The only way the West can defeat the Islamists (bloodlessly!)

Submitted by Michael Green (United States), Dec 27, 2006 at 06:35

Islamism has an Achilles heel: The development of alternative energies that can replace hydrocarbon-based fuels. If Jihadism is a "fire", then petrodollars are the "oxygen" that feeds this fire! No root cause comes close to "the petrodollar factor" in driving and funding Islamism worldwide. Petrodollars pay for the network of Wahhabi mosques and preachers in Europe, the US, and around the world; finance Jihadist brainwash factories in the form of madrasas in Pakistan and elsewhere; and provide the vital funds that feed the manpower and weapons necessary for the insurgency in Iraq, as well as Islamist terorism worldwide.

Without the funds provided by Vahhabi or Iranian petrodollars, the Jihadist movement would crumble at no time! It is unfortunate that the current US administration, while waging an extensive military, political, and intelligence effort in combatting Islamist militancy around the world, spends such little effort and resources in eliminating or reducing its fundamental root cause, namely oil income!

In this vein Tom Friedman's recent column in the New York Times of Dec. 15, 2006, should serve as a true eye opener. I'm generally not a great admirer of Tom Friedman and his liberal cliches, but this time my hat is off to him for hitting the nail right on its head. In his column, Friedman is advocating urgent US government action and legislation in freeing the country's automobiles from hydrocarbon-fuel bondage. His solution is amazingly simple and straightforward:

QUOTE ----------- - Let's forge a national electricity transmission grid to take wind electricity from where it is best produced to the big cities where it is most needed. - Let's create a long-term tax subsidy for building and buying plug-in hybrid cars. - Wind energy is produced abundantly at night, when demand is lowest. Electric hybrids would be charged at night. - That would mean hybrid electric cars, which emit virtually no carbon, could be powered by wind, which produces no carbon. Source: WHICHEVER THE WIND BLOWS, By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN New York Times, December 15, 2006 http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F40F1FFC39550C768DDDAB0994DE404482 -------------

Similar solutions were articulated by Dr Gal Luft in a Middle East Forum Wire some two years ago: ENDING AMERICA'S DEPENDENCE ON MIDDLE EAST OIL A briefing by Gal Luft, MEF Wire, October 27, 2004 http://www.meforum.org/article/653 The author is executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) and co-chair of the Set America Free Coalition, an alliance of national security, environmental, labor and religious groups promoting ways to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Washington-based IAGS http://www.iags.org is also publisher of Energy Security Journal, a bimonthly publication that focuses on advancing the cause of US energy independence. http://www.iags.org/es.html ----------------

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