Voice of Reason: Oil dependency an illness we must cure
When I go to the doctor I want to treat the cause of my illness, not just its symptoms. Because if the cause is not nipped in the bud, so to speak, I haven’t really been cured and am liable to suffer from the malady again and again and again.
For over a year now we’ve been waging a largely unsuccessful war against (Arab) terror because we have too often focused on the symptoms of terrorism instead of its root causes.
As we have so painfully seen since Sept. 11 mere bombing raids and beefed up security precautions have done little to stem the tide of international terrorism. Oh, terrorist activities may be temporarily disrupted, and their perpetrators put on the run, but it is far from exterminated. Ask yourself, do you feel any safer?
The overlooked key to eliminating terrorism is the opening up of the closed, repressive societies of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the like. Whereas open societies like those in the Western world, and even many Third World countries, has made significant advances in democracy, material wealth, education and scientific thought, the majority of the Arab world has remained far behind.
Under hard-line Islamic mullahs and other autocrats wielding their own brands of control, the conditions under which many ordinary Arabs must live would seem to us, and indeed are, backward and even barbaric.
This is a part of the world where women are second-class citizens and “education” is often nothing more than the preaching of hate against the West, blaming us for all of their problems. Here human rights abuses abound, including torture and the jailing of political dissidents.
Indeed, a recent report (the Arab Human Development Report) commissioned by the U.N. Development Program and written by a group of Arab scholars shows the 22 countries which make up the Arab world rank close to the very bottom of the world (in many instances below sub-Saharan Africa) in such categories as civic and economic freedoms, women’s rights and participation in public life and the acquisition of new knowledge and skills.
Why? What has kept this way of life a reality for the Arab people for so long? Why haven’t the Arab people shaken off the heavy hand of their oppressive leaders? The answer, simply, is oil.
Oil is the lifeblood of the Middle East. Without the money it brings, the mullahs, despots (read Saddam Hussein) and autocratic regimes of that region would be all but powerless. With it they keep power because they control the agents of coercion. Why then, do we continually rely on oil, all but financing the repression of millions of Arabs, who, resenting our prosperity and under the influence of Islamic hard-liners, see terrorism as the only solution?
A huge part of the solution to eliminate international terrorism is weaning ourselves from this black drug and finding alternative fuels. If we no longer rely on it, the oppressive Arab regimes lose their control over us and their own people. A win-win situation.
Environmentalists have made the case for alternative fuels for years (arguing, correctly, that oil is a finite resource and eventually it will run out), though the idea has been written off as impractical by the automotive industry and, predictably, Big Oil.
But it can be done. America has the best scientists in the world, who in years past have developed a nuclear bomb in a few short years and sent a man to the moon, among many other accomplishments. Alternative fuels should be no problem, we just need the proper motivation. We have it, in national security, but will that be enough?
(Will Stewart is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)