Vets: Oil imports add to peril

By Matthew Hansen
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Some veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are now fighting to get Americans to view climate change and oil consumption as serious national security threats.

The group, Operation Free, stopped in Omaha on Thursday on a whirlwind bus tour of speeches, press conferences and interviews in 21 states.

They argued that part of every dollar Americans spend on gasoline goes to fund terrorists who are killing American soldiers in the Middle East.

They urged the public to connect the climate-change debate — one that sparks considerable controversy in the United States — to national security dangers posed by tsunamis, floods and droughts.

If the country reduces its dependence on foreign oil and works to reverse global warming, they said, then fewer Americans will fight and die in faraway lands.

“A lot of people don’t associate clean energy with national security,” said Matt Victoriano, a Marine Corps veteran who was deployed twice to Iraq. “We have to show the direct connection. It’s so important.”

The veterans pointed to Indonesia as an example of how natural disasters can pose a national security threat.

A massive earthquake and tsunami — some experts blame the tsunami’s severity on climate change — killed thousands in Indonesia and nearby South Pacific islands earlier this month. The disasters, which left at least 500,000 people homeless, came only five years after a far more devastating tsunami killed approximately 200,000 people.

Indonesia is damaged to its core by those disasters and has become a breeding ground for jihadist terrorists, the veterans said.

“When you have massive population movements, conflicts arise,” said Chuck Tyler, an Army veteran who served in both Iraq wars. “And when conflicts arise, the United States is the country that gets tasked with the mission.”

While the veterans agree that the debate over global warming is controversial, they said the fact that oil money funds terrorism is not.

The United States spends approximately $1 billion a day buying crude oil from other countries, some of them Middle Eastern countries with either direct or indirect links to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, they said.

“That money may well end in up roadside bombs,” Victoriano said.

The veterans say they support all efforts to develop alternative sources of energy.

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