http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2010/jan/19/veterans-say-americas-dependence-foreign-oil-fuels/

St. Louis Globe-Democrat

Veterans say America’s dependence on foreign oil fuels terrorism

By Steve Birmingham

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Stopping America’s dependence on foreign oil will go a long way toward stopping terrorism and attacks on American service people deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That’s the message of Operation Free, a group of military veterans traveling across the United States preaching the gospel of freedom from fossil fuel dependence and the development of alternative energy sources.

Operation Free, a coalition of veterans and national security organizations, stopped at Washington University Monday for a roundtable discussion on the topic of foreign oil and its relation to terrorism. The stop was their second on a 16-city bus tour.

Tim Smith, of Operation Free, said America spends $450 billion per year for foreign oil and some of that money finds to way to educate and arm terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and the Taliban.

A veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Smith said while in Iraq he helped provide security for convoys carrying oil between different forward operating bases in Iraq and said seeing the sacrifices other soldiers made to protect those convoys motivated him to advocate for energy independence.

”Operation Free is a coalition of veterans that are coming together to invest in ourselves and create jobs for other veterans and other people in areas leaning more towards renewable energy,” Smith said.

The veterans taking part in Operation Free urged everyone to contact their elected officials in Washington, D.C. and tell them to move forward with alternative energy programs and to do everything possible to stop America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Matt Victoriano, a Marine who spent several tours in Iraq, said his experiences there led him “to ask a lot of questions” about why the United States is funding, indirectly, the very terrorists the military is fighting against.

He said the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are all currently taking steps to reduce the need for them to use foreign oil.

“Our energy policy is dependent on countries that want us and our way of life, dead,” Victoriano said. “This is something our military, all its branches and the CIA have come to recognize.”

Ed May, an Army staff sergeant, said he saw the burning oil fields in Kuwait as he arrived as part of Operation Desert Shield and later in Desert Storm, and it changed his way of thinking about oil dependence.

I remember seeing the hundreds of oil field fires the Iraqis set as they were leaving Kuwait,” May said. “That first night there it was raining and the rain was black with oil as it passed through the oil smoke. I was standing in it thinking, ‘you know, we’re not really here to just liberate the Kuwaitis, we’re here to liberate the Kuwaiti oil for the United States and the rest of the world.’”

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan attended the roundtable and said Operation Free was “shining a light on an important topic” and added “America’s dependence on foreign oil makes no sense.”

“It’s not just a threat to our economy, but to our national security,” Carnahan said.

Carnahan mentioned how gas prices spiked last year and caused costs for fertilizer, diesel, corn and feed to rise at her family’s cattle farm near Rolla.

“The threat to our national security is real and obvious and the threat to our economic security is real and obvious. The threats to our security are going to be real so long as we are dependent on this foreign oil.”

“Whatever country gets it right in figuring out our new independent energy future is going to be the economic powerhouse in the future,” she said. “One thing we all know is in the United States we are better at innovation than anyplace else in the world, and we’re better at commercializing that innovation that anyplace else. So it’s a terrific opportunity if we just think about this in a sensible, common sense way.”

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