Friday January 28, 2005

Neocons turning green

peakoil.com -> slate.msn.com :

Suddenly, neoconservatives - for instance, the guys behind the invasion of Iraq at the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) - are turning Green. The reason, amazingly enough, is that dependence on petroleum puts money in the hands of middle eastern theocrats bearing grudges against the West. Robert Bryce reports in Slate :

... a curious transformation is occurring in Washington, D.C., a split of foreign policy and energy policy: Many of the leading neoconservatives who pushed hard for the Iraq war are going green. James Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and staunch backer of the Iraq war, now drives a 58-miles-per-gallon Toyota Prius and has two more hybrid vehicles on order. Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy and another neocon who championed the war, has been speaking regularly in Washington about fuel efficiency and plant-based bio-fuels.

The alliance of hawks and environmentalists is new but not entirely surprising. The environmentalists are worried about global warming and air pollution. But Woolsey and Gaffney - both members of the Project for the New American Century, which began advocating military action against Saddam Hussein back in 1998 - are going green for geopolitical reasons, not environmental ones. They seek to reduce the flow of American dollars to oil-rich Islamic theocracies, Saudi Arabia in particular. Petrodollars have made Saudi Arabia too rich a source of terrorist funding and Islamic radicals ...

... for Woolsey and Gaffney, the fact that energy efficiency and conservation might help the environment is an unintended side benefit. They want to weaken the Saudis, the Iranians, and the Syrians while also strengthening the Israelis. Whether these ends are achieved with M-16s or hybrid automobiles doesn't seem to matter to them.

... if they can convince Congress and the White House to enact meaningful legislation on energy efficiency and conservation—issues that have been marginalized since the Carter administration—then perhaps the neocons will finally have a success story that they can brag about. Better still, it won't require the services of the 82nd Airborne Division.

(2005-01-28 07:25:51 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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