It took the US Navy only six years to develop a new kind of combat ship: The Littoral (shallow—water) Combat Ship, which will launch later this year.

What's the hurry? Well, take a look at the map of the Persian Gulf. It is a narrow and shallow body of water, one of the classic geostrategic choke points, through which oil tankers coming from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia must travel. It is right next door to the smaller Gulf sheikdoms, including  US military headquarters in Qatar. And one side of the Gulf is owned by hostile Iran. By putting anti—ship missiles on its shore, the Iranians could wreak havoc on giant US Navy ships and  sluggish oil tankers. Any attack would invite massive retaliation, but the Navy doesn't necessarily want to present big targets to hostile Islamist zealots in the Gulf.

Hence the Littoral Combat Ship, along with submarines being converted to new uses, a big emphasis on Special Ops at the Pentagon, anti—missile systems in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and a big international effort to put contain the crazies in Tehran.

The newest battle in the War on Terror is over oil. Suicidal pacifists may chant "No blood for oil!"  but they travel to their demonstrations in cars or trains or planes, burning oil like there's no tomorrow. The food they eat is produced by large—scale agriculture, using oil for tractors and transport. The medicines they take are made from biochemical stocks of carbon ——— much of it derived from oil. Aspirin, the first modern "miracle drug" was first made from coal derivatives even before 1900.

And finally, the Democrat politicians they vote for would scream and yell if the price of oil went up from any Gulf crisis. The endless hypocrisy of the Left is that they thrive and live on Middle Eastern oil, and refuse to face the rigorous consequence that the civilized world must protect the supply of oil ——— until we are allowed by the same Left to tap our domestic supplies.

So there is a direct link between the new US Navy Littoral Combat Ship and our ability to thrive and even survive. Without oil there would be lots of blood ——— and it would be ours.

James Lewis   6 12 06