Letter: We don’t have to rely on oil from Mideast

Monday, Nov. 25, 2002 | 9:01 a.m.

Why do the majority of Americans want to see Iraq bombed back into the stone age? Ironically, it is not about the control their oil supply, but about revenge resulting from 9-11. In short, this conflict is quickly evolving into the theme revolving around religious ethnocentrism -- at least on the surface.

But if we peel away the veneer and take a closer look at what is really taking place, we should discover that this is all about the control of the world's second-largest oil supply. This is not to imply that I am an apologist for any of those brutal dictators who rule in that part of the world, it is simply to point out that we the people created Saddam Hussein and his band of merry cutthroats along with the other oil-producing countries in that region of the world, who at very best, distrust the U.S. and all we stand for.

In fairness, it must be pointed out that if the Middle Eastern oil spigot were to be turned off tomorrow, such an act would paralyze the U.S. economy and plunge this nation into a depression that would make the one in 1929 look like a minor blip on the radar screen.

Does it have to be this way? The answer is no. The simple fact of the matter is that America has the intellectual and financial wherewithal to create alternative energy sources to replace the use of the internal combustion engine. Finally, to put it simply and bluntly, each and every time that any of us purchase gasoline, we are in fact aiding and abetting in the financial support of a culture who would like to bomb us back into the stone age.

ARTHUR KERNDT