The
True Cost Of War For Oil
By Bonnie Bricker
& Aadil E. Shamoo
31 October, 2007
Foreign Policy In Focus
"We
have to decide, as a nation, whether our need for Middle Eastern oil
is more important to our future than our conduct as a moral and ethical
people." Which brave presidential candidate would lay it on the
line so clearly? None yet. And that's the problem with the national
debate on the war in Iraq, and possibly, our foray into Iran as well.
Alan Greenspan, former chair
of the Federal Reserve, has declared that "...the Iraq war is largely
about oil" in his recently released memoirs. "People say we're
not fighting for oil. Of course we are," said the Republican Senator
from Nebraska Chuck Hagel to law students of Catholic University last
September. "They talk about America's national interest. What the
hell do you think they're talking about? We're not there for figs."
Yet, although anti-war activists
decried the "blood for oil" connection from the beginning
of the war, no honest conversations have occurred in the public to involve
Americans in this discussion.
This is the debate that Americans
should be having: on the one hand, America's economy is fueled by our
use of energy to run our lives--fueling our cars and SUVs, our industry,
our homes. The United States uses 25% of the world's oil and but we're
only 4% of the world's population.
We like to be cool in the
summer and warm in the winter, and we love the freedom of choosing to
use as much energy as we want. We also don't like anyone telling us
that we have to change our ways. If we keep using energy the way we
always have, we're going to need a dependable source of it to ensure
that our children and grandchildren have access to the same way of life.
But we have competitors for oil in the world marketplace--China, especially--and
many argue that if we don't lock up Middle Eastern oil for ourselves
now, we won't have it for our use in the very near future. That will
mean paying even more for energy and allowing other nations to rev up
their economic engines at our expense.
On the other hand, the cost
of ensuring this oil supply is a hefty one. Americans are losing lives.
A generation of veterans will be suffering through the vast wounds of
this war. Our actions in Iraq have led to as many as a million Iraqi
deaths and many more wounded, and displaced 4.4 million Iraqis. We have,
in the name of "The War on Terror", created so many U.S. enemies
around the world, that our college-age students sew Canadian flags on
their backpacks when abroad in the hopes of disguising their American
identities.
As a result of this war,
many Americans have come to accept that U.S. policy will include the
moral and ethical disruptions of war--even when we have not been attacked
by the people we invade, but rather are invading a weakened nation for
the resource we desire.
Americans deserve this discussion
so we can decide who we are and how we wish to solve this problem. Is
it feasible or naïve to think we can use alternative energy sources
instead of oil to address our needs?
Is it possible to change
our habits and our lives to accommodate lower energy needs--or will
too many Americans reject any change in habit?
And finally, are we really
the noble Americans we like to think that we are, if we allow death
and destruction of this magnitude to occur in our name?
We're still waiting to hear
the honest debate from our presidential candidates, from our media,
and even with our friends and neighbors.
Bonnie Bricker is a teacher
and contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, where this essay originally
appeared.
Adil E. Shamoo, born and
raised in Baghdad, is a professor at the University of Maryland School
of Medicine. He writes on ethics and public policy. He is an analyst
for Foreign Policy In Focus. Both authors can be reached at: [email protected]
.
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