[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 21014-21017]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 21015]]

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 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,

[[Page 21016]]

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 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

[[Page 21017]]

     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.

                          ____________________