Energy independence and the War on Terror
So much news, so little space. Let’s begin with our “addiction to oil,” as President Bush termed it in his recent State of the Union Address. Because our domestic energy needs are growing, along with the burgeoning energy consumption of India and Red China, new sources of energy must be found be they: hydrogen, more oil and gas exploration in the 50 States (to include Alaska and off our coasts), solar, wind, hybrid cars, nuclear, used cooking oil and ethanol which, apparently, can be made, not only from corn, but from wood chips and even some kinds of straw.
In fact, if we were able to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, al-Qaeda and the other Islamo-fascists would be bankrupt. Ironically, it’s the dollars we spend on OPEC oil (that would include the Castro satellite of Venezuela.) that keeps Al Qaeda and the other Islamic terrorists in high explosives, cell phones and video-production facilities.
Some say President Bush is sounding more like Al Gore or John Kerry than a former oil person. That brings to mind how the late President Ronald Reagan handled those who were satisfied with Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) and agreed with the nuclear freeze movement. President Reagan wasn’t content with just placing limits on the development of additional nuclear weapons and he was not interested in “freezing” the U.S. in the position of nuclear inferiority vis-à-vis the USSR.
Oh no. Reagan wanted a “reduction” in the number of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of both the U.S. and the USSR. Getting the USSR to agree to a mutual reduction in the number of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems may have been President Reagan’s greatest contribution to our safety. When President Reagan would not back down on his demand for nuclear arms “reductions,” he pulled the rug out from under the nuclear-freeze movement, and it died. If you don’t mind living in an abandoned missile silo, many are for sale.
Now, with regard to “reduction” of our dependence on foreign oil, President Bush must, a la Reagan, stick to his convictions and, somehow, get Congress to pass the necessary enabling legislation and/or free up our energy industries from stifling regulations. That’s where the American people come in. If we demand it of our elected representatives, we might get it.
When some pundits say: Oh, no matter what happens it’s all about oil, they are correct. Hitler understood that; however, instead of his half-vast drive for the oil of the Soviet Caucasus, he should and could have driven full-bore into the oil of the Middle East and Iraq. Perhaps, he hated Lenin and Stalin more than he realized the value of controlling most of the world’s oil supply and squandered his Armies in Leningrad and Stalingrad.
All Hitler had to do was drive one blitzkrieg column through Czechoslovakia (which he had already annexed at the minor cost of some stern diplomatic notes from Britain and France) and on east into the Soviet Caucasus while driving another blitzkrieg column southeast through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey (his World War II ally) and on into oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Meanwhile, his Axis ally, Japan, would be capturing the oil wealth of Malaysia and Indonesia. At that point, World War II would have been over, Great Britain and the United States would have had no choice but to sue for peace on whatever terms Hitler’s Third Reich, the Japanese, Italians and the Turks decided to offer.
The world will continue to contest over oil until we Americans get serious about producing all the oil, gas and coal that we need here at home and, at the same time, put some serious dollars into finding those fossil-fuel alternatives that will help the environment. Once we are energy independent, Europe will, once again, find the courage to defend Western Civilization and the already waning Islamo-fascist Reich will wither away.
William Hamilton, a syndicated columnist, a featured commentator for USA Today and self-described “recovering lawyer and philosopher,” is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy – two thrillers about terrorism directed against the United States.
©2006. William Hamilton.
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