MIDDLE EAST OIL AND TERRORISM

While we are struggling with the reasons for the horrific attacks against the United States and Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, we should not overlook what might well be the root cause of it all. Middle East oil.

If it were not for the seemingly inextricable conflicts between extreme environmentalists and the oil industry, the United States would have learned from the 1970's Arab Oil Embargo and reduced our dependence on Middle Eastern oil instead of increasing it from 35 percent to nearly 60 percent today.

Clearly, there is simply no excuse for enabling and causing Arab nations to wage decades of terrorism against the United States from the hostage crisis in Iran to these dastardly acts of war against America resulting in the tragic loss of so many innocent lives. Indeed, it has been a one-sided holy war largely financed by the gas we buy and pump into our tanks every day.

The immediate question is, should we continue counter attacks when it only escalates terrorism and counter attacks? Or, should we become energy independent, stop buying their oil and isolate them as rogue nations? If history has taught us anything, it is the fact that nothing short of annihilation can stop fanatic religious beliefs, particularly when those beliefs are spearheaded by suicide missions of mass murder and destruction.

Surely, America cannot and should not be expected to resolve unrelenting religious conflicts and terrorism around the world in places like the Middle East, Ireland, the Balkans and Africa. But we can certainly reduce sticking our nose where it doesn't belong and put an end to the partisan political fingerpointing going on right here at home.

If we are to be secure and free, and if the United States is to survive as the leader of democracy in the world, we must be able to decide our own future with truth and common sense instead of being subjected to daily doses of meaningless political palaver, bad decisions and the shallow, chattering class.

Acts of war against America result in mass paranoia, security measures that reduce our civil liberties and that's exactly what terrorists want. One thing, however, is certain. As a result of these brutal acts, we will know which nations support us in what we do to defend ourselves and which do not. And that we should not forgive or forget.

Daniel B. Jeffs, founder
The Direct Democracy Center