The military-petroleum complex

[struggle4progress]

... Rumsfeld's boss -- and a man who knows a thing or two about addiction - President George W. Bush, proclaimed, in early 2006, that "America is addicted to oil." Later that year, Bush almost came clean about Iraq, admitting ... "You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources" ...

... Rumsfeld's military was more than just an armed occupier sent to lock down the planet's oil lands. It was also a known petrol addict ... The American military relies more than that of any other nation on oil-powered ships, planes, helicopters, and armored vehicles to transport troops into battle and rain down weapons on its foes ...

According to Fuel Line, the official newsletter of the Pentagon's fuel-buying component, the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), from October 1, 2001, to August 9, 2004, the DESC supplied 1,897,272,714 gallons of jet fuel, alone, for military operations in Afghanistan. Similarly, in less than a year and a half, from March 19, 2003, to August 9, 2004, the DESC provided U.S. forces with 1,109,795,046 gallons of jet fuel for operations in Iraq. In 2005, Lana Hampton of the DoD's Defense Logistics Agency revealed that the military's aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles were guzzling 10 to 11 million barrels of fuel each month in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Yet, while the Pentagon reportedly burns through an astounding 365,000 barrels of oil every day (the equivalent of the entire nation of Sweden's daily consumption), Sohbet Karbuz, an expert on global oil markets, estimates that the number is really closer to 500,000 barrels ...

Prior to George Bush's Global War on Terror, the U.S. military admitted to guzzling 4.62 billion gallons of oil per year. With the Pentagon's post-9/11 wars and occupations, annual oil consumption has grown to an almost unfathomable 5.46 billion gallons, according to the Pentagon's possibly low-ball statistics ...

http://www.petroleumworld.com/sf08041301.htm

[Fovea]

1. The Swiss, Dutch, Finns, etc get around on bicycles.

when vehicles are not needed.

Of course, they don't generally invade other nations, or have to.