into lower gasoline costs. Iran is one of OPEC’s largest producers yet they must import refined petroleum products because they don’t have the sufficient capacity to refine oil.
Oil isn’t like natural gas; it’s fungible, for one, and there are not linear contracts between producers and consumers. The price of gas isn’t directly related to the price of crude and the price of crude isn’t perfectly, directly related to the amount of supply on a market.
Ugh.
Lou Grinzo @ 6, I can’t prove you wrong. I have a co-worker who would indeed think it was a great idea and would lower gas prices. One could point out the obvious flaws in his thinking, but you would have to do it every day because his brain would just keep resetting to a default condition. It is an unholy nightmare of stupid.
First big business and the “conservative right” learned it was more cost effective and profitable to import educated people from overseas to do our technical work than to educate our own people. Then finding an uneducated populace they learned that if you repeat the same message often enough it will be believed. Finally they learned that if the lies can be believed; then they can do anything they want to do.
What they failed to learn is: As we fall into ignorance and manipulation the rest of the world is becoming more educated and seeing them for who they are. What is sad is that so many people here in America actually believe Hanity. The “right” has a strangle hold on the truth and we freedom loving Americans cannot save ourselves. Will the rest of the world come and save us from ourselves?
Sadly, I think not.
Hey I live in Texas and I wish the U.S. would invade us and overthrow our 3rd term wingnut Governor. LOL
LOL, TJ Bogert. Better you do it yourself, to get even with Tunisia.
Good point, Malcreado # 14 … The “free market” is a bitch, ain’t it, Hannity? And peak oil ain’t much fun either.
As y’all noted above, Hannity’s plan is illegal, immoral and ineffectual: even if aggressive war weren’t a crime, it would not bring down prices in a global market.
But if makes him feel good to propose a war; he covers up his basic cowardice (…remember when he said waterboarding wasn’t torture and that he’d prove it by getting waterboarded?) by talking tough. And that is very good for ratings!
How much petroleum would you consume to seize those oil fields? How much international good-will would you lose? And what do we do when those fields play out? I hate to use the addiction analogy, but this is a junkie looking for his next fix rather than detoxing and getting off the dope.
All-electric cars are not viable as long as they are charged “on the grid,” because the gasoline you save is counteracted by the coal being burned to produce that electricity. When electric cars have the range of a current petrol vehicle, and they are charged using solar, wind or some other combination of renewable sources, then they will be beneficial.
And the companies building them and the people buying them should do so without government tax breaks or other giveaways. The cars and infrastructure supporting them should stand or fall on their own merit, just as any other product does.
@TJ Bogert: Let’s get together and throw the bum out! I learned of this outburst by Hannity (who should be one of the first to deploy) on Bill White’s FB post. Three terms is three too many for Perry!
Could you print a clear photograph of Hannity?
For God’s sake WATCH THE VIDEO, he didn’t suggest invading ANYWHERE. And by the way, his SUV is a HYBRID, the REAL quote is that he’s proud of his HYBRID SUV.
Give a clown a microphone and what do you expect? Foreign policy?
Barry,
“to go in there and frankly take all their oil”
That is 100% clear to anyone who WANTS to understand it.
China has done almost exactly that. Supplies of weapons to the Sri Lankan government to win its civil war over the Tamil Tigers have given it a blue water port at Hambantota – thereby surrounding India, and potentially giving its navy access to the sea lanes from the gulf to East Asia.
How about we just stay out of other countries & take care of our own. If there are schools, utilities, roads, hospitals, factories, refineries and a true republic to be built…. DO IT HERE! Leave the rest of the world alone for a while.
RE # 34
Berbalang, you said:
“I have a co-worker who would indeed think it was a great idea and would lower gas prices. One could point out the obvious flaws in his thinking, but you would have to do it every day because his brain would just keep resetting to a default condition. It is an unholy nightmare of stupid.”
We are stupid monkeys and have the keys to all the cages. When we talk about human nature, I think of Lucy and then my receding tail bone. We may have gotten this far from the tree but we still have the same wiring we had then…we hunt and we gather to live for today.
Stupid is as stupid does. Your co-worker has not developed as much as others have.
John McCormick
I just want to see Hannity pick up a M-16 and lead the charge across the Kuwaiti beaches. After all, in his mind he is the tip of the spear.