Below is a reply to an email that we recieved from a site visitor regarding the Snopes2.com website:

Dear Keith:

Please realize that Snopes2.com is a website like any other they aren’t necessarily right. Snopes.com is not primarily engaged in dealing with oil related data.  They are NOT oil industry experts.  So with that in mind, lets examine what they post.

Keeping in mind that just because Snopes2.com claims gross statistical errors, it doesn’t mean that their claims are necessarily true.

“86% of all middle eastern oil comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.”

This is a TRUE STATEMENT for oil IMPORTED into the USA in 2001.  They did NOT claim that 86% of imports came from Saudi Arabia and Iraq but only 86% of middle eastern oil. The link (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/pgulf.html) to the DOE website posted on Snopes2.com specifically makes exactly this claim -

"The vast majority of Persian Gulf oil imported by the United States came from Saudi Arabia (63%), with significant amounts also coming from Iraq (25%) and Kuwait (11%), and small amounts from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates." ... Source DOE

Of course one has to actually read the website, which I'm certain that the people from Snopes2.com didn't bother to do.

Snopes2.com, citing the DOE website again, makes the claim:

“…only 56% of the oil exported from the Persian Gulf in 2001 came from Saudi Arabia and Iraq,…” 

Here we have a glaring comparison of apples to oranges by Snopes2.com.  Exports from one place are not necessarily imported to another and the DOE page that Snopes referenced specifically talks of the total exports of the Gulf region, of which Europe and Asia also are recipients. If Snopes2.com had bothered to continue reading they would have seen that the imports from the Gulf Region are as pointed out above.

“Origins:   If it weren't for all the gross statistical errors and the naïve grasp of oil industry economics exhibited here, this piece might actually have some validity. “

I would ask, what is Snopes2.com’s expertise in the area, and who is naïve and who isn’t.  Suffice it to say I can blow all types of holes in Snopes2.com's “so called” analysis of the data.  When an organization can’t even grasp the difference between exports and imports I would immediately be suspect of their “analysis”.  One only has to research the first few paragraphs of the Snopes2.com site to realize that they are derelict in their analysis and that they have absolutely no credibility.

Donald E. Bly
COO
ArabOilBoycott.com

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The following e-mail from Snopes.com was recieved after ArabOilBoycott.com responded to the query of a visitor that cited their article in a feedback post:

a) The message in question does not claim that "86% of middle eastern oil imported into the USA comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq." It states that 86% of *all* middle eastern oil (i.e., all oil exported from the Middle East) comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. As our page correctly demonstrates, this statistic is way off the mark.

b) Since the purpose of the message in question is to urge people to boycott *all* middle eastern oil, regardless of its country of origin, which middle eastern countries are exporting the most oil to the USA is irrelevant anyway.

c) When people try to dispute the work of others by disclaiming someone else's credentials but can't identify specific errors in their work, it's because those people have no valid arguments to offer.

- David

Urban Legends Reference Pages --> http://www.snopes.com

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And the rebuttal to the rebuttal to the rebuttal:

"By the way, 86% of all middle eastern oil comes from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.".... when viewed in the context of the audience, which I will assume the author perceived as American the statement is true.

You've been called on your sloppy research, you and I both know you have some kind of bias or your response would not have been to claim "gross statistical error", but to point out a situation of poorly chosen semantics. Instead you chose to ignore the DOE's numbers (86% of US imports come from Saudi Arabia and Iraq) and launch into some tangential aside, comparing apples to oranges.

Please visit http://www.araboilboycott.com to see what we have to say about Snopes.com

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