[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 30, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H7397-H7400]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXPLAINING THE CONTEXT FOR AMERICA'S CONFLICT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Osborne). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is
recognized for 15 minutes as a further designee of the minority leader.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as one Member, I feel a particular
obligation at this time in our country's history to help provide
information and insight to the American people, and indeed to the
people around the world, who are looking to us for leadership and for
an explanation of enduring freedom, the roots of the engagement in
which we now find ourselves involved with a growing coalition around
the world. From time to time I will be coming to the floor, as I did
last week and now again, to talk about some of the events in past years
that have created the context for the conflict in which we as a Nation
have now been placed in dead center.
Last week we talked a bit about the economics of the Middle East and
America's over-reliance on imported oil and the fact that each of the
economies of the larger region in which this conflict is occurring make
money primarily from oil, with Saudi Arabia being the largest supplier
of petroleum to the United States.
In Toledo today, where I just flew from, gas prices are down to 99
cents to $1.01 a gallon. Do not tell me there is no relationship
between the desire of the oil-producing countries to have America win
this battle and therefore to manipulate a bit on the spot market and
the price of petroleum. I am sure Americans in the short term think
that is probably a good thing, but in the long run what it does is it
connects us to a very unstable part of the world.
Indeed, 52 percent of the petroleum that we consume is imported from
Saudi Arabia, from Nigeria, from Venezuela, from Mexico. America now
consumes three times more in imported petroleum than she did 20 years
ago. Oil and our inability to make ourselves energy self-sufficient
here at home, simply because we have not had the will, is our major
strategic vulnerability; and again we are faced with major unrest in
the Middle East, this time some of that being brought to our own
shores.
I wanted to talk a bit tonight about a wonderful book that I read 15
years
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ago and I have been rereading over the last few days called ``Sacred
Rage,'' by a very well known journalist in our country, Robin Wright,
who is both courageous and I think has shades of genius. The subheading
of this book is ``The Wrath of Militant Islam.''
I just finished the chapter on Kuwait. Last night I was reading about
Lebanon. I cannot go into the entire book this evening, but I will
reference one of the beginning chapters that deals with Iran and the
turning point as she, the author, would view it in the Middle East back
in March 1982 when over 300, nearly 400 mullahs, religious leaders from
that part of the world, convened at a conference in Tehran in the
Revolutionary Nation of Iran at that point, and Iran was turning from a
monarchy to a theocracy, and the men that came together at that time,
and I will quote from the book, because it is very insightful and it
bears on what is happening today, agreed to several common goals.
They agreed, first, that religion should not be separated from
politics. This is a very foreign thought to people of the United States
in this democratic Republic.
Second, they agreed that the only way to achieve true independence
was to return to their Islamic roots.
Third, they agreed there should be no reliance on superpowers or
other outsiders in their region, and the region should be rid of them.
Fourth, they recommended that the Shia, which is one sect of Islam,
should be more active in getting rid of foreign powers.
Now, the Persian Gulf War a few years after that, of course, engaged
the United States in trying to hold the border of Kuwait as Iraq
attempted to move into that country. After that particular war, the
Persian Gulf War, which was largely fought for oil, in my opinion, and
the preservation of those oil supply lines through the Persian Gulf to
the United States, I do not think that was a moral goal, but it was a
goal that this Congress voted for and the American people supported,
but after that the American people kind of forgot. It was over. Sure,
we deal with the veterans in our districts and the people that served
over there, but we became more and more hooked through the decade of
the 1990s on imported fuel.
Not everyone has ignored this unfortunate development; and today, or
actually yesterday, a brilliant writer, Rob Nixon, who resides in
Madison, Wisconsin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, wrote
an editorial entitled ``A Dangerous Appetite for Oil,'' and I am only
going to quote a couple sentences of it. I will enter it into the
Record this evening.
He advises the most decisive war we can wage on behalf of national
security and America's global image is the war against our own oil
gluttony. He talks about the fact that for nearly a century, oil has
been responsible for more of America's international entanglements and
anxieties than any other industry. Oil continues to be a major source
of America's strategic vulnerability and of its reputation as a bully
in the Islamic world and beyond. Frankly, America made friends and
supported regimes that could continue the oil lifeline to this country,
and part of the ``Sacred Rage'' relates to the exclusionary manner in
which the governments of those nations dealt with their own populations
and the rather maldistribution of wealth that occurred.
Now, that is not America's fault; but we should be focused on those
forces that create some of the rage that is directed against us and
those forces that we contain here at home we should be about doing. One
of those forces is to make ourselves energy self-sufficient here at
home. That is what Rob Nixon writes about.
He talks about outside the West, the development of oil resources has
repeatedly impeded democracy and social stability. The oil extraction
industry typically concentrates wealth and power and provides many
incentives for corruption and iron-fisted rule. In most oil exporting
countries, the gap between rich and poor widens over time; and from the
perspective of local people beneath whose land the oil lies, the
partnership between oil transnationals and repressive regimes has been
ruinous, destroying subsistence cultures while offering little in
return. In fact, he quotes then the Nigerian writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who
was hanged in 1995 for leading protests against such destruction and
dubbed that process ``genocide by environmental means.''
Mr. Nixon writes, ``Oil and related extractive industries have
arguably done more to tarnish America's image abroad than any other
commercial pursuit. By scaling back our reliance on foreign oil, we
could reduce a major cause of anti-American feeling while
simultaneously decreasing our vulnerability to oil embargoes and price
spikes,'' and I might add the manipulation of the market which is
occurring inside our borders today.
{time} 2015
But we will never be able to drill our way out of this. In fact, even
if we were to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, we would get about
140 days worth of supply for this country. And he, like many others
across this country, talks about encouraging more quickly advances in
developing wind and wave power, biomass research, which is something I
so strongly support, particularly with the development of ethanol and
biodiesel so I can buy it and you can buy it; transport fuels based on
renewable oilseed crops, and photovoltaic modules that can convert,
even diffuse, light into electricity, such as is being done by Solar
Cells, a new company in my district.
We can do this. We can do this in the United States. We just have not
had the will to do it. As far as having oil as our chief proxy of our
foreign policy in the Middle East, what a dangerous dependence. What a
dangerous dependence this has proven to be for our people.
Robin Wright, in her book Sacred Rage, was given many, many
commendations by well-known Americans, one of them Roger Mudd from NBC
News who said, ``If ever there was the right book on the right subject
for the right readers at the right time, Sacred Rage is it. The Kansas
City Star wrote, when the book was published, ``Robin Wright manages
against all odds to get a fix on a phenomenon that is complex, elusive,
and kaleidoscopic. Moreover, her style of writing is so vivid that the
book reads like a novel.'' I know that those who are listening can also
get this at local libraries.
Mr. Speaker, if one looks at page 69, one will see a poster from the
Party of God, which is one of the groups operating, in this case in
Lebanon at that time, and it shows a powerful image of how those who
were engaged in this particular sect felt about the West. It is
important for Americans to understand who is actually trying to exert
this negative force against us and to understand why, because once the
why is understood, we can begin to move the world forward.
Today in The New York Times, there was an editorial by Thomas
Friedman, which I will also enter into the Record, called Drilling for
Tolerance. And again, he talks about why there is such instability in
that part of the world, the role of oil in shaping our foreign policy
to too great an extent and, again, he proves the point that trade has
not brought freedom. He talks about how little many who should have
known here in the United States understand about the internal politics
of Saudi Arabia, and, in fact, some of the very schools that are
educating youth to hate us. He talks about all public schools, the
religion classes in Saudi Arabia, students being required to learn the
following, and it states, ``It is compulsory for the Muslims to be
loyal to each other and to consider the infidels their enemy.'' That
is, anyone who is a non-Muslim is an infidel, someone who is an enemy.
Imagine this being taught to 10-years-olds, 12-year-olds. He goes on to
talk about how it is time to tell the truth. He says he was always for
getting rid of oil imports before September 11, but now even more. He
says, Why should we continue to purchase oil from countries like Saudi
Arabia when they are using the very proceeds to buy textbooks to teach
this kind of wrath to their youth?
So I just this evening very much want to urge the American people to
have courage in these moments. The depth of this democracy of our great
Republic will weather us again. We have educated all of our people. We
believe in helping both men and women move forward in our country. We
believe very much in free enterprise. We
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are not a monarchy. We believe in helping to distribute the resources
of this land to all who work hard, and for those who are unfortunate
and cannot, we try to take care of them as well. Those strengths, along
with our military and with the great patriotism we have, will carry us
through.
[From the Foreign Affairs, Oct. 30, 2001]
Drilling For Tolerance
(By Thomas L. Friedman)
In April 1988 Saudi Arabia asked the U.S. to withdraw its
newly appointed ambassador, Hume Horan, after only six
months. News reports said King Fahd just didn't like the U.S.
envoy. What the Saudis didn't like about him, though was that
he was the best Arabic speaker in the State Department, and
had used his language skills to engage all kinds of Saudis,
including the kingdom's conservative religious leaders who
were critical of the ruling family. The Saudis didn't want
someone so adroit at penetrating their society, so--of
course--we withdrew Mr. Horan.
Ever since then we've been sending non-Arabic-speaking
ambassadors to Riyadh--mostly presidential cronies who knew
exactly how to penetrate the White House but didn't have a
clue how to penetrate Saudi Arabia. Yes sir, we got the
message: As long as the Saudis kept the oil flowing, what
they taught in their schools and mosques was not our
business. And what we didn't know wouldn't hurt us.
Well, on Sept. 11 we learned just how wrong that view was.
What we didn't know hurt us very badly. On Sept. 11 we
learned all the things about Saudi Arabia that we didn't
know: that Saudi Arabia was the primary funder of the
Taliban, that 15 of the hijackers were disgruntled young
Saudis and that Saudi Arabia was allowing fund-raising for
Osama bin Laden--as long as he didn't use the money to attack
the Saudi regime.
And most of all, we've learned about Saudi schools. As this
newspaper recently reported from Riyadh, the 10th-grade
textbook for one of the five required religion classes taught
in all Saudi public schools states: ``It is compulsory for
the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider the
infidels their enemy.'' This hostile view of non-Muslims,
which is particularly pronounced in the strict Saudi Wahhabi
brand of Islam, is reinforced through Saudi sermons, TV shows
and the Internet.
There is something wrong with this picture: Since Sept. 11,
the president of the United States has given several speeches
about how Islam is a tolerant religion, with no core
hostility to the West. But the leader of Saudi Arabia, the
keeper of the Muslim Holy places, hasn't given one.
The truth is, there are at least two sides to Saudi Arabia,
but we've pretended that there's only one. There is the
wealthy Saudi ruling family and upper middle classes, who
send their kids to America to be educated and live Western-
style lives abroad and behind the veil at home. And there is
an Islamist element incubating religious hostility toward
America and the West, particularly among disaffected,
unemployed Saudi youth.
It is said that truth is the first victim of war. Not this
war. In the war of Sept. 11, we've been the first victims of
our own inability to tell the truth--to ourselves and to
others. It's time now to tell the truth. And the truth is
that with the weapons of mass destruction that are now easily
available, how governments shape the consciousness, mentality
and imagination of their young people is no longer a private
matter.
We now have two choices: First, we can decide that the
Saudi ruling family really is tolerant, strong and wants to
be part of the solution, and thus we can urge its members to
educate their children differently and ensure that fund-
raising in their society doesn't go to people who want to
destroy ours. If so, I don't expect the Saudis to teach their
kids to love America or embrace non-Muslim religions.
But if countries want good relations with us, then they
have to know that whatever religious vision they teach in
their public schools we expect them to teach the ``peaceful''
realization of that vision. All U.S. ambassadors need to make
that part of their brief. Because if tolerance is not made
universal, then coexistence is impossible. But such simple
tolerance of other faiths is precisely what Saudi Arabia has
not been teaching.
If the Saudis cannot or will not do that, then we must
conclude that the Saudi ruling family is not really on our
side, and we should move quickly to lessen our dependence
upon it. I was for radical energy conservation, getting rid
of gas-guzzlers and reducing oil imports before Sept. 11--but
I feel even more strongly about it now.
``Either we get rid of our minivans or Saudi Arabia gets
rid of its text books,'' says Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns
Hopkins foreign policy specialist. ``But one thing we know
for sure--it's dangerous to go on assuming that the two can
coexist.''
____
[From the New York Times, Oct. 29, 2001]
A Dangerous Appetite For Oil
(By Rob Nixon)
ADISON, Wis.--For 70 years, oil has been responsible for
more of America's international entanglements and anxieties
than any other industry. Oil continues to be a major source
both of America's strategic vulnerability and of its
reputation as a bully, in the Islamic world and beyond.
President Bush recently urged America to reduce its
reliance on foreign oil. We can take his argument further: by
scaling back our dependence on imported oil, we cannot only
strengthen national security but also enhance America's
international image in terms of human rights and
environmentalism.
Importing oil costs the United States over $250 billion a
year, if one includes federal subsidies and the health and
environmental impact of air pollution. America spends $56
billion on the oil itself and another $25 billion on the
military defense of oil-exporting Middle Eastern countries.
There are additional costs in terms of America's
international reputation and moral credibility: our appetite
for foreign fossil fuels has created a long history of
unsavory marriages of convenience with petrodespots,
generalissimos and formenters of terrorism.
The United States currently finds itself in a coalition
with Russia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Northern
Alliance. Their human rights records range from bad to
heinous. This is a conjuncture familiar to oil companies.
From the Persian Gulf states to Indonesia, Turkmenistan,
Kazakhstan, Colombia, Angola and Nigeria, they have cozied up
to dubious, often brutal regimes that allow corporations to
operate with few environmental or human rights constraints.
Outside the West, the development of oil resources has
repeatedly impeded democracy and social stability. The oil-
extraction industry typically concentrates wealth and power
and provides many incentives for corruption and iron-fisted
rule. In most oil-exporting countries the gap between rich
and poor widens over time. From the perspective of local
people beneath whose land the oil lies--Bedouins in the
Middle East, the Huaorani in Ecuador, Nigeria's Ijaw and
Ogoni, the Acehnese of Indonesia--the partnership between oil
transnationals and repressive regimes has been ruinous,
destroying subsistence cultures while offering little in
return. The Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, hanged in 1995 for
leading protests against such destruction, dubbed the process
``genocide by environmental means.''
Oil and related extractive industries have arguably done
more to tarnish America's image abroad than any other
commercial pursuit. By scaling back our reliance on foreign
oil we could reduce a major cause of anti-American feeling
while simultaneously decreasing our vulnerability to oil
embargoes and price spikes.
Long before the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush adopted
the slogan, ``National security depends on energy security.''
How can America best come closer to energy self-
sufficiency? To date, the Bush administration has changed
our relationship to fossil fuels primarily by deregulating
and decentralizing controls, while advocating increased
drilling. Interior Secretary Gale Norton supports opening
up many wilderness study areas, national monuments and
roadless national forests for oil and gas leases.
But we will never be able to drill our way out of even our
short-term energy problems, much less our long-term ones.
America consumes 25 percent of the world's oil while
possessing less than 4 percent of global oil reserves. Even
opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling would
provide a mere 140 days' worth of fuel. Such modest new
supplies would take an estimated seven years to reach the
consumer and would be more costly than imported oil.
We have to be more inventive about easing our reliance on
all oil, foreign and domestic. A good start would be to
reverse the administration's rollbacks in financing research
into fuel efficiency and renewable, clean energy sources. We
need to build on the encouraging advances in developing wind
and wave power, biomass research, transport fuels based on
renewable oilseed crops, and photovoltaic modules that can
convert even diffuse light into electricity. Some of the most
promising progress has been in energy efficiency: household
appliances that require half the energy they did a decade
ago; cars that can get 70 miles per gallon.
Changing public attitudes is going to be an even steeper
challenge. Yet is it too much to hope that the S.U.V. will
come to be viewed as an unpatriotic relic of the 90's, when
America's dependence on foreign oil spiked by over 40
percent? Is it unreasonable to believe that with commitments
from Detroit and government, hybrid cars could become not
just more sophisticated but sexier, narrowing the gap between
fashion and conscience while saving us money at the pump?
Could hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles emerge as the cars
of choice for a more patriotic and worldly America?
Redesigning hybrids is one thing; the business of
remodeling American consumer desire is an undertaking
altogether more ambitious. But we do have precedents:
remember the beloved Oldsmobile 88's and Ford LTD's that lost
their appeal after the 1973 Arab oil embargo? With a
combination of pocketbook incentives, government stimulus and
industry inventiveness, perhaps we could tart uncoupling
America's passion for the automobile from our dangerous and
doomed appetite for oil. The most decisive war we can wage on
behalf of national security and America's global image is the
war against our own oil gluttony.
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