Wielding America's Economic and Financial "Weapons" in "War Footing"

[Coastie for Truth]

War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World by Frank Gaffney and colleagues, foreword by James Woolsey published Nov. 24 by Naval Institute Press,

Part II: Wielding America's Economic and Financial "Weapons"
Step 3: Provide for US Security
Contributors: Dr. Gal Luft and Anne Korin (of IAGS/SetAmericaFree)
pages 51-59 What Needs to Be Done

What Needs to Be Done

Let us be clear: We will always need oil. What we must do is reduce the strategic importance of oil to the global economy. We must shift oil from being a strategic commodity-one whose disruption can hold our economy hostage-to a commodity that is interchangeable with other energy resources.

Because two-thirds of the oil we use is consumed in the transportation sector (mostly in cars and trucks), long term security and economic prosperity require diversifying our energy sources in that sector. This can be done via a technological shift to an economy based on nonpetroleum, next generation fuels and vehicles designed to use them.

It is worth noting that diversification away from imported oil to domestic
energy sources has already been accomplished in another sector of the
economy-the generation of electricity. In the 1970s, nearly a third of U.S. electricity was produced by burning oil. Today, this figure is down to just 2 percent.

A number of public policy institutes, trade unions, and other organizations have joined forces under the banner of the Set America Free Coalition to advance a blueprint for effecting a similar change in the U.S. transportation sector. (The Coalition's blueprint can be viewed in full at Appendix III.) This plan offers ways in which the nation's oil imports can be cut in half within two decades through the widespread use in our cars and other vehicles of a variety of currently available technologies.

A Program for Energy Security

The main ingredients of the Set America Free blueprint are as follows.

---excerpted section heads---
* Fuel Choice
* Electrify Transportation
* Stretch A Gallon Still Further
* Needed: A New National Initiative

I have NOT read the whole book. (I was standing at the "New Books - Pre-Circulating Shelf" at the library skimming the book until my wife finished shopping)

The excerpt was from the above CalCars web site.

I realize that Gaffney is sometimes identified with the Neocons and the PNACers and Carlyle.

What I did find interesting in some of the reviews and in the excerpt (which is from an electric cars, hybrid cars and alternative fuels group techno-geek web site)- is the implicit acceptance that the war in Iraq is "resource driven" and is as much a "battle for resources" as a "class of cultures" -- although Gaffney et al do not dismiss the "clash of cultures" and they do push the Wolfowitz-Strauss "planting democracy." But the emphasis seems to be shifting - maybe they are reading James Howard Kunstler's or the DU or the DU thread.

[pelsar]

1. reduce oil consumption

and you reduce the power/influence of the arab exporting countries.....of course that might push some, like saudi arabia to impload, which wouldnt be a bad idea given the fanatical govt.

as well as iran.....it might force them to enter the modern world of "working for a living' and responsablities for one actions.....