Utter BS. OPEC and the Arab League control nearly 70% of total world oil production, the US will never be "energy independent"...
Why else do you think the US continues to seek wars, interfere and generally be a nuisance in middle eastern affairs?
Because they are trying to spread democracy? Why not go spread democracy to china?
Its all about trying to gain leverage and influence on oil supplies that they know they will always be dependent on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
The cost of shipping oil is too high. the US is self sufficient but chooses to sell and trade its own oil. The only claim to fame of the Saudis is that they have the cleanest and purest petroleum. Alaska has proven to have a vast oil supply.
The fear mongoring about the US needing Saudi oil to support terrorism is bullshit. That an incident in Iran can raise oil by 50 cents. The Oil companies are a bunch of fucking thieves.
A decade ago certain Saudis ranked among the top 5 richest men in the world. Over the last decade oil consumption as grew 10 fold and the cost 5 fold, imagine how much fucking richer these assholes are today. They are easily hundred billionaires and soon to be trillionaires.
The fact that new russian oil billionaires are worth 20-40 billion, the saudi sheiks may already be trillionaires.