Like most of you, I watch a little television. While watching news from almost any station we are invariably treated on occasion to a Los Angeles freeway car chase. Somebody will steal a car or try to run from an accident or just have open warrants. Whatever the reason, they decide to run from police while the news and police helicopters go up and record every move made by the perpetrator. Usually a battalion of police cars gets in on the chase. Speeds often reach more than 100 mph and other drivers on the freeway system are put at risk. I think to myself as I watch the drama unfold, this is probably not going to end well. And, almost without fail, the inevitable happens. The subject of the chase either stops because of car failure, tire failure or – worst-case scenario – car crash. In many cases people are killed or maimed in these car chases. One could almost predict the end result well before it happens.
The point of all this, is the situation we are facing today in the world. ISIS or ISIL, whatever you want to call them, is like the car being chased on the freeway. It’s going to cause some mayhem. It may even cause some to die, but in the end it’s going to end badly for them. The reality is groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda are like ants at a picnic. They, in light of the bigger picture, are little more than irritants. And, like the ants, they will be squashed like the bugs they are. The world is not going to put up with murderous thugs running around killing and beheading people. For a time they will be news. They will cause some to fear. But, like the killer thugs before them, they will disappear from the Earth and be relegated to the dung heap of yesterday’s killers like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and so many others. The world has not been kind to heinous killers in the past and it will not likely be in the future.
Instead of wringing our hands and worrying about this latest bunch and others in the future, there are things we as a country can do to mitigate this threat. ISIS is being funded by petrol dollars. Countries like Saudi Arabia and others of their ilk are using their oil money to fund groups like ISIS. What if we got off our duffs and began a serious effort to become energy independent? Drill our own oil. Extract natural gas from the deep recesses where it’s hiding. Open up the Keystone pipeline to move the oil already discovered more cheaply to the refineries. Get off the backs of coal miners. Let them produce the energy that is basically at our fingertips. If Sheik Abdullah What’s-His-Name had to face life without his oil billions, he might be a little more reluctant to fund terrorist groups. Even Vladimir Putin would have to reconsider his position of trying to take over the Ukraine. His only power comes from the fact he provides the Europeans with natural gas. How much power would he have if Europeans had other sources for their energy?
The inconvenient truth is we have massive energy reserves. We have coal, oil and natural gas. Additionally, we have the brainpower to continue to find and produce alternate forms of energy and new products with better energy efficiency.
ISIS’s reign of terror will end badly – and soon. Al-Qaeda will disappear. The car chase will come to an end. Smart choices on the part of our government could speed that process along.
