John McCain has taken the lead in developing a national security policy embracing energy security. Recognizing the stranglehold that foreign oil producers have over the U.S. and the rest of the world McCain has called for lifting moratoria on drilling in U.S. territories except for the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and for building 45 nuclear power plants before 2030 and accelerating work on clean coal technology.
As oil and gasoline prices have skyrocketed, Republican efforts to end prohibitions on drilling have been blocked by the Democratic majority in Congress led by Democratic presidential candidate Senaor Barack Obama. Drilling will not bring any relief to American consumers, Obama maintains. Where have we heard that before? For those who say, well, we have a crisis now, but oil from new developments will take years. Michael Ramirez, the Investor's Business Daily Pulizer Prize winning cartoonist has the perfect answer:
That the U.S. is dependent on oil from Russia, Venezuela, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries is our own fault. For 30 years Congress -- Democrats aided by a few Republicans -- has imposed a prohibition on drilling in new fields off both coasts, the western coast of Florida and in a postage-stamp area of the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Hundreds of billions of barrels of oil are known to lie within these territories.
In addition, more than hundreds of billions of oil are now believed to be recoverable from shale deposits on federal lands in the Rocky Mountains. It was only recently that the ingenuity of a western oil company employee "cracked the code" that made it possible to extract oil from this new source economically. What lies in those lands is said to surpass what Saudi Arabia, the world's oil king, has as reserves. Shockingly, a Democratic senator from Colorado pushed through a bill imposing a moratorium on shale development, even though the 2007 energy bill gave final say to each governor on his state's regulatory environmental regulations. The moratorium was unnecessary, but the moratorium became law nonetheless. Disregarding the burden high gasoline prices are putting on American drivers, a proposal to end the shale moratorium and to move forward was put before the appropriate Democratic-controlled committee, which voted 15 to 14 kept the moratorium in place.
It isn't just high prices that will hurt our economy. As many have pointed out, the U.S. is funding both sides of the war of Islamic imperialism. Money is a weapon that is being used against us. How much of what is paid over goes to fund Islamic imperialism is unknown, just as it is not known how many of the 1.3 billion Muslims have been persuaded to support the goal of making islam supreme in the world. (A learned Indonesian imam has estimated that as many as 200 million may already be radicalized, that is, they support the imperialist aims of Islam.)
For decades Saudi Arabia has been using its oil money to fund and staff mosques and schools worldwide which preach Islamic supremacism and subjugation of all non-Muslims. For years Iran has been funding Hezbollah to attack the U.S. and Israel and to take over Lebanon. It is funding Hamas in Gaza as well. This year alone Iran has scooped up $100 billion from oil sales.
John McCain is correct that Islamic imperialism is the "transcendent challenge" of our times. For the better part of 1400 years Islamic true believers have fought to make the world subject to Islam. At its height the Islamic empire stretched from Spain to Indonesia. The last major military assault on Europe was turned back in 1683 at Vienna. But the injunction to all Muslims in the Koran and the words of Mohammad is to work tirelessly for the subjugation of the world to Islam is as alive today as it was in the year 700.
The war or jihad is not only being fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, Nigeria and Somalia, it's underway in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. In some places it's open warfare, in others it's terrorism, in others where the numbers as yet aren't strong enough, it's quiet infiltration and subversive activities designed to weaken the culture and the government. Islamist subversion to make Europe Islamic is more advanced than in the United States, but it is well underway. And right now the jihadists are in the best position they have been in centuries. Why? Oil money.
Money is rolling into the Middle East for oil in unprecedented amounts. This year alone trillions of dollars will be paid for oil. The U.S. alone will give Saudi Arabia $450 billion, a number roughly equal to the entire national defense budget of the United States. Some of that will wind up funding war, terror and subversive activities against the U.S., Europe, Israel and other countries.
Oil company executives have pleaded with Congress to lift the 30-year prohibition on exploration and drilling, but only heard Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, blaming them for "imposing" costs on the motoring public and their familes. For once the oil executives stood firm and said, no, you're to blame. Rather than have the president of the United States go begging to Saudi Arabia to increase production by 500,000 barrels of oil per day, the U.S. should be developing its own resources to reduce dependency on Russia, Iran, Venezuela and others who wish to do us harm.
Nuclear power, wind and solar are all commendable ways to produce energy without oil. But now and for the foreseeable future, transportation depends on liquid fuels. That's principally oil though biofuels can help a great deal.. The U.S. has plenty of oil it can tap. It is the only nation in the world that is prohibiting itself from developing and using it.
There are other steps which can be taken to turn the tables. Conservation and increased energy efficieny are important. Another step that could provide relief in the short term is to require all new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be "flex-fuel," that is, capable of burning gasoline and biofuels, such as with 85% of either ethanol or methanol. Brazil went flex fuel years ago and as a consequence newer cars are fully flex fuel and service stations all over the country carry gasoline and the alcohol alternatives. No surprise, then, that Brazil is totally independent of foreign oil.
For a sane national security policy to win over the "transcendent challenge" of our times, energy must be a component. Brazil probes for oil 100 miles off the coast, not within sight of the elites; the U.S. can and should do the same, as Senator McCain proposes.
