Most glaring logical lapse is the basic notion that anyone driving an SUV is wasting fuel and thereby funneling money to Middle Eastern terrorists. This conveniently ignores several facts.
First, only 12 percent of our total consumption—one gallon of eight—comes from the Middle East. Moreover, only 45 percent of our crude oil is used to make gasoline. Even at the lofty price of $34 for each 42 gallon of gas ends up in the Middle East.
Second, those four cents per gallon does not go to Bin Laden, Inc. the largest share of it ends up in Saudi Arabia, a country that’s no democracy but has a government that’s at least on friendly terms with us. The second-largest portion of our Middle Eastern oil comes from Iraq, where oil sales, supervised by the United Nations, pay for the food that Saddam Hussein would not otherwise provide for his country’s citizens.
Third, why is Huffington singling out SUVs? They come in all shapes and sizes, and their fuel consumption ranges from very high to miserly, as is the case with other classes of vehicles. This demonization of SUVs also ignores the sea change taking place as sport-utes shift from the original truck-based designs to the car-based “crossover” variety. This newer designs provide improved ride and handling, as well as better fuel efficiency. It’s lunacy to hector the driver of a Honda CR-V—it consumes less fuel around town than a ford Taurus—for owning an immoral gas guzzler. Even the name Detroit Project is off the mark. Sure, Detroit was the first to mass-market SUVs and still builds the majority of them, but the imports are coming on strong across the board. They’re building the bigger SUVs as well.
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