Terrorism and the MUD

By Medea Susan Benjamin

Opinion piece in SF Bay Guardian, October 3, 2001 ©2001 San Francisco Bay Guardian

If Measure I passes, San Francisco will form a municipal utility district like the ones that have helped Sacramento and Los Angeles keep their electricity rates low and their service reliable. Our MUD # and every MUD it inspires around California and the country # will also help ease tension in the Middle East. Here's how:

For at least the past 50 years, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has focused on controlling our access to the region's vast oil reserves. The Bush-Cheney energy plan, for all its talk of energy independence, keeps us dependent on Middle East oil. Why? Roughly two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves are in the Persian Gulf region. After Canada the largest source of U.S. oil imports is Saudi Arabia. Iraq, even under the crippling U.N. sanctions, is the fifth-largest oil exporter.

It's not only about oil but also about natural gas, the Achilles heel of the California energy system. Remember, it was the spectacular rise in the wholesale price of natural gas this year that made our rates soar. Gov. Gray Davis's "solution" to California's energy crisis # throwing up dozens of new power plants that all run on natural gas # only makes us more reliant on fossil fuels.

In a desperate search for more sources of natural gas, U.S. and other Western companies have embarked on ambitious natural gas projects in countries from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen.

Afghanistan also fits into the picture as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to Pakistani ports on the Persian Gulf. Companies such as Unocal have tried to negotiate the construction of multibillion-dollar oil and gas pipelines across Afghanistan. But the continuous fighting in Afghanistan, coupled with Western pressure campaigns over the Taliban's human rights abuses, put those plans on hold.

With the United States so heavily dependent on "cheap" Middle East energy, we have built up a massive military presence in the region to "protect our interests." This military presence has incensed many Islamic fundamentalists, especially when the United States stationed troops near the holy sites of Mecca and Medina during the Gulf War. Terrorists responded with brutal attacks, from the car bombings at U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania to the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. And now the inexcusable and horrific Sept. 11 attacks.

So how do we break the vicious cycle of energy dependence that contributes to bad foreign policy decisions, which inevitably make us vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With the Bush-Cheney "fossil fools" at the helm, we can't expect this independence to come from the top down. Our independence must come from the bottom up # city by city, county by county, state by state.

That's why the public power initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot, coupled with solar energy initiatives Propositions B and H, are particularly fortuitous. If we are able to take our energy system out of the hands of a corporation focused solely on profits # Pacific Gas and Electric # and put it in the hands of the community, we can make a commitment as a city to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. We can make a commitment as a city to focus on clean, renewable energy such as solar, wind, and geothermal power. We can become a model for other cities in California and around the country that want to control their own resources. And in the process we will not only have cleaner air but also promote foreign policies that put the needs of people and the environment above our voracious appetite for more and more resources underneath foreign soil.

Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange, is a candidate for the San Francisco-Brisbane Municipal Utility District Board in Ward Four.