The New Red, White and Blue

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Op-Ed Columnist
NY Times, January 6, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/opinion/06friedman.html

As we enter 2006, we find ourselves in trouble, at home and abroad.
We are in trouble because we are led by defeatists - wimps, actually.
What's so disturbing about President Bush and Dick Cheney is that
they talk tough about the necessity of invading Iraq, torturing
terror suspects and engaging in domestic spying - all to defend our
way of life and promote democracy around the globe.
But when it comes to what is actually the most important issue in
U.S. foreign and domestic policy today - making ourselves energy
efficient and independent, and environmentally green - they
ridicule it as something only liberals, tree-huggers and sissies
believe is possible or necessary.
... Sticking with oil, and basically saying that a country that can
double the speed of microchips every 18 months is somehow incapable
of innovating its way to energy independence - that is for sissies,
defeatists and people who are ready to see American values eroded
at home and abroad.
Living green is not just a "personal virtue," as Mr. Cheney says.
It's a national security imperative.
The biggest threat to America and its values today is not
communism, authoritarianism or Islamism. It's petrolism. Petrolism
is my term for the corrupting, antidemocratic governing practices -
in oil states from Russia to Nigeria and Iran ...
...
... ...
...
Enough of this Bush-Cheney nonsense that conservation, energy
efficiency and environmentalism are some hobby we can't afford. I
can't think of anything more cowardly or un-American. Real
patriots, real advocates of spreading democracy around the world,
live green.
Green is the new red, white and blue.

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