Zin, has someone has hacked into your computer and posting errant nonsense under your name? Only kidding, it's a good question, let me see if in the course of a pedantic long-winded and mostly irrelevant response I can hijack this thread and maybe stir up some fecal matter.
1. It's natural, as Americans, to look closest to home and wonder about Big Oil. These are hugh multibillion dollar transnational corporate enterprises, all HQed [not BP] in the US and all clearly and commonsensically associated with this country. Most of these fellows probably rest comfortably in the Fortune 100. Whatever their present corporate identity, most of these companies are associated with the industrialization of the US in the latter part of the 19th century.
2. There is the natural and typically American habit of distrusting bigness, especially when it's bigness associated not with the public good, and devoted explicitly to turning a commercial buck.
3. These companies long predate whatever ability the oil-producing states have acquired to set output and price levels. So pointing to those countries, emotionally satisfying and factually correct as it is, only tells part of the picture.
4. Think of Big Oil as the "executiv agent" of he oil-producing states. Without their "downstream" ability to refine and distibute oil, how are the Saudis et.al. going to turn a buck to their advantage? Delivering unrefined crude via camel? I think not.
5. Yeah, the Saudis, the Russians, etc.. awash in oil revenue seem to be pissing it away and not doing much for the betterment of their folks. Or using it to buy off nasty political opponents. So, what's new? Feckless [at best] governments are nothing new. Explotative gov'ts are even less of a news flash. They've existed as long as recorded history has existed. And, when was the last time you remember ExxonMobil doing anything for the ignorant unwashed masses here in the US?[except delivering a pretty good product, reliably, for a really long time and at mostly reasonable prices? For which the marketplace rewards them handsomely. That's why they get up and go to the office each day. They're definitely not worried about XL1 having sufficient heat and fuel to live a minimally comfortable life,]
6." Really, attacking and weakening the oil companies reduces their power compared to those governments. It would not be a good thing to do this." Hey, emotionally, i'm with you, but behaviorally and emperically I think this has to be demonstrated, not merely asserted [commomsensical though it is]. This no doubt was true prior to the formation of OPEC in 1960. In any case Big Oil, despite it's reduced straits relative to the oil producers, seems to be doing quite well regardless. It's relationship is no longer exploitative/parasitic, but symbiotic. Big Oil cannot live w/o the oil producers, and vice versa.
7. Depending upon who and what you believe, or possibly who just shouts the loudest and the most frequently, "...irresponsible and unemployable Saudis who have nothing to do but pray to Allah and scheme of ways to attack us"
would probably exist in the absence of a single drop of petrol in that hot and unpleasant land. They'd simply have less time to devote to those charming pursuits. And depending upon the exact grievance to which some might give voice, perhaps not every criticism they render is totally unjustified. Plenty of Americans, frustrated and pissed off with the whole bloodly lot of them, might readily support a policy of attacking them to "resolve" that "problem." Why Saudis would or ought to forego a similar emotional response baffles me. Among a great many other things. Oh, but I forgot -- we're the good guys.
8. This questions begs to have a globalization component in response, but that's for another time.
Zin, I hope you have not taken this as as a slam. Just my devalued 2 cent contribution to the discussion.
