War for Oil
The Left is Wrong: Oil is a Legitimate Reason to Go To War
By Daniel G. Jennings
When the self-proclaimed "peace activists" chant "No War For Oil" in the streets they are both right and wrong. They are right in assuming that oil is perhaps the primary reason for America's invasion and occupation of Iraq and wrong in saying that is immoral to go to war for control of the world's oil supply.
Is it wrong for a nation and people to fight to protect and control the major supply of a natural resource that is essential for the survival of their civilization? Yes folks, oil is that important to America and Americans.
If you don't believe me, go into your kitchen and take a look at the food there and think for a moment. Where did that food come from? It came from farms, farms where it was planted, tended and harvested by machines that run on oil. Once the food was harvested it was taken to factories to be processed by trucks and trains that run on you guessed it oil. Once it was processed it was taken to warehouses and distribution centers by more trucks and trains, then taken to the store or stores where you bought it by more trucks. Without oil that food wouldn't be in your home and your family wouldn't be eating, or you'd be out in the back yard hoeing turnips for dinner.
Beyond our food supply we need oil to run the vehicles that get us around, the cars and trucks that take us to work and school and shopping and vacation. Oil to make the plastics that virtually everything in our homes seems to be made of these days. Oil to run the planes we fly around in and oil to run the trains and trucks that move freight around our country and the ships that move freight around the world.
Even if you don't drive or even a car you still need oil. You still need food to eat and plastic tools and utensils. If you don't drive a car you probably ride a bicycle with rubber tires made from oil or take a bus that runs on oil.
Even our national defense is dependant upon oil. Our country is protected by a military that runs on oil planes and helicopters can't fly without oil, ships can't sail without it and tanks can't roll without it. Without oil the only defense we'd have would be nuclear missiles and the only military option open to our leaders would be incinerating our enemies' cities.
And we don't have enough oil to meet our needs here in America. Forget what Pat Buchanan and company tell us. There's only one place in the world we can get the oil we need to run our country on: the Middle East.
Yes, we could and undoubtedly should, wean ourselves off of oil dependance but that's going to take decades perhaps generations. We'll have to build electric powered rail lines in our cities, electrify our rail system and find some way to get Americans to ride light rail instead of driving SUVs. We should also build electric powered high speed trains.
And even if we did all that we'd still need oil. Oil to run the machines on our farms, oil for the endless stream of delivery trucks that keep our cities going, and oil for planes to fly to Europe and for buses in the places trolley cars aren't practical. Not to mention oil to keep our military machine going.
Technology probably isn't going to get us out of this mess either. Forget all the hype about electric powered cars and hydrogen power. Such things are not practical given today's level of technology and barring breakthroughs won't be available anytime soon. Even if we made those breakthroughs it'd take years to adopt them on a scale large enough to make a difference.
Virtually every other nation on Earth is just as dependant on oil as the United States is. When America fights to control the oil we're not just protecting our energy supply we're protecting everybody else's. We're making sure that other nations won't be in a position to get blackmailed by the likes of Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. We're also making sure that the tyrants and terrorists won't have huge piles of oil money with which to buy weapons to attack us with. Saddam was able to stockpile huge amounts of armaments and experiment with weapons of mass destruction because of his oil money. Bin Laden has financed his terrorist outrages with oil money from Saudi Arabia.
Since oil is that vital, securing our supply of it makes a lot of sense. Keeping our oil supply out of the hands of a vicious tyrant like Saddam Hussein or fanatics like Bin Laden is vital for our future. Beyond Saddam and the Islamic fanatics there's China which might make a play for control of the oil if we don't garrison the Middle East to keep them out. Do we really want an organization as corrupt and ruthless as the Chinese Communist Party in control of our energy supply? I don't think so.
Fighting for oil is not a greedy and immoral power grab. It is a moral action, because fighting to protect one's civilization and way of life is not immoral. There is nothing unethical about fighting for your way of life, your country and the things it stands for. When America fights for oil, it does just that.
When the "peace activists" chant "No War For Oil"they are telling us it is wrong to fight to protect our country and other nations. The "peace activists" are wrong, going to war for oil is the right thing to do.