Boycott of Shell oil won't hurt terrorists

Dear Editor,

Frank Gaffney Jr. falls into the same old fundamentally flawed mental fog in suggesting that “American investors and consumers” will significantly reduce funding for our “Islamofascist” Iranian “enemies” and make us safer. (With us, or Else. 2-6-07)

First, even if all US citizens boycotted Shell gasoline not all other “Americans” living in sovereign states to the north and south of us can economically afford to be picky about the source of their oil. Particularly to the south of us, poverty is a far greater threat than terrorism. And Gaffney appears to ignore the reality that China, India and other increasingly oil dependent nations friendly or unfriendly to the US would be increasingly likely to invest in Iranian oil and gas as global demand for oil inevitably soars.

The wisest investment US tax payers could make would be a ‘Manhattan project’ like effort to create multiple and affordable, clean and renewable energy sources that would make us, our allies and even our enemies free from the petroleum fascist addiction we now have. Until then, every gallon of gasoline anyone buys from anywhere helps fund our enemies and fuel their capacity to do us great harm.

Second, it doesn’t take much money to do us harm and oil isn’t the only source of funding. Blood diamonds in Africa, loose nukes in Russia, illegal narcotics in Afghanistan, cigarette tax differences here in our own country or gambling on the internet, can easily provide the level of financing needed to fund another 9-11 attack using biological, chemical or even conventional weapons. Even a limited attack on oil infrastructure not in our nation could cause a world wide shortage of oil that could bring all the Americas and Americans to our knees.

It’s not a matter, as Bush proclaimed, that “You’re either with us or against us”. It’s a matter of ‘you’re either dependent on oil or independent of it’ and ‘you either have enough friends in the world to help prevent terrorism, or you continue to make enemies.

Expecting oil dependent entities to go out of their way to buy oil isn’t going to make us more friends.