Dependence on foreign oil is a national security issue. Perhaps not coincidentally, most of the foreign oil we purchase is from States that are openly hostile to our interests, or who we probably should not be aligned with, such as the Saudis who have supplied many of the terrorists, extremists, and funding for terror against the United States and the West, not to mention their insistence on the spread of Wahabism through Suadi funded Islamic schools and mosques across the globe.
Other oil producers, like the UAE, are less radical in practice, but still represent a culture that America should hardly embrace or support–after all, we are supposed to represent freedom, personal security, and individual liberty. We are supposed to embody justice and economic prosperity for the masses, not just the elite oil cartels and dictators who populate the Middle-East leadership.
Then, too, there is Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, the Western Hemisphere’s answer to its relative lack of dictators and despots. Mr. Chavez is quite friendly with the rogue leadership of Iran, and further shows the fallacy behind so-called socialist States. Chavez should be decrying the inequity present in most Middle-Eastern States. After all, he is a populist and a champion of the little guy, right?
Nevertheless, as bad as Chavez may be, at least we aren’t supporting suicide bombers and the total repression of women when we buy his oil. We’re supporting his inflated ego, and we’re not really doing the world a service by inflating him further, but we’re not funding radical imams who incite violence against Western States and Israel….at least, I hope we’re not. Where Venezuelan oil profits go is a good question. Surely Chavez is aligned with some very unfriendly people. Should some of that money find its way into the hands of organizations whose intent is the destruction of Israel or the United States, no one would really be surprised.
The Price of Oil
Oil money is blood money, no doubt about it. I understand that right now, we have very little choice in the matter. Our economy depends on oil, sadly, and alternative energy sources are still in their infancy. This is one reason that I’m fully behind the reinstitution of Nuclear Power in the United States. New reactors should be built, and this should be done sooner than later. The more we can get away from oil and coal (which has its own long list of problems) the better.
The cost of oil is also paid by the people of the Middle-East, whose leaders maintain their tight grip in part due to their vast oil wealth. Using religion as their front, the leaders of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria to name a few, manage strict, brutal control over their populations. Islam has been radicalized over the past 100 years, in part due to the natural reaction to Colonialism, but largely due to the rapid increase in wealth in the region, and the imbalanced way that wealth has been distributed. Lack of freedom, the radicalization of Islam, and an inherent yet reasonable mistrust of the West, all contribute to what has become the Iron Veil.
Religious Violence
Most of the religions of the world have embraced violence at one time or another. And most adherents to their religion have remained blessedly peaceful even during the darkest of times. Nevertheless, in Medieval Europe Christians allowed other Christians to kill millions of women in so-called witch hunts. The Spanish Inquisition was one of the bloodiest campaigns the world has ever seen.
In Spain peaceful Muslims and Jews were driven from their homes and exiled–or were put to the sword. This in the name of Catholicism. Christians remained silent as their leaders shored up power in the name of religion, using extreme ideologies to pacify their people and tighten their control. Vast wealth discrepancies existed between the peasantry and the elite, and these increased as Empires grew–the Spanish, the Austrian, each torch-bearers of the Holy Roman Empire.
Vast wealth and religious extremism cast Europe under a familiar cloud, one that can be seen above the region once known as Mesopotamia today. Gone are the days of Islamic glory–the Ottoman Empire is fallen; the Caliphates of old are no more. The height of Islamic splendor evidenced in Cordoba is a thing of the far distant past.
Perhaps colonialism left the region vulnerable for what is happening today. Perhaps globalism has followed too close on the heels of its predecessor, and now it is too simple to equate the two, and spread an anti-Western ideology that festers into hate and extremism. Then, too, there is a yearning for days gone by–for a mythical Islamic State that once existed in the form of the Caliphates of old. Islamism today is attempting to spread this Caliphate and with it Sharia or Islamic Law to all the countries where Muslim immigrants and converts have spread. The simplicity and idealism of Islamic Law ignores all the terrifying realities inherent in its practice–but a secular world, a global world, is a frightening thing. Fear of meaninglessness and a distrust of capitalism lead to the adoption of religious extremism. Sometimes this manifests peacefully–Buddhist monks who detach from society; the Amish who abandon technology–and sometimes it is a violent manifestation.
I have no doubt that most people just want to live–most Muslims just want to work, eat, love and build a life for themselves like anyone else. Family, security, stability, and though they may not understand it in some parts of the world, freedom. Freedom to achieve these things without the intervening hand of theocracy or despotism or ancient, brutal legal systems.
The Way Forward: Addressing the Issues at Hand
So from all of this–oil, poverty, economic imbalance, historical distrust of Western society, the equating of Colonialism with Globalism, social despondency–the extremists are able to grow new extremists, suicide bombers, the faithful but impoverished, the martyrs.
So can we combat this rise of extremism? Surely it cannot benefit either the West or the Islamic world. As I stated previously, I believe most Muslims just want to live and let live. The extremists poison the well. Yet, if this extremism is an effect of so many different causes, how can we ever hope to contain it, to quash it, to drive it back into the pages of history?
I think we can fight the spread of Islamism and accept the religion of Islam all at the same time.
First, we must find ways to break our ties with despotic regimes whose only connection to us is through the oil pipelines. Undoubtedly, our support of Saudi Arabia is hypocritical when we are so blatantly against the State of Iran. Both governments should be on our list of antagonist entities. Leveling the economic discrepancies in the Middle-East is vital to creating stability in the region. Dictatorships gorged and fat on their oil riches will never voluntarily move toward economic freedom, as it will invariably cut into their pocket books in one form or another.
Second, we must wage a war of ideas. Somehow we must debunk the notion that colonialism and globalism are one and the same. For one thing, globalism is here to stay. It is the way the world has evolved, and no matter what the isolationists here and abroad wish, there is no way to turn back the clock. We are stuck with a global economy for all the growing pains it may create. Friction is inevitable, but there is no reason it should spark such vehement resistance in the middle-east. The use of Islam as a fomenter of radicalism is one tool the anti-globalists in the Arab world have in their arsenal against the West.
Thirdly, we must maintain a strong military and do whatever it takes to provide stability for us and our allies, especially Israel who endures the most constant battering of terrorism. Any success the terrorists have against the West will serve only to further their cause and popular acceptance. I am an advocate of practical neoconservatism. I believe in the spread of security first, and democracy later. Security is far more important to those nations rising out of the clutches of despotism, than democracy–as is evidenced by the current state of affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan. No, neither of these wars, nor the larger war on terror can be won through military means alone, but that is no reason to abandon our military and intelligence efforts.
And lastly, we must champion womens’ rights across the globe. The lack of womens’ rights in many regions of the world has lead to the widespread poverty, increased childbirth rates, and yes, an expansion of radicalism. Promoting womens’ rights and education can combat these epidemics in a truly positive way.
The Muslim World
Democracy is important, but it is not the first priority in this war. Security, energy independence, and the continuation of the war of ideas and the war of truth against propaganda, the fight against inequality and social injustice, these are the most important factors in the war on terror.
Until these issues are addressed, the strife will continue. Islamists will continue to radicalize their religion, and dictators will continue to sap their populations and convince them at the same time that their woes are the effect of the West, of colonialism, of Israel.
The Islamic world has as much to gain in the defeat of their tyrants and extremists as the Western world, and the last step in fighting this long war must be taken by the Muslims themselves in decrying and ousting the radicalism from their own populations. It will be nigh impossible for the West to do this alone. A concerted effort by the Islamic world to end terror and accept modernity is necessary. I believe this can be done without sacrificing the culture or faith of Islamic society.
All these things must be accomplished, and we cannot give up on any front if peace is ever to be achieved.
Recently at like the most de boring debate ever - (held in the same burg where Old Glory Herself hid in exile during the horrible Confederacy times) some interesting stats were thrown down gauntlet style by “that one“.