In the continuing effort to make every moral campaign an aspract of the many-tentacled War on Terrorism, the most recent anti-drug ad campaign has as its main trope the claim that buying drugs supports terrorists. In the latest issue of The New Republic, Gregg Easterbrook advances a far more plausible claim, that oil consumption is the primary way Americans support terror. I freely admit to driving (and enjoying!) a gas-guzzling (and fast!) Mustang, but don't get me wrong, I'd vote for stricter fuel efficiency standards or even a stiff gas tax in a second. Fighting terrorism is a regrettably difficult and murky prospect, but few measures should be as clear-cut and uncontroversial as stemming the flow of oil money to those who fund terror. Too bad our progress towards that end since 9|11 has been exactly.... nothing.
