Are High Oil Prices Part of the Terrorits' Plan?

At first glance, it might seem far-fetched to link the high (and still rising) oil prices to terrorism. But is it really so far-fetched?

We hear all kinds of reasons (I still call them excuses) for the continuing rising prices, including higher world demand, and the weakening value of the dollar (among others). But let's stop and look at things a moment. It seems that lately, whenever there's a slight move downward in oil prices, something happens to set the speculators off into a buying frenzy that raised the prices again--usually to record levels.

Near the end of last week, oil futures were retreating from the $120+ per barrel range into the upper $110's. The dollar was gaining value. But then word came of several pieces of news, including renewed terrorist action against oil refineries in Nigeria. Suddenly the price of oil started rising again, hitting a record of over $125 in electronic trading (as of the most recent report I saw before I started to write this).

Can the terrorists be bothered at this rise in prices? I doubt it. In fact, it seems to make perfect sense that they could be working to encourage this rise in prices.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2201, on the United States were directed at least partially at U.S. the financial interests. Part of the immediate effect of the aftermath of those attacks was the temporary closing of the stock exchanges. When the markets re-opened, market levels immediately fell and didn't recover their losses for several years. In the meantime, the U.S. began committing unprecedented amounts of financial resources into the War on Terror, raising the national debt to record levels.

Not long after the markets returned to their pre-9/11 levels, the price of oil started climbing...and climbing and climbing. As I mentioned earlier, all kind of reasons/excuses were given for the increases. But it seems as though fear of oil supply disruption is often near the top of the list of excuses. Sometimes it has to do with inflammatory statements by some dictator in a Middle-Eastern, oil-rich country such as Iran. Over the past several days, attacks against Nigerian refineries have been mentioned as excuses. The excuses are said to cause concerns about adequacy of the oil supply, and the oil prices keep going up and up. The result of these rising oil prices has been an overall drain on the U.S. economy, with people talking about recession, and even the possibility of depression not too far down the road. Much of this trouble has been caused by surging oil prices, which raise the cost of shipping for every product, including food and textiles. The overall effect is that Americans have less and less spending power. This brings about a downturn in the economy, and until this cycle is stopped, the situation will only continue to get worse.

There is a significant amount of untapped oil in the U.S. and in the coastal waters surrounding the U.S. Yet our nation's own laws prohibit drilling for that oil, and the democrat-controlled Congress isn't likely to lift those restrictions because a significant part of the democrat constituency is comprised of people who are more concerned with trying to protect
the environment for caribou and sea creatures than they are with the overall well-being of the people of the United States.

In time of war, the U.S. Constitution grants the President of the United States powers that he would not normally have in peace time. I believe that it's time for President Bush to use some of his war-time powers to ease the oil supply problems and concerns by issuing Executive orders that will immediately open up ANWAR and coastal waters off the U.S. for oil exploration and drilling. The President should also issue Executive orders that will encourage the immediate building of oil refineries in the U.S.

It will likely be argued that the results of these orders won't be seen for at least 10 years. But it was 10 years ago that we were told that drilling in ANWAR would bring any new oil into the market for 10 years. If we'd have acted then, today our oil supplies would have been increased, and we just might not be seeing record oil prices on a daily basis.

It's time for the President to act now.