Former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and James Woolsey, former CIA Director and board member of Ku‘oko‘a, wrote this op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times on Tuesday:
How to Weaken the Power of Foreign Oil
By ROBERT C. McFARLANE and R. JAMES WOOLSEY
Published: September 20, 2011
OUR country has just gone through a sober national retrospective on the 9/11 attacks. Apart from the heartfelt honoring of those lost — on that day and since — what seemed most striking is our seeming passivity and indifference toward the well from which our enemies draw their political strength and financial power: the strategic importance of oil, which provides the wherewithal for a generational war against us, as we mutter diplomatic niceties.
Oil’s strategic importance stems from its virtual monopoly as a transportation fuel. Today, 97 percent of all air, sea and land transportation systems in the United States have only one option: petroleum-based products. For more than 35 years we have engaged in self-delusion, saying either that we have reserves here at home large enough to meet our needs, or that the OPEC cartel will keep prices affordable out of self-interest. Neither assumption has proved valid. While the Western Hemisphere’s reserves are substantial and growing, they pale in the face of OPEC’s, which are substantial enough to effectively determine global supply and thus the global price…. Read the rest
At the same time, the bipartisan United States Energy Security Council was being introduced to the public in Washington. In addition to McFarlane and Woolsey, it includes Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and two former Secretaries of Defense, William J. Perry and Harold Brown, as well as two other former National Security advisers, two former Senators, a Nobel Laureate, a former Federal Reserve Chairman, and several Fortune-50 Chief Executives (including John D. Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil in North America).
Read its take on the issue here, and the group’s mission statement.
The U.S. mainland has a transportation problem because it depends on fossil fuel for 90 percent of its transportation needs. But Hawai‘i is especially vulnerable. We depend on fossil oil for transportation – but, unlike most places in the world, we also rely on oil to generate our electricity.
We must pay attention and force the change necessary to protect ourselves and future generations. It is no longer enough, or safe, to rely on others. We must take our future into our own hands.