craigmcn

Just some food for thought, having just finished watching The Kingdom. I’m sure Peter Berg intended to give us a positive view of Saudi Arabia, in that not everyone is a terrorist with an AK47, RPG or IED; some of them are hard-working police officers intent on investigating and stopping terrorism. Okay, but all the bad guys get killed. Not arrested. Not tried with due process of law. In any case, it was a pretty decent cop story. 6 out of 10 saltines.

But that’s not what I came to talk about. In the movie, we’re (that is, the audience is) reminded of the 1973 oil embargo. Because I know next to nothing about the oil crisis, I did a little research. It strikes me as slightly humourous that in response to the crisis, Richard Nixon introduced Project Independence (I couldn’t find a decent link, but try this one), which would eliminate U.S. dependence on foreign oil by 1980. As I’m sure you’re well aware, that never happened, and still hasn’t happened, more than 25 years later. I can’t even imagine what the world would be like if the U.S. had actually made it happen.