Matt Victoriano’s first mission as a U.S. Marine in Iraq in the days after the invasion was to secure an oil field. Today, he finds political significance in that fact. There is no question in his mind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are about oil. Though Mr. Victoriano is proud to have served his country, he believes that if the U.S. worked to reduce its reliance on foreign oil it could avoid the kinds of protracted military missions now underway in those two countries.
Robin Eckstein, an Army veteran of the Iraq War, was charged with driving convoys whose primary cargo was fuel for military vehicles. She witnessed the deadly consequences associated with the black market for fuel in Iraq.
Mr. Victoriano, who hails from Arkansas, and Ms. Eckstein, who is from Wisconsin, were in Maine this week as part of a tour sponsored by Operation Free, a group of veterans working to change the nation’s energy policy. The group wants to persuade Americans to see the links between reliance on foreign oil and costly — in human and dollar terms — military initiatives.
They also believe climate change and its potential to cause drought, which in turn can cause mass migration of populations, is a destabilizing threat in much of the world. The Department of Defense agrees with that position; the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review issued by the Pentagon lists global warming as a security threat.
Their close-up views of the war, they hope, will lend credibility to their argument, credibility that might be denied to a liberal environmentalist. Both say conservatives who are skeptical about their push for alternative fuels cannot dismiss them as “tree huggers.”
Mr. Victoriano says that with the U.S. purchasing 60 percent of its oil from foreign sources, much of the money spent actually funds terrorism aimed at the U.S. “We’re funding both sides of the war,” he says.
President Barack Obama’s recently unveiled energy policy initiatives are consistent with much of what Operation Free advocates. Wind, hydro and tidal power, solar, biofuels and other renewable sources must make up an increasingly larger share of the nation’s energy portfolio. The president also wants to explore domestic offshore oil and natural gas extraction and permit new nuclear power plants. Both drilling and nuclear have been anathema to many of the president’s supporters, but he is right to include a wide array of sources.
Though the world’s day of reckoning with the end of petroleum is certainly coming, the U.S. cannot wean itself in a matter of years. But the case made by groups like Operation Free should end the notion that working toward alternative energy is a feel-good but impractical exercise. In fact, there are deadly consequences to not understanding why Mr. Victoriano was guarding Iraqi oil fields in early 2003.