The Ultimate Counterterrorism Weapon

By Douglas Farah

In the day-to-day discussions and actions to combat terrorism, particularly radical Islamist terrorism, we generally agree that it will be a long struggle that could last generations. I agree.

But it is useful to step back and realize there is a powerful weapon that we CAN use to great effect. Both presidential candidates agreed on it, and it is long overdue: that is to decrease our consumption of oil so that our money does not flow to those who want to destroy us.

The effects have already been dramatic, as this IHT article describes. Two regimes that pose direct threats to U.S, Latin American and Middle Eastern stability – Iran and Venezuela – are teetering on the edge of severe financial meltdowns because oil prices have dropped.

A third country that is increasingly willing to deal with rogue regimes – Russia – is also hard hit, although not to the degree of Iran and Venezuela. Saudi Arabia’s ability to fund the propagation of Wahhabi extremism and intolerance will also be curtailed if the prices stay down.

Why? Because these regimes conservatively built their budgets, including the expansionary weapons purchases, on oil averaging $80 to $90 a barrel. When it falls below that, particularly to where it has been recently, they are forced to choose between their expansionist and militarist dreams, and feeding their own people.

Both Obama and McCain focused on the fact that we spend billions of dollars buying oil from regimes that hate us and have a radically different view of what the world should look like than most of its neighbors. Both viewed the issue of energy independence as a matter of national security. While differing on the margins over where to drill and the priority given nuclear energy, the campaigns, representing candidates supported by about 96% of the voting population, were in agreement.

The choices are stark. Iran wants a Shiite theocracy, which puts it at odds not only with the West, but with the Sunni regimes. It cannot finance its nuclear program, its massive expansion into Latin America or terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Quds Force, without oil money. It has nothing else.

Venezuela wants a 21st century view of socialism and one party rule. Without oil money, Chávez cannot join Iran in pushing and financing the broad anti-democratic agenda he has established.

Bankrupting the enemy by cutting diminishing it export revenues is not a long-term proposition. It is happening now, with no formal policy in place to do this. And, unless policies are rapidly enacted to keep consumption low, the prices will inevitably rise again.

If the Obama administration can move quickly on this front, he will take a dramatic anti-terrorism action with no military or diplomatic actions needed.

There is a down side, at least in Venezuela. As oil revenues shrink, the Chávez government can replenish its coffers from the drug trade. It can survive, but it won’t because we are legally importing his products.

Source: Family Security Matters

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Defeating Terror With a Sound Energy Policy

By Mehul Kamdar

It has yet to be determined whether it is political correctness run amok or whether it is sheer laziness that has left the world and its free nations in particular, reluctant to admit that the main source of funding for international terror these days comes from the vast energy reserves held by the nations of the Middle East. With the bulk of the world's oil under the control of the Arab nations and Iran, the West in particular and with India and China following, is stuck in a bind, unwilling to break free from the stranglehold that the worst sponsors of international terror have over them in their control over the world's crude oil. It is true that a change from the oil based transportation and power generation structure of these countries would require fundamental change in several directions if it is to succeed - it would not be inexpensive and neither would it be easy. But, if this is successfully pulled off, it would mean cutting off the oxygen of support to nations that the West in particular is unable to do anything about even while these nations openly permit organizations operating from their territory to carry out terror attacks on their main client states.

It is often farcical to see the USA in particular chafe and fume about Iran, a nation that it has done much to try to isolate (without much success, it must be stressed) while American presidents and the current, outgoing incumbent in particular, go with begging bowls to the ruling monarch of the nation that was home to most of the attackers responsible for the worst terrorist atrocity on its soil on 9/11 whenever oil prices are artificially raised or lowered by the Saudis in conjunction with their other Gulf, African and Venezuelan allies when they feel like gouging the rest of the world in order to build a palace or two or finance one or another mosque in other parts of the world to recruit and train more suicide attackers. Let there be no soft talk here - after the 9/11 attacks, when the USA captured Afghanistan driving the Taliban into ungoverned parts of Pakistan celebratory videos were found of Osama bin Laden waxing eloquent on the attack on the twin towers. A lame Saudi cleric Sheikh Atiyatullah who is clearly seen on the tape was taken back into Saudi Arabia afterwards and "forgiven" for his role in the attacks. The Saudis have never allowed him to be questioned or interrogated by the USA leaving Washington looking as helpless as a beheaded chicken in the bargain while the Saudi monarchy underlined its association with those who were responsible through its protection of Atiyatullah.

In order to deny the biggest sponsors of Islamist terror their chief source of funds with which they finance their jihad against the rest of the world, therefore, there is no option that the West and its partners in India and China have other than to eliminate the use of Middle Eastern oil and starve the Middle East of its main source of income. While some technologies to reduce oil consumption like nuclear technology and wind and solar energy exist and are being worked on, the fact is that none of this work is funded to any major extent in a race to rid the world of the use of oil as a fuel. Some technologies like Solar Thermal Energy are currently available at an advanced stage and ready to be deployed in nations with exposure to sunlight, including to power starved states of the USA like California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Florida. The use of insulated concrete form construction methods and the more advanced Thermasave (trademark of www.thermasave.us) methods would effortlessly help reduce the use of energy to a considerable extent depending on the extent to which they are deployed in new construction around the world. These methods could be further enhanced by integrating solar photovoltaic collectors and solar powered water heaters into all new constructions, reducing the need for oil to heat homes even in the colder parts of Europe and the USA and Canada and China.

There remains work to be done in the development of battery technology for transportation, but this could be achieved if the West put its mind to it. Greater technical achievements have been made in the past under even more dire circumstances - the development of Radio as a the tool that won World War -1 and of Radar that won World War -2 are developments that come immediately to mind. And the parallel is entirely apt as the world faces as great a danger from Middle Eastern terror as it did under Imperial Germany and under the Nazis. The danger that the world faces from Middle eastern terror is vastly greater than it did from the Nazis because it was not dependent on the Nazis to supply it with a vital component for its daily existence and could, therefore, fight the Nazis on a one to one basis. Defeating the current threat to the West's existence would require weaning itself off its addiction to Middle Eastern oil and starving the Gulf nations of their main source of income.

And the Middle east has not, exactly, remained unaware of this possibility. In recent months, as increasing awareness around the world pushes its nations to look for alternatives to oil, new bands of "experts" have come up offering to turn the Saudi deserts into a source of solar power to be sent into Europe via a new grid that would connect that nation across borders into European nations' power grids. Giving up national sovereignty as far as oil is concerned to surrender it immediately in order to buy electricity from the very nations that have used their income from oil to finance terror would be a terrible mistake, the equivalent of putting the Medellin and Cali cartels to oversee the Drug Enforcement Administration and Interpol simultaneously. Southern Europe, like the Southern United States have enough land to generate a substantial amount of power and manage their energy needs by using more nuclear and wind and wave power in addition to solar power. The sooner this happens, the better it would be for the world outside the borders of the murderous regimes that are clustered in the Middle East.

Source: Islam Watch

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