Just what exactly is this "US oil empire". People hammering on about it should read a 395 page book first published in 1976, entitled "The Seven Sisters" if you want some idea how the oil industry works.

Another point that people should be aware of is that oil companies do not own oil fields, they hold licences from governments to run oil fields. Those licences can be revoked and have been in the past.

Behind the oil companies, you have the major service companies that supply technology for the extraction of oil. As this historically has been an "American Industry" most patents connected with the oil industry are American. The biggest and most powerful of these service companies is Halliburton (Mr Cheney was their boss for a while), then you have companies like Schlumberger.

America buys oil and it buys oil from a world market same as everybody else. The largest oil producer in the world is Russia, at present their entire national economy depends on keeping the price of oil above 21 dollars and 50 cents a barrel. While there is TALK of war the price stays up, if there is war the price falls - that's what happened the last time.